Social Observation Examples

1081 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Social norms within cultures

In another occasion, I helped a man find the right spackle to patch the cracks on his walls. As I engaged in conversation with him I assured him to the right product as I smiled and grabbed on his shoulder. Many of the customers were expressing discomfort, feelings of awkwardness, and discontent. Within my own thoughts I was having feelings of discomfort as well. As I broke this norm my facial expressions were different from what I truly felt within. I expressed joy, friendliness, and openness. As I performed this social norm violation I had one of my trusty coworkers help me by taking down notes on what she observed overall. Through her observations I was able to recognize that through my experiment I was more prone to approach women than men. The observations also exposed that women were more uncomfortable with the idea of someone getting too close to their personal space and the inappropriate physical contact. Many of the women felt awkwardness and discomfort as they were being caressed by a complete stranger. My observer also took down that when I was touching a customer’s face, particularly a woman, that they would look at their friends or family members and give each other a stare look of “what the heck just happened.” Many women would take this form of affection as a way of being forward towards them. Furthermore, my observer’s notes also exposed It is a way in which individuals represent themselves and behave in particular social groups or cultures according to society’s rules. Social norms are then made in order to maintain these social behaviors in accordance to society. The social norm of personal space is highly valued in American society as every individual feels that they should be respected during their own space. Moreover, people adhere to social norms of personal space in order to remain in a zone of safety, as we become uneasy when individuals we do not know try to get

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Bonnie Tsui's The Undress Code

    1032 Words  | 3 Pages

    “54% (272) had experienced some form of workplace sexual harassment.” (“Statistics”) More than 200 of those victims that experienced the sexual harassment were women. Women are often found with a more strict dress code in society compared to men. In “The Undress Code” by Bonnie Tsui, she addresses the issue of how men look at women depending on what they wear in different environments. This awkward anecdote reveals how a female in the situation of where her previous co-worker has been hitting on her and she doesn’t know the reason why exactly. While Bonnie Tsui’s “ The Undress Code” acknowledges that clothing choices have an effect on relationships between opposite sexes, females should not be forced to keep the “balance” within society. Women are not always

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Daring Greatly By J. D. Salinger

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    So if we want joy, love, and empathy in our lives, we need to let vulnerability into our hearts.... ... middle of paper ... ... But instead of reacting negatively, I was pleased to see that Anabella and Francisco and Santos – and all my other students – understood. They saw that I was trying my best, and that for any positive change to occur, we, all, had to put ourselves at risk in the arena.

    Read More

  • Social Norm Breaching Experiment

    583 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1950s and 60s Harold Garfinkle developed a method for studying social interactions. He formed ethnomethodology, which is studying the methods of people. In other words, ethnomethodology is the study of social norms. (p. 139, Conley) Most of us follow social norms unconsciously. It can be difficult to go against a social norm. The purpose of the project was to conduct a breaching experiment against social normalities. For this experiment, I chose to go an entire day whispering every word I spoke. I chose to violate this norm because it is socially unacceptable to whisper in a normal conversation. Throughout this paper, I will explain the methods and the results of this breaching experiment

    Read More

  • The Behavioral Deviance of a Social Norm

    617 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Nonverbal Norms

    929 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are two important areas in this research- territoriality and use of personal space, all while each have an important bearing on the kinds of messages we send as we use space. Standing at least three feet apart from someone is a norm for personal space.

    Read More

  • Case Study: Handling Emotions

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    Subject N told me this story about how she was chosen for student of the month and couldn’t express how she was feeling because she was feeling more than one emotion. She realized that, she said she felt “excited and nervous” because they needed to interview her to display it in the hallway. She is showing an understanding that more than one emotion can be experienced. During my second time observing her she was also sad because her friends cat died a week ago, showing she is aware of events that lead to emotional reactions (Denhman, Bassett, & Wyatt, 2007; Denham & others, 2012; Kuebli, 1994; Thompson, 2013c, d).

