My target point for this survey was a 5-storeyed shopping mall located at the centre of my town. I visited the mall at around 4.00 PM, as it is always busy at this time of the day. The mall had four functioning glass walled elevators and each elevator had a maximum capacity limit of ten people. I decided to carry out my survey in all the elevators and the survey lasted for two hours. At the end of the survey, I had made five complete trips in each elevator and according to my partner’s record, the total number of observers were 200 people. I took my best friend, James Smith, as my partner. He was there to assist me in the observation of the public responses to my social norm violation. The population of the observers consisted of 111 Whites, 70 African Americans and 19 Asians. The observers consisted of 20% children, 65% middle-aged adults, 10% old aged people, and the rest were teenagers. It was a busy afternoon full of shoppers; however, there was a quiet mood in the elevators despite the significant number of occupants. My social norm violation entailed facing people while standing in every elevator. In each elevator I used, I exchanged short greetings with the people boarding it then stood while facing them. Additionally, I looked directly into their faces one at a time, but in a polite and respectful way. This was a violation of social norms at the shopping mall, as everybody with whom I shared the elevator seemed to be concerned about my behavior. Despite my outward confidence in the elevator, I was scared and really felt embarrassed. I was mortified because I looked out of place and my actions were seen as unusual. Some of the irritated looks that I got from the public made me feel even more embarrassed. On the other hand, I was scared since I had no idea of what could happen at any moment as a result of my actions. At one point, I nearly trembled at the thought of being slapped by a huge man whom I was staring at. I also knew that I could cause panic, especially to the children and this made me feel guilty. I have to admit that I enjoyed my survey due to the various kinds of responses I got from the observers. While my partner recorded some observations, I was able to witness almost all the reactions due to my close proximity to the target individuals.
The American Behavioral Scientist, 44(12), 2252-2268. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/214769221?accountid=45049. Gray, M. (2014). The 'Standard'. The L.A. riots: 15 years after Rodney King.
... you see someone. But having a few laughs about what you just did because you looked ridiculous doing it, is all apart of life! I live by the motto that life is suppose to be fun. It shouldn’t be all serious and work. You need to have a little time for adventure as well. Some things can be a little strange, such as eating with your hands, but hopefully that person you are with has a good attitude about it and will just go along with it all. Social norms can be a good and bad thing. They are good, because the keep everything in line and makes sure that humans are acting accordingly in their daily activities. But they also can be bad because it puts pressure on everyone's perception of what freedom is and what is acceptable or not. Social norms will always have a controlling impact on the behavior of individuals, occasionally developing them into a new form of person.
I am wondering if the questions or demonstration really captured my true attitude and emotions toward the topic. I felt as if I answered all of the questions properly and accurately. I did take the test second, but only due to the fact that the results from the first attempt stated that there was too many errors to determine a result. However, the second time around I read through the directions thoroughly and took my time answering the questions and statements given. I really do not think the test showed an implicit attitude that I did not know about, because personally I feel differently about the whole matter. Now even when I answered the survey statements and questions to/with agree, disagree, enjoyable, and eye opening. I am now rethinking each survey question. I am questioning myself that I did not really answer the survey truthfully. I cannot really say that this test means a lot to me. Because even with the results my feelings and attitude are still the same and worse. I know this test is supposed to help me find hidden emotions that I did not know I had, but now I still feel that I have not gotten to the true root or conclusion of my problem.
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
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
They tried to keep telling me the directions, even as I walked away. I expected from the people that know me to walk with me as I walked away, which they did. I figured strangers would just stop talking. The only sanction I received was a shocked/disgusted face from my boss’s son. I only felt somewhat rude. The one Walmart employee that followed me down the aisle made me feel the worse because she just looked at me like where am I going. I have never been to another country and I have not experienced very many other cultures. I would imagine that that the norms I violated would be the same in most cultures. I feel like the norms I violated were simple ones and are not odd or weird. I makes sense that you would let someone finish talking before you walk
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 participants were invited to a university building made aware of the 20-minute videotaping was to be recorded of a communication situation. They were then introduced for the first time by their first name when entering the observation room. The participants were free to choose a topic for their discussion provided it was about something serious and personal. The dyads were in the room by themselves for the first time being aware of the pre-installed camera pointing in the direction of their chairs. After their 20 minutes on camera there would be a knock on the door to end the session. Once the recording had been finished, the participants filled in a questionnaire to check on the legitimacy of the arrangements and to cover the participant’s subjective outlook of the situation before the purpose of the study was disclosed to them. They were guaranteed the tapes would stay confidential and the statistics used they will not be recognized also they can withdraw the consent to use their data at any time. At this time any question was answered as openly as the participants demanded before they were asked to give consent for their videotape to be used in the
Observation allows researchers to experience a specific aspect of social life and get a firsthand look at a trend, institution or behaviour. It promotes good communication skills, improves decision making and enhances awareness.
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
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.
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
Before beginning my survey, I had some preconceived notions about the types of answers that I would obtain. I decided to survey ten college students. I included five male and five female subjects in my survey to be equitable as well as to determine preferences based upon gender in my results. I surveyed two of my male roommates and one female roommate. The remaining participants were random friends who visited our house. This was an easy and effective way to conduct my surveys. Having so many roommates means there are always a variety of people who come and go from our residence. Although this was a simple way to conduct my survey, I was not certain that it would be an accurate sampling. Even though there were a variety of individuals frequenting our house, they seemed to possess many similarities. My fears were unfounded because those surveyed preferred various programs, providing the basis for unbiased results...