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Breaking Social Norms
Breaking Social Norms
Violating a social norm
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Conformity Paper The social norm I decided to go against for this paper involved intruding other people’s personal space. I am a more shy or reserved individual so I knew it was going to be a challenge for me to do anything too over the top for this paper. I decided that I would sit down next to strangers even though I could find empty seats elsewhere. I decided it would work best if I broke the social norm multiple times. Since I have to travel between ASU campuses, I have the joy of taking the ASU intercampus shuttle. I know this shuttle fills up during the time I ride it, making it so everyone eventually shares a seat. The way the bus is set up is with two people per seated section. Even though it doesn’t seem that big of a deal to sit down next to someone on the bus, it does break the social norm. I have been riding this shuttle for a while now and there seems to be some sort of unspoken rule about not sitting next to someone unless you absolutely have to. Since I get on the bus early there are always empty seats. For me to choose from. I decided that even though there were ple...
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.
While breaking the three social norms there was one feeling that I felt was mutual throughout. Breaking those norms made me felt 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 I was breaking the norm. I faced a couple of difficulties through my assignment when it came to violating the social norms. While trying to break the movie theater norm, it was difficult for me to pick movies with 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
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
It is 9:00 PM on a Sunday night. Televisions all across America tune into MTV. Millions of viewers will now spend the next thirty minutes watching a television program titled 'Jackass'. While watching this program, the viewers will observe everything from people eating hard boiled eggs in an attempt to purposely vomit, to a man testing out various self defense devices on himself. Next week viewers will tune into the same program to see the same kinds of stunts performed. The reason that America watches these kinds of programs, and the participants in them perform these stunts, are because 'norms' are being broken. A norm is something that is generally accepted by a society as the right thing to do, or the way things are supposed to be. For example, a norm would be to enter an elevator and stand facing the front for the duration of the trip. Breaking that norm would be to enter the elevator and face the back for the duration of the trip. It is not what is expected. Different norms exist in different societies, and when these norms are broken within these societies people pay attention, because it is not an occurrence observed on a regular basis.
Social interaction is the foundation upon which humanity has built our language, politics, and each and every relationship we have with another being. Our communication with the world is the building block of society and has controlled the way we interact with others from the beginning of humankind. It is a straight forward psychological path that is seemingly irrelevant to the mundanity of everyday life until that path is interrupted. To do so is considered a Social Violation of the Norm, or, put simply, a Norm Violation. In this experiment, I was asked to come up with a social faux pas that was both within the guidelines of the law and generally safe for the person in violation of the norm. For my norm violation I chose to upon entering
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 decision about the place and outfit that would be worn to commit the norm violation. There I was wearing a bright green wig, green jeans, and a green t-shirt with yellow shoes. The plan was to take one walk around the entire mall to get the reactions in various sections of the mall. The reactions were different for each age type the seniors laughed in the most part or simply didn’t acknowledge what I was doing, the middle aged people would try not to look and seemed angry that their children had to be present at the type and the little kids laughed in the most part. Then I got the dreaded “It isn’t Halloween”, scream I just laughed and continued my course. Then I came across people my age some gave me dirty looks and others simply laughed and continued their shopping. This is an example of folkways as mentioned earlier, there is no strict rules in our daily lives enforcing dress code but dressing out of the norms make people feel uncomfortable and others may give you negative sanctions. This too could be a personal space violation by hurting people’s eyes by the brightness of my
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
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
One big implicit social norm involves personal space. In our society it is implicitly know that you give people enough space when waiting in line or when sitting next to them as not to invade their personal bubble. I thought it would be particularly interesting to see what people did the moment you crossed that “bubble line.” Periodically throughout the day I would intrude upon people’s bubbles. For varied results, this occurred in classrooms, the elevator, the lunch line, the lunch table, and at work. During classes and at lunch I would move my chair really close to that of the person next to me. While in the lunch line and in the elevator I would stand really close to the person, even if there was plenty of space to spread out. At work, again I stood really close to the person when talking to them.
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.
I chose to break a social norm by sitting/ laying on the floor of an aisle in a grocery store, engaging in deviant behavior, instead of shopping for groceries. Sitting on the floor of a grocery store is a case of deviant behavior because it goes against society by breaking the norm. Because the standard behavior of people in a grocery store is to walk and look around, with usually a basket or cart, shopping for desired items, the expected response of others would be feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and confused. Upon performing my act of social deviance, numerous people demonstrated the anticipated reaction. As people turned down the aisle, I occupied, conversations died down to whispers or stopped altogether. Of the people who questioned me on my
...ple is affected by the laws and lifestyles that they follow. Many dislike the idea of change, and reject any new ideas that could alter their societies norm. Civil rights, homosexual relationships, and religious beliefs are three prime examples of how society has been changed over the course of time. Rousseau contradicted himself, stating that religion keeps the peace, however the most bloody battles in history have been over religious beliefs. Change will be adapted to one way or another, even if the morality of the people is set on two different sides. Time, politics, and war will depict the present and the future of society as a whole.