    Read More

  • Experiment: A Breaching Experiment

    928 Words  | 2 Pages

    For my breaching experiment, I decided to break the social norm of looking at someone while engaged in conversation with them. Today, it is socially unacceptable and impolite to avoid looking at someone when talking to them. The background assumption for a typical conversation is that direct eye contact will be made more often than not; otherwise social norms are being violated. Avoiding eye contact during an exchange tends to dehumanize the person that is not receiving the eye contact. It is impolite and offensive, not looking at someone who is talking makes it seem as though the topic being discussed is unimportant. For my research experiment I would constantly talk to someone without initiating eye contact, or with my back facing toward the subject, not turning around or making eye contact until I had to ring up their order or make the drink for them. This research is important because it uncovers what happens when the social norm of

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Arlie Hochschild On Emotional Work

    1725 Words  | 4 Pages

    A discrepancy between one’s internal and external state means that there is an imbalance of one’s emotional equilibrium. With or without dissonance, the individual is alienating themselves from the rest of the group because they are disconnected from their emotions. My internal state at the celebratory dinner did not match the positive facade I put up, because prior to the event, my car was towed and I anticipated an uncomfortable gathering with both of my parents under one roof. I used deep acting by telling myself that I was there for my brother’s engagement and that I should be happy for him just as my family was. I changed a personal part of myself to fit the context of the

    Read More

  • Breaking Experiment Essay

    2113 Words  | 5 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Social Observation on Human Interactions

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    By using observation method, a wide variety of behavior can be recorded. Picking through the garbage on the side of the road can reveal behaviors of fast-food customers, or sitting for only one hour in the university canteen can understand the gender differences in choosing (diet) meal, or even watching the customer’s behavior from deciding which yogurt to be taken off its store shelves in the supermarket can also answer the question: Are the customers be attracted by its appearance or flavor or price or brand or nutrition? The aim of this observation assignment is to evaluate and explain the different types of interactions between individual and groups present, as well as the environment in which these interactions take place. The field observation was conducted at the Vietnamese fast-food restaurant named “We love Banhmi” in Budapest, and the role adopted, was that of observer as a non-participant. Group structures as well as overall activity, patterns of behavior, and the duration and timing of such behaviors and interactions were observed and recorded. Sociological concepts pertaining to age, gender, and appearance were also noted and applied.

    Read More

  • Elevator Experiment Essay

    1581 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Social Norms in Society

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Observation Of Interpersonal Observation

    1580 Words  | 4 Pages

    Mrs. Smith arrived to her appointment on time, alone, appropriately dressed, and appeared to be her stated age of 54. Throughout the testing process, she was engaged, maintained good posture, eye contact, insight, understanding, awareness of issues, and discussed topics in an open manner. In addition, she spoke with a normal tone, rate, and volume. Mrs. Smith did not exhibit any issues with her hearing, vision, motor skills, or word finding. Her mood was calm and composed, which was congruent with her affect. In addition, she exhibited a logical thought process, and did not display any signs of psychosis.

    Read More

  • Essay On Personal Space

    1184 Words  | 3 Pages

    Instead, it is the individual’s cultural environment that determines the appropriate personal space necessary to feel comfortable. Indeed, research on personal space is an excellent example of how a biological factor is influenced by social-environmental factors. There are various perceptions of what constitutes personal space in different countries and cultures around the world. Personal space is the means of a man’s affiliation with other people, society, and the surrounding culture. Personal space refers to the bubble, or appropriate distance, around a human being that determines how close individuals stand together during interactions without being offensive.

    Read More

  • Emotions Control Emotions Essay

    1047 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, there are few moments in our lives where we cannot even describe our emotions. I remember exchanging playlist with Daniel Li and thinking to myself, “Wow these songs are not in english and are played on the piano, is Daniel trying to be special by choosing songs that were originally written in a different language?” I did as I was told and chose a quiet setting and plugged in my earphones. The first song started with a lullaby creating a relaxing sensation within me. But as the first song progressed, the pianist began to play more intensely and something inside of me changed. The relaxing sensation suddenly changed into a sense of euphoria. I knew that I was in a state of excitement but there was something else also there that I cannot describe in words. What emotion was I feeling? This feeling created by the pianist was something that I have never experienced before. I could not stop and figure out what this newfound emotion was until the song finally ended. It was as if my emotions were controlling me making me feeling this powerful emotion. The more intimate one is with an experience, then more likely that person is to experience a powerful

    Read More

More about Social Observation Examples

Open Document