Social Norm Violation Experiment Examples

The norm we violated was respecting people’s private space. This norm helps us fit in and makes us feel comfortable in our surroundings. To violate this norm we will talk to our friends very closely without respecting private space. Our hypothesis is that our friends will be taken back by our behaviors. We predict that they will step back or ask us why we are standing so close. Also another reaction we predict is them laughing at us when we are so close to them since it is not normal of us to act that way. Overall the major reaction will be taken back by our actions and giving us a weird look.
This norm violation is taking place during break in the main hallway by our group of friends. Or as we call it, the sophomore wall. We will be observing many different people. Some friends that we are really close with, others that we are not, and different genders.The different levels of discomfort depend on what your relationship is with that person. During our experiment we were talking very closely to our friends and they reacted exactly how we thought they would. The friends that we aren’t as close with, took a step back and gave us a confused look on our actions. The friends that we were close with starting laughing at us and

asked us why we were acting strange. When we violated this norm with the opposite gender they were very confused on what we were doing. They started laughing and giving us confused looks. Some people started to cross their arms to try to create more personal space during the conversation we had.
As we were violating the norm we felt very out of place and awkward. We were uncomfortable as people gave us weird looks and as they took steps backward. We weren’t sure how to act after they did since it would have been even more awkward if we kept stepping forward, closer to them. We felt the way we did because it is so out of the norm of our daily behavior. No one else around us was in each other's personal place as we felt as if we were standing out in a crowd. We felt as if everyone was looking at us differently the rest of break. People did react the way we thought they would. They stepped back from our conversations, laughed it off, and gave us looks as if they were uncomfortable with our actions. It was so out of the norm for us that they gave us curious looks.
Some difficulties that occurred when violating this social norm included ourselves feeling awkward and uneasy when getting into people's personal space.

We don't normally get super close to someone and try to keep a normal conversation, so we felt like we were being creepy. It was even harder for us to keep going because we knew we were doing something most people don't do on a day to day basis. Another challenging obstacle we had to go through was holding back the fact that we knew we were going against a social norm. We could not explain ourselves because that would defeat the purpose of this experiment. It got very uncomfortable when they asked us why we were getting so close to them, but we just had to go with it, despite the

strangeness.
In our society, social norms are what we consider appropriate, cool, and typical. They are the unspoken rules of groups of people. Social norms can influence how we act, what we like, and even sometime what we believe in. Norms can change how people think of other people depending on if they follow the ‘rule’ or not. But who gets to decide these social norms? In the public, everyday life, innovators that think of these new ideas get recognized by other people and then it slowly catches on. In school, it is often the popular kids who start the new trends. Others want to be cool like them so they follow their actions.