Breaking Social Norm Essay

772 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: An example of a social norm being broken

In this society, there are invisible set of rules that people follow. People do not acknowledge or see these rules yet they follow them without knowing. These set of rules are evident in every society, varying from friends to family to towns and nations. Either big or small community, these set of rules apply everywhere. These set of rules are called ‘social norm.’ Social norm is a “code of conduct shared by a society and enforced through internal sanctions, including shame, guilt, embarrassment anxiety and loss of self-esteem” (Mengel 2007). Social norm “govern behavior in groups and societies” (Bicchieri and Muldoon 2014). These social norms is a powerful tool in a society; there simply could not be a community with no social norm. If one individual breaks this social norm, conflicts arise. The majority of the community feels violated when an individual breaks the social norm. Through this, consequences arise; the majority could feel uncomfortable and violated, therefore punishing the individual by rejecting the individual. This would also result in ostracizing. The individuals will …show more content…

We had planned to breach the social norm by walking in a shopping mall while holding an umbrella. Aryo and I asked Panji, Aryo’s cousin, to hold the umbrella and walk while Aryo and I followed him in a distance, gathering up the various expressions of the shoppers. Panji was to walk around the Ciputra Land Mall, located in Semarang, one full time. The setting was during a crowded Saturday from 1:25 P.M. to 1:35 P.M. We had hypothesised that the majority would simply look away or laugh or ignore, due to the uncommon situation they will see. I hypothesised that the majority would ignore the uncommon action and would not want to be a part of the action. Because this action is uncommon and, what many people call, weird, people would not want to participate in an action where others might look at them and have a bad

Show More
Related

  • Breaking Experiment Essay

    2113 Words  | 5 Pages

    While trying to break the movie theater norm, it was difficult for me to pick movies with a 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 it.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Breaking Social Norms

    727 Words  | 2 Pages

    Social norms are the implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members. Implicit social norms are introduced to us at a very early age, and exert a powerful influence on our behavior into adulthood. Our culture is ruled by social norms. In many situations, people 's perception of these norms have a big influence on their behavior. Implicit social norms are not openly stated, but found out when disobeyed. Implicit rules are rules we conform to as a society, and generally these rules make living together more comfortable. Social norms are important because they define the nature of a group, clarify relationships among members, and express values. They are also important because they create cohesion within the society, and members of that society are very aware when such norms are violated. Social norms are often strictly enforced and offenders are often disliked for their conduct. Also, some norms are more strictly held to in certain situations than in

    Read More

  • Violating Social Norm Essay

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Essay On Breaking A Social Norm

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    The social norm we will attempt to violate would be talking loudly, singing and dancing in public places. The social norm acts as an mechanism of social control because when the norm is being broken within a group of people they would most likely show a specific reaction and response to the behavior that we would be demonstrating.

    Read More

  • Breaking Social Norms Essay

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    I do not take the elevator a lot in my day to day life because I live on the second floor in my residence hall and my farthest I have to travel to get to class is three flights of stairs. I never see the need to wait for the elevator, but even though I probably have not been on one for over four months, I still, like most people, remember the social norms that go along with riding in one. When you go in you either push the button for the floor you need or you ask someone to press the button for you. If you were having a conversation with someone either you wait to continue it when you get off or you lower your voice considerably. These rules obviously only apply if there are strangers in the elevator with you. If you are alone in an elevator you can essentially do anything (that still follows all of the laws. You could sing to yourself, run in place, or even play patty cake and no one would know. The problem is, once someone gets on the elevator with you, these behaviors are now breaking a norm. I decided to take this concept of a quiet environment

    Read More

  • Breaking A Social Norm Essay

    521 Words  | 2 Pages

    To violate a social norm, i will be greeting strangers in a nontraditional way. This norm acts as a mechanism of social control by getting people to give an approved reaction to meeting strangers. It allows us to be friendly without getting too personal. Normally when we greet a stranger we say something along the lines of, “Hello, how are you?”, and the other person responds by saying something like, “Good, how about you?”. Instead I will respond by giving them some unusual greetings to break this social norm.

    Read More

  • Breaching Social Norms

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    In this day and age we like to say that we thrive on being ourselves and embracing our individuality, while this may be true in my social experiment I found that more often than not we tend to keep to ourselves and follow the social norms of day to day life. Social norms are behaviors and cues most everyone learns throughout their lives. These norms teach us what is and is not acceptable. To fully understand and analyze how norms serve to regulate behavior in our social world, I decided to breach a social norm of my own.

    Read More

  • Social Norms In American Culture

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    Social norms refer to the way that members of a society are expected to act and behave. These norms provide structure and conformity for individuals within a society. They also provide a sense of “normalcy” amongst individuals within a society. In a society, “we tend to follow our own cultural norms without questioning them, because we regard them as the ‘norm’.” (Henslin,2012). To intentionally break a cultural norm, takes some thought and effort to consciously go against our inbred “culture within us.” When pondering about social norms that I could break and the reactions of others, I began brainstorming various social norms. One in particular norm came to mind. In American society there is a social norm that if you use the drive thru window

    Read More

  • How To Break A Social Norm

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    I decided I would go to my fraternity house for lunch to see the reactions of people who actually knew me. We had meatball subs for lunch so I made two decent sized ones and sat at a table with 6 of my closer friends. It only took about a minute to see a reaction from some of the kids at my table. One of my friends told me to shut my mouth and the rest of the table started laughing. I stuck to my plan until another one of my friends told me to, “eat normally or go eat somewhere else”. Everyone’s face went from looking weirdly at me to giving me a straight stare. I got the observation I needed so I explained to them what was going on and finished my meal in peace. The most interesting thing this time was the sudden change of expression when one person decided to tell me it wasn’t okay to break the social norm and eat with my mouth open. All it took was one person to step up in order for the rest of the table to get on board. Most people won’t directly call you out for going against a social norm but they won’t hesitate to back the first person who

    Read More

  • Essay On Violating A Social Norm

    627 Words  | 2 Pages

    The norm that I violated during this exercise was facing the elevator backwards every time I got onto an elevator. This experiment involved me violating a social norm and observing my peers reaction towards me doing something that is not normal and as most would weird. I surveyed three different groups of individuals to receive the best results for this observation. I rode on the elevator, but instead of facing the front looking “normal” which is facing the door. As know as the unstated social norm, I stood facing the opposite direction of the exit/entrance. I received many reactions like laughing, being asked if I were okay, even had someone ask if I were blind or needed help.

    Read More

  • Social Norms in Society

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Violating A Social Norm Essay

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Breaking Social Norm

    1945 Words  | 4 Pages

    Whether we realize it or not, it happens. Everyone in today’s society follows these unwritten rules and doesn’t even blink an eye, but what would happen if someone decided they wouldn’t follow these social norms? I found out by a simple breaching experiment that having set social norms makes things difficult and intolerable when it comes down to changes such as the ones I experimented with. My breaching experiment involved breaking three different types of social norms. The first social norm that was broken, was shouting my answer and then raising my hand after I was finished answering.

    Read More

  • Breaking A Social Norm Essay

    945 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay On Social Control

    890 Words  | 2 Pages

    A norm is “an accepted standard for how people should behave that is usually unwritten and learned unconsciously through socialization”. Every society in the entire world has norms. An example of these norms are “the expectation that children should follow their parents’ advice, that people standing in line should be orderly, and that an individual should accept an offer of a handshake when meeting someone for the first time”. These are things that everybody in this world does every single day.

    Read More

More about Breaking Social Norm Essay

Open Document