Breaking Social Norms

For most people, purposeful violations of social norms can be an uncomfortable and stressful experience, regardless of whether the violation is positive or negative. In order to lessen the potential discomfort, I chose to break a social norm in a positive way: bringing homemade chocolate chip cookies for everyone—excluding myself—in my math class. Although there is no rule explicitly forbidding students from bringing treats to class, it is not commonly socially acceptable to bring food to school without a given purpose or event, thus this is breaking a social norm. In society, such a norm exists in order to set apart everyday activities from special occasions, and during my twelve years of schooling, I have yet to see this norm broken, as anytime a student brought food to class it was a preplanned event. For this norm, in particular, I believe there are two different reasons why students would choose to follow it. Firstly, male students may be less apt as the steps taken do not conform to societal ideals of masculinity. Secondly, and more generally, students may not bring food to class because they see no need to, given the cultural

The night before I committed my norm violation, I felt excited. Deciding to commit a positive violation had eased a great deal of my anxiety surrounding the assignment, as I knew that they would appreciate the gesture. The next morning, however, I almost talked myself out of going through with it, afraid of some backlash or embarrassment. As someone who is not prone to take risks, any situations that lie outside of my comfort zone make me feel incredibly self-conscious, and this instance was no exception. Even though I had decided against interrupting the lecture, diverting the attention of the class away from the topic of math felt wrong. Thankfully, the positive end reactions boosted my confidence enough that I no longer felt like a