Each day we, as humans, engage with one another in multiple social interactions. Through these encounters, we learn how to act in social situations and what types of acceptable behaviors we should abide by. When someone participates in unacceptable behaviors or aberrant behaviors in social situations, it triggers a moment of contemplation, or what I like to call an “Umm what?” moment. Often, I find myself unable to identify a plausible explanation for why an individual would violate what we have instituted as a norm, which are expectations or rules that society is encouraged to follow. When norms are violated, it is interesting to spot the outcomes or repercussions due to the violation, which is why I decided to conduct an experiment of myself …show more content…
Despite the initial awkwardness and embarrassment, I went around and conversed until we left for the game, and I received multiple strange looks. Throughout the afternoon, I couldn’t shake that gross feeling of my feet touching the ground without socks. Undoubtedly, this was an interesting experiment that delineates the impact of deviation from certain norms. If I had done this experiment in a different place, I would have likely received similar results which shows how impactful socialization can be when we don’t follow those norms. Throughout this experiment, I observed that several people looked differently and awkwardly. I then contemplated how those I find myself around may feel when I look at them if they don’t abide by social norms. Of course, they tried their best to not acknowledge the issue, but regardless, I could still sense their …show more content…
Of course, a majority of the people there were more interested in talking to their family members, so this isn’t a massive contributor to the reaction, but it’s still a contributing factor nonetheless. There are numerous amounts of deviant behaviors that are violated daily, but some can be potentially more dangerous than others. According to our book, “Deviance is a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether folkways, mores, or codified law.” (Lumen, pg.3). I performed a deviant that was considered a folkway which is way less damaging than if I were to violate a more or even worse a taboo Reflecting on the experiment, I noticed how those around me were affected by my action. Although Katie did ask the question and it did create feelings of awkwardness, and besides all of the strange looks, I don’t think it affected as many people as I originally predicted it would. Almost everyone I encountered minded their own business after the initial shock of the deviance. All in all, while this experiment was humiliating, it was also creatively intriguing for
In the 1950s and 60s Harold Garfinkle developed a method for studying social interactions. He formed ethnomethodology, which is studying the methods of people. In other words, ethnomethodology is the study of social norms. (p. 139, Conley) Most of us follow social norms unconsciously. It can be difficult to go against a social norm. The purpose of the project was to conduct a breaching experiment against social normalities. For this experiment, I chose to go an entire day whispering every word I spoke. I chose to violate this norm because it is socially unacceptable to whisper in a normal conversation. Throughout this paper, I will explain the methods and the results of this breaching experiment
Deviance is any behavior, belief, or condition that violates significant social norms in the society or group in which it occurs (Kendall, 2012). Our experiment will study the behavioral deviance of a social norm. Sociologists use symbolic interactionism to study face-to-face interactions. We are expected to follow these certain unwritten rules of behavior telling us the way that we should act in certain situations. The social norm or folkway I chose to break was that of invading an individual’s personal space. See Figure 1.0 showing the proximity generally utilized by Americans, according to Edward T.Hall. Personal space is the region surrounding a person, approximately 18 inches, which they regard as psychologically theirs. People value their personal space, and feel discomfort, anger, or anxiety when their personal space is encroached (Personal space, n.d.). We walked around to find the best scenario and individuals to interject our teammate in purposefully invading their comfort zone.
... day. The hardest part of the experiment was going against social psychology; it was very uncomfortable going against the social norms. We also found that it was difficult to match all of our schedules to be able to do the experiment all together when the gym was full. Overall the experiment taught us that social norms have molded society to believe that they should restrain their original thoughts and actions when in a public place. Lastly, individuals should not disturb other social norms that occur within the range of accepted actions, especially in the area of clothing.
