Norm Violation Essay

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Society can be very diminishing and very hurtful. I say hurtful by the way many people criticize one another by the way we walk, talk, and act with others or even alone. As we grow older we fall into different categories such as community, religion, and the list goes on. In between all that there is certain norms and values to follow. There are certain types of norms and values we have to follow in our community to not get harassed. First, before I committed a norm violation and making an observation I had to be able to understand what values, norms, folkways, sanctions, and mores were. “Values are ideas of what is desirable in life. Values underlie our preferences, guide our choices, and indicate what we hold worthwhile in life” (Henslin, …show more content…

I crawled in the store Walmart on a busy Sunday like if I was a baby or even a toddler. This I would consider to be a norm violation because normally a young teen is not seen walking and crawling like a little baby. Immediately I had many people including teenagers and adults looking at me as if I had a mental illness. There were various times when I would wobble like if I was learning how to walk and then I would fall. A worker at the store came over to see if I needed help, but the way she was speaking to me was very slow and sounded out most words. I denied help and continued to do my norm violation. To me it was absolutely astonishing how many time I got criticized. I did not get to hear all the criticism, but the ones I did hear were harsh. The comments went from just stating if I was dumb to stating that I was a “stupid retarded kid on drugs”. However, when I was doing this act I also seen a couple of little toddlers doing almost the same crawl and wobble but the difference was that many parents thought it was a “cute” act. While my walk and wobble was just despicable and unacceptable. I cannot deny that I never thought the same about a person committing a norm …show more content…

Now shuffling is a type of dance that involves a person sliding and picking up the legs like a running-motion. What caught my attention was that not many people attend soccer games, but he was dancing with no one around and the people who would pass by would make some rude comments and start laughing. Many actually sanctioned him and told him what his purpose was to dance all alone at the high school. Usually at high school or any sport events you would not see people dancing in a weird way, and of course this guy was just going ballistic with all the motions and moves he was performing. This unusual, but yet creative person was really into his dance session as I witnessed it. I will admit that I did criticize him with my friend, until I realized that it is not normal but society needs to accept the way certain people act; unless the person is acting out in a violent and offensive

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