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 …show more content…
I did this by wearing athletic clothing, unrolling a yoga mat in the back of the elevator, and proceeding to sit on the floor (covered by the yoga mat) and go through a series basic stretches. I tried to make what I was doing seem as commonplace as possible by not explaining my presence or strange behavior to anyone who entered the elevator, but rather continuing as though they were not present. The seven people who used the elevator during the time I was in there, predominantly students who lived in my hall, observed my violation of social norms and helped to create the social setting. I did not encounter any personal acquaintances, so the experiment progressed as though I were an anonymous outsider in the situation. A large portion of students do not use the elevator too frequently as the residence hall only has five floors, so those observing me generally either lived on higher floors or held objects which they did not wish to carry up the …show more content…
As meanings and social contexts and informal rules of society are created by people, they can subsequently be changed by the very same people. In an alternate universe where stretching on the elevator floor is considered to be a normal aspect of “elevator etiquette,” I would not have been able to break a social context in this way, simply because the inhabitants of that universe would take it for granted that an elevator is the appropriate place to stretch. This is the perfect illustration of the “Power of the Situation,” what can commonly be referred to as “social context.” As I shifted the social context and introduced a behavior that was not considered a social norm, I elicited negative sanctions and challenged the ideas of social control. Ultimately, this experiment revealed that so much of human behavior is dictated by an endless set of unspoken rules, most of which are never questioned, that members of a society are held captive to its every whim and irrational value. I now believe that individuals should frequently question the artificial constraints placed on them by society and seek to understand more about why they act in certain situations, even if that means taking their yoga routine into the nearest public
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.
Bystander inaction is more influenced by the bystander’s response to other observers. The experimenters hoped to inform people of the situational forces that affect people’s behaviors in emergency situations in order to help people overcome forces that result in inaction.
For my breaching experiment, I decided to break the social norm of looking at someone while engaged in conversation with them. Today, it is socially unacceptable and impolite to avoid looking at someone when talking to them. The background assumption for a typical conversation is that direct eye contact will be made more often than not; otherwise social norms are being violated. Avoiding eye contact during an exchange tends to dehumanize the person that is not receiving the eye contact. It is impolite and offensive, not looking at someone who is talking makes it seem as though the topic being discussed is unimportant. For my research experiment I would constantly talk to someone without initiating eye contact, or with my back facing toward the subject, not turning around or making eye contact until I had to ring up their order or make the drink for them. This research is important because it uncovers what happens when the social norm of
This leads to the first example of human duality which is the good and bad side to conforming to societal ...
How do the actions and words of a society affect the way people act? In Never Let Me Go, author Kazuo Ishiguro depicts a society in which individuality is threatened by the pressure to conform through methods such as peer pressure and social expectations. Without a doubt, peer pressure is most commonly found in schools today just as social expectations are suffocating the middle class’ desire to become their own unique person.
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
There are some human phenomena, which seem to be the result of individual actions and personal decisions. Yet, these phenomena are often - on closer inspection – as much a result of social factors as of psychological ones.
Social norms are really important to our society’s functioning. If certain norms were not followed it is almost certain chaos would ensue. Not only do we follow social norms in order to prevent chaos, we also follow them to avoid the consequences of not following them, especially if the functional perspective is accurate. On occasion though, breaking subtle norms that we may not think about often can prove to have interesting results.
Instead, I stood up and handed the desired two-liter of orange Fanta to the confused, uncomfortable woman. As a group of three teenage guys started walking down the aisle, their conversation ceased and proceeded to stare. Feeling sheepish, the one boy left to obtain something on another aisle while the other two proceeded to get some cases of cokes. The weirdness and creepiness of my actions were clearly evident on the faces of passersby because we’re instilled by our parents that you can’t just sit on the floor of a grocery store. Although I had gotten permission from the manger to perform my act of social deviance, the employees had no knowledge of my social experiment. They nervously avoided the aisle I had occupied and occasionally would walk past to see if I was still there. Throughout the experiment, I refrained from most eye contact relying on my peripheral vision or staring at people’s feet and only talked if I was spoken to. I sat and occasionally laid down in the aisle for about 40-45 minutes at
In order to better comprehend and adjust to the dynamics of principles that are applicable to everyday life, we must consider that the reality of social influences
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
Bystander effect refers to the instance in which there is an emergency and people witnessing don’t respond when there are others around witnessing the same event. This happens because of pluralistic ignorance which is when people assume that there is nothing wrong because others surrounding them don’t look concerned. Two researchers, Latan and Darley, conducted an experiment to further study the bystander effect. In this experiment, Latan and Darley took multiple college students and one at a time, put them into cubicles. In a cubicle next to them there would be a recording device producing noises emulating distress noises in the form of choking. Eighty five percent of the students went to help; this is not an alarming number. The surprising
Practicing correct elevator etiquette is simple: allow people inside exit first before getting in, select the number of your floor and/or select it for others, face forward, make room for other people, respect people’s personal space and, wait silently. At the elevator it is strictly expected for individuals to face forward, thus, making eye contact and invading personal space for too long may be uncomfortable. Consequently, my partner and I decided to break this norm, but, not only that we went a little further; we stood in the middle of the elevator facing back and unexpectedly sat down on the floor. To fully understand why breaking elevator norms, have a great impact on people it is necessary to study elevator ethics in depth. To ensure that elevator rides start as smooth as possible the correct thing to do is to stand away from the doors and let the other passengers exist first before proceeding to enter.