I violated a social norm by refusing to “mirror” the nonverbal display of one of my best friends. Her name is Hailyn and we have been best friends since middle school. Because we go to the same church, I met her on Sunday and she told me that she needed to talk to me. She explained to me that she was asked out by a man that she has been dating for two weeks now. I already knew that she was dating this person and that she was interested in him. Yet, she was never in a committed relationship so she told me that she wants to go out on a few more dates with the person before deciding to actually go out with him. To violate the social norm, I responded to her without empathizing. I tried my best not to create any chameleon effect of any unconscious nodding or gasp. My responses were very simple and straight forward. When she told me that the man that she’s been dating, I literally told her, “good for you,” without any facial expressions. She seemed to be a bit disappointed by my reaction but she still went on and told me that she wants to date
While breaking the three social norms there was one feeling that I felt was mutual throughout. Breaking those norms made me felt extremely out of place and rude. They made me feel that way because I knew what I was doing wasn 't socially right and people would get mad or be rude to me with their reactions. For the most part throughout my experiment, most people reacted the way I thought they would. You could tell that most people felt awkward or uncomfortable while I was breaking the norm. I faced a couple of difficulties through my assignment when it came to violating the social norms. While trying to break the movie theater norm, it was difficult for me to pick movies with different variety of people and movies that were a little older so less people would be attending them. I also had a little trouble when it came to answering the phone and waiting for the other person to talk first. The problem with this one was that I had to wait for people to actually call me which doesn 't happen that often in this day and age anymore. To conclude, these social norms forced people to be in uncomfortable situations and make a decision as to how they would react to
There are many different things that influence our behavior from internal influences to social norms. Social norms are explicit rules that govern how we behave in our society. Social norms influence our behavior more than any of us realize, but we all notice when a norm has been broken. Breaking a social norm is not an easy task and often leads us feeling uncomfortable whether we broke the norm ourselves or witnessed someone else breaking it. Sometimes however, you just have to break a norm to see what happens our professor gave us an assignment that is really easy, but also difficult to do because we have to break a norm in from of people. We had two choices, choice number one, facing people while standing in an elevator, and the other choice
A social norm is classified as a standard expectation of what is the correct or deemed acceptable conduct that a member of a society has. The social norm that I chose to violate is the one where as I describe, you evade people’s personal space. What defines giving people their personal space and not getting too close, is that out of respect in my opinion, people need to have space to breathe and to move. If you get too close to people, either the person is going to think you are sexually intimidating him or she, you are just creepy, or even worse think you are rude for intimidating a right people have to be inches away from you. As I was getting ready to do the assignment of monitoring the reactions I would get for violating any social norm of my choice, I had a hard time thinking about which social norm I was going to
Our society has programmed us in such a way that we create values that pertain to our unique culture and social life. Norm violations sometimes make people feel uncomfortable, ashamed or embarrassed whether they themselves are violating a norm or witnessing someone violate one. The reactions people have during committing a norm or viewing someone do so is what makes it a violation. The feelings and reactions themselves can be a type of sanction whether it is a positive sanction or negative sanction. Negative sanctions are described as, “expressions of approval given to people for upholding norms or expressions of disapproval for violating them” (Henslin, 2015, p.49).
When someone goes against something that everyone around expects he or she to act, it’s called norms violations. In other words, that person is doing something which is unacceptable to society or culture. In this sociology breaching experiment, I chose to violate a social norm in public areas – cutting a line without asking, so to observe what people acted and how they responded. I decided to go to Safeway and tried being a line cutter without asking anybody. If they asked me why I did it, I simply replied to them that I did not feel like either wanting to wait or getting in a line. By acknowledging that norms are quite essential in our society, I was aware that our society will have no foundation to stand if there is no norm. Cutting a line while others are queuing is a part of our social routine; even though I was kind of embarrassed, I got a chance to learn different kinds of
The objective of my experiment was to observe how people reacted to a violation in the social norms of elevator etiquette. Generally in elevators, people fill in starting from the back, face the elevator doors, and rarely make verbal contact with others. Unless the passengers of the elevator know each other, conversation is sparse and often limited to small-talk. As a result of this, my goal in the experiment was to introduce a foreign behavior to the elevator, something that nobody would expect while going about their day. Thus, I entered a situation where a certain set of expectations was in place, such as the informal rule that individuals should stand (rather than sit) in an elevator, and violated those unspoken rules without acting in
There are many things that influence our behavior from internal influences to social norms. Social norms are implicit or explicit rules that govern how we behave in society (Maluso, class notes). Social norms influence our behavior more than any of us realize but we all notice when a norm has been broken. Breaking a social norm is not an easy task and often leads us feeling uncomfortable whether we broke the norm ourselves or witnessed someone else breaking it. Sometimes however, you just have to break a norm to see what happens.
The daunting task of violating a social norm, something that I could be ostracized and ridiculed for, I still chose to do. Social norms are the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society. Doing weird things in public while surrounded by strangers is a recipe for disaster, especially for somebody like myself. I am awkward and have plenty of trouble talking to new people. Most of us are told not to talk to strangers when we are younger because there are all sorts of crazy people out there. There could not be a better way to break out of my shell and violate a social norm than to sit down and talk to total strangers while they eat.
I chose to break a social norm by sitting/ laying on the floor of an aisle in a grocery store, engaging in deviant behavior, instead of shopping for groceries. Sitting on the floor of a grocery store is a case of deviant behavior because it goes against society by breaking the norm. Because the standard behavior of people in a grocery store is to walk and look around, with usually a basket or cart, shopping for desired items, the expected response of others would be feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and confused. Upon performing my act of social deviance, numerous people demonstrated the anticipated reaction. As people turned down the aisle, I occupied, conversations died down to whispers or stopped altogether. Of the people who questioned me on my
In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch portrays the characteristics of a protagonist. The story shows her as an intelligent, outgoing, and a little bit spunky tomboy who matures into a child with an adult outlook on life. The author, Harper Lee depicts Sout as a five year old in the beginning of the novel, but eight at the end. The book describes Scout as a reliable narrator because she is so young. (75 words)
The first lesson we have learnt from violating the norms is that one will feel uncomfortable when his or her personal space is invaded. At first, we will select a target student before we violated the norms so that our acts will not affect others in the same area. While one of our members was trying to approach the particular student, he started to get uncomfortable as a stranger that he does not know was invading his personal space. Based on structural functional approach, which is a framework pointing out the importance of social structure and social functions in promoting the solidarity and stability of society (Macionis, 2005), the manifest function of personal space is that it is the key element of self-communication (Horner, 1983). One’s