Breaking Social Norms: A Bathroom Experiment

We were asked to break a folkway or a social norm. Social norm meaning something that everyone does without thinking or being told to do it just what we as a society form to. Well I chose to ask my friend who is not my roommate or suitemate if I could use my own bathroom and see how she would react. This is a weird task because it is my room my bathroom. People don’t need permission to use their own things. This is normally what we find in grade schools, the kid asking the teacher if they can go to the restroom. This is something we don’t see in college or any other public place one just simply excuses themselves and does their business.

I decided I would break the social norm and ask my friend every time if I could use the bathroom. I thought she would react the first time I asked, I thought she was going to look at me funny and ask why I even asked. So it was my roommate, my friend and me in my dorm room just hanging out. My roommate has this class with me so she already knew my plan and was going to act with me like this was a normal thing

And immediately she got it and couldn’t believe she missed it this whole time. She then explained how each time made sense on me asking, because she thought I was trying to be polite. We couldn’t stop laughing about the whole thing.

I explained to her how hard it was for me to consciously ask her, because it is not something we do every day. It was tricky for me to remember and it was awkward for me to ask something I already knew the answer to. It made me notice as well how many times I go to the bathroom while we all hang out!

There wasn’t any difficulties break the norm other than her not noticing and me feeling awkward about it. I say from this experience I learned how natural the social norms really come and how to look at it differently was strange and not an easy task to do. These are patterns we get into and never think twice