Introduction: Breaching the norms of society is an experimental activity done to imbue participants with slight discomfort and unease. In this experiment, one of the subtleties on a college campus was shattered by entering a casual and predictable environment in an unpredictable way. Essentially, the norm being focused on was the way people function in public environments. People generally go about their own business in public, trying not to deviate from what everyone else is doing. Thus, they say things that are expected of them, gesticulate the same way as everyone else, and sit in the same places as everyone else. Straying from these formalities tends to upset people, generally because one tends to appear ostentatious or insecure if they …show more content…
The location was determined because there is a large quantity of people there at certain times, so that would be the best place to break the social norm. The experimenter sat down by a table by removing a normal chair and placing a bungee chair in the normal chairs’ previous location. The recorder then sat across the table and recorded the reactions of people at the cafe. The target audience for this experiment is everyone, regardless if you know the individual or not. Mixed reactions came from both people we knew and did not know. Some of the better reactions came from individuals who we previously knew because they communicated clearly that something was different in the situation. We intend to measure people's expressions by eye contact and facial and vocal expressions. There may also be other ways to measure their expressions during the experiment, such as social …show more content…
Peoples’ first reactions were not to give dirty looks or manifest irritated behavior. Instead, most people looked directly at the bungee chair with a puzzled expression, looked up around the rest of the cafeteria, then looked back at the experimenter with the same puzzled expression and questioned their strange behavior. This reaction was particularly fascinating because people waited before passing judgement. They wanted to be sure they were not in the out group before interrogating. To clarify, people avoided making false judgements until they were absolutely sure they were not outsiders. Reacting in this way exhibits a person’s natural tendency to focus on their own place in society before examining those with unusual dispositions. Furthermore, people find it acceptable to approach question those who are not acting in a similar way to them because breaking a normality invariably causes some degree of discomfort or insecurity. In addition to onlookers’ interrogatory behavior, some people took pictures of the experimenter and posted them on social media. One of them even told the experimenter they were posting them on
In 1961, Stanley Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University wanted to study and observe how people would react to authority if asked to continue on a task even if it meant hurting another human being. The experiment first began at night in a small shadowy room. For the experiment, it required three people, there was first the volunteer which was a random person from the street who was considered the teacher in the experiment. Then their was the two actors who Milgram had payed them to be in the experiment, one of the two actors was the leaner who was strapped to the electric
...e maximum shock level dropped significantly. The more official the experimenter looked, the more people would reach the maximum shock level. Stanley Milgram’s findings were groundbreaking. He found that humans will comply and obey ones orders than previously thought. His experiment has become one of the more well known and influential social psychology experiments completed.
The day before the experiment, the researchers held and orientating session where they instructed the guards not to physically harm the prisoners but said them to create atmosphere in which the prisoners feel
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.
In order for you to continue to stay accepted in the current social society you live in today you must follow a certain set of social norms throughout your life, most of the time you do without even realizing it. As well as be followed social norms are broken everyday all around you on all sorts of different levels some harmless and some more serious and punishable such as stealing. Since I have moved out to Santa Barbara and have been experiencing life here now in school and outside of class I have really come to love the beautiful scenic and friendly feel that is given off here with the excessive palm trees on the streets filled with young eager students adjusting to the new college feel and experience finally living away from home on their own. I have definitely been noticing many new changes compared to back at home in Berkeley California where I had grown up my whole life realizing that social norms seem to slightly change as I travel down south. A distinct difference I had noticed when first moving out here is the drop in disabled homeless around town asking for change or money which seemed like an ordinary social norm back home. In Berkeley I would take the bart track to San Francisco every week for school and would rarely go a day without encountering all types of people everywhere asking for help and offering something for sale. I have noticed here in Santa Barbara the community is much more wealthy and seems to not be exposed to as much poverty everyday like you may living in a big city. I began to wonder what the reaction would be if I chose to break the social norm loitering around campus and downtown Isle Vista asking around for money or help. I decided to try testing out this experiment with a few different types of ...
... 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.
...n had over everyone involved has been shown when participants were interviewed months later, and were all extremely surprised about the way they acted during the experiment.
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
The Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) was designed to test what caused good people to do bad things. In order to begin the experiment, Philp and his research team had to solve a few problems before beginning. First, they needed a controlled space where they could monitor the prisoners and guards and not be interrupted. The solution was the basement of the Stanford Psychology department. The research team spent several days creating a mock
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.
It is harder to go against or make an objection about unethical aspect of the experiment when people do not know each other well. Therefore, rather than strongly opposing and criticizing the instructor 's unethical decision, people just behaved according to the orders. Thirdly, the participants regarded the instructor as a professional researcher (Blass, 2009, p113). Therefore, they believed in the instructor 's decision to do so and obeyed the given instruction. Since Milgram or the instructor was a more intelligent person than most of the people, the participants would have imagined that there would be a specific reason why he held this experiment. Therefore the participants tried to understand the instructor 's intention and respected his choice. Or on the other hand, the participants were ignorant about the experiment, since they were not the one getting the consequent electric shocks. Lastly, the electric shocks were explained to the participants to be painful, but not detrimental (Griggs & Whitehead, 2015, p316). Thus these factors affected the participants to rely more on the instructor 's orders and obey what was told them to
Starting in the early 60's, Stanley Milgram began to investigate this destructive form of obedience. However, Milgram's classic experiments have come under severe attack. Some critics argue that their validity hinges on the acting ability of the learner and experimenter, and that most subjects were probably able to sense the unreality of the situation. Others question the relevance of the laboratory results to the larger world. Still others question the ethics of the basic experimental design.