When I woke up Tuesday morning it was pondering me on what I should do for my breaking of a social norm. When I think about breaking social norms I like to think out-of-the-box. Why break a social norm that is normally broken? I could have easily went in public with my clothes on backwards or walked backwards everywhere I went but that was all to normal in my opinion. What isn't normal is seeing a well dressed young student not dressed properly for the weather. In cold weather we expect to at the least see a jacket worn and long pants. So I hit the streets in a short sleeve shirt some shorts and a hat. I admit I was cold, as it was 37 degrees outside, but I was able to deal with it. So I started my experiment after I left my house and headed to the airport to catch …show more content…
I got off the train and left the station and headed to the Chinese restaurant that i usually grab a bite ate. Before I went in I decided maybe I should sit outside for a second and experiment with people of my age group. majority of the people in the area were Georgia State Students. I continued to get looks and hear light mumbles as people walked by. One student offered to buy me lunch but I declined. I finally got up and went into the restaurant. The lady who works there knows me because I’m a regular. She said she knew I was from New York but it was freezing out why didn’t i have on a jacket or long pants. I simply told her What i was wearing was all I had. As a result she offered me a free egg drop soup with my meal to warm me up. After eating I sat down on a curb for a few seconds to take some notes on what the public response was to my appearance. As I sat on the curb I was offered 3 jackets, a hot meal, and a place to stay for the night if I needed it. By that time I was freezing and I had more than enough information to produce a record of my experiment. I immediately found a bathroom in a fast food establishment and put on a jacket and some
Societal norms are ultimately the sociological expectations for our society. So, when people see somebody standing in the middle of a crowded public place doing nothing, they are going to take notice. I realized that while standing in the middle of the mall where many people
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
Breaking those norms made me feel 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 breaking the norm. I faced a couple of difficulties during my assignment when it came to violating the social norms.
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
For our class project, each student was asked to break a norm that exists in our society and record the reactions of observers and results of the experiment. The norm I chose to break was the idea of driving normally-the belief that cars should be driven by pushing the gas pedal and moving in a forward motion, not a...
In what ways do I choose to conform? In what ways do I choose not to conform? How do I express my individuality? What do I think the poet is saying about conforming? These are the questions asked from today’s poem called Non Conformist by Angela Shelf Medearis. After thinking about this question, I realize that I conform to many of the rules my parents give me but I don't always conform to what my friends say. For example, when my mom says to empty the dishwasher, I do it, not because I enjoy the work, but because I live in our home and our family, so I should contribute to helping out. However, when my friends tell me to do something such as wearing certain types of clothes, I don't always conform to what they say because I don't always like
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.
The reactions of people when you break a social norm can vary quite drastically. Sometimes the reactions are quite large and other times they are rather subtle. The reactions typically vary based on what norm you break and how strong of a norm it is. In the case of invading people’s personal space, I did not receive and intense reactions. All of the reactions I received were subtle. Not ma...
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.
Social norms are the invisible laws of society and are often referred to as the basic and unofficial rules of the economy. Whether it includes -- avoiding burping or farting in public, closing your mouth as you chew, not kissing in front of your parents, smiling while being introduced to somebody you don’t know, or even holding the door open for the oncoming people entering the same place as you. Social norms deliver stability into society. It is almost impossible to imagine how human society could function without social norms. People need these norms to serve as guidelines to follow and use as a way to direct their behavior, and also to understand others behavior. In this project I chose to keep it simple and break an elevator norm. What would you do if a person stared directly at you while an elevator? Staring somebody down is often thought of as rude and disrespectful, which is why I chose to break this particular social norm.
When a person decides to enter a sport that is not traditionally competed in by his or her sex, there are many risks. One of these risks is the risk of getting rejected or ridiculed because participating in that sport is not common. However, if no one ever dared to defy the socially accepted boundaries, then women would not be playing sports. There are girls who defy these boundaries and wrestle or play football in high school as well as boys who enter field hockey. These boundaries need to be broken, even if there is ridicule and risks behind them, because of the benefits of this defiance. Society would not progress if people did not take these risks.
Almost all of our decisions are based off of society. When you go to school what do you wear? Is it okay to wear a tuxedo coat with a pair of bright neon green pajamas? Most likely, people would give you weird looks and it would make other people uncomfortable. That’s because we have social norms. If we break them, then it is considered awkward and makes people feel uneasy. You wouldn’t walk into a five star restaurant with jeans and a t-shirt. I do not fully understand why certain norms are in place but I know if you break them you are looked at as different. One of the first videos we watched
Its simple, I want to avoid being the deviant one, as Deborah Brock would put it, the person that stands against what is defined as normal to our society. I know that if I walk into a bank with a bikini on, not only will I be kicked out, but those around me will categorize me as abnormal, slutty, inconsiderate, and the list goes on. To revolt against the norms of society will categorize you as the “other” and nobody wants to be the “other” because you will ultimately be punished by society. The truth is, I hate wearing skinny jeans because I find them extremely uncomfortable, ironically, I wear them all the time. What is most terrifying is the fact that this is all so natural to us and as a result, we govern ourselves and the people around us to maintain this system. In addition, I have come to the realization that our cloths are not just pieces of fabric used to cover our bodies, they are used as a tool to re-enforce oppressive ideologies such as sexism, the dominance of heterosexuality, racism, classism and