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.
I thought it would be funny and wanted to test the theory that they would stare at or slide away in order to maintain and take back their comfort zone. I did not expect that anyone would start a conversation with him or her or tell him or her to move out of the typical norm of courtesy. Getting video was a bit more of a challenge than I anticipated. My daughter is the bold one, however, because it is not the “norm” of society to sit with someone that closely given the other seating available she found it uncomfortable breaking the norm and making the initial approach. This is where bringing the boyfriend came in helpful as he had to lead the approach and sitting next to a stranger in an “out of norm” way. We selected two of our vid...
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...ions we were anticipating.
Test video 1 & 2 confirmed the theory that by invading one’s personal comfort zone or the norm of society that it triggers an individual to react in a certain way. Our subjects confirmed this theory by staring at the individuals invading their space, leaning their leg away, shifting away, and even moving entirely in an attempt to regain their intimate space.
Works Cited
Kendall, D. (2012). Sociology in Our Times, 9th Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781285309682
Personal space. (n.d.). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 19, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_space
Body contact and personal space in the United States. (n.d.). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved November 19, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_contact_and_personal_space_in_the_United_States
Brinkerhoff, David B., Rose Weitz, Suzanne T. Ortega. Essentials of Sociology Ninth Edition. Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.
Murray, J.L, R. Linden, and D. Kendall (2014). Sociology In Our Times. Custom Canadian Edition.
In the world we live in today, deviance happens to play an integral role in within the societies that scatter our globe, whether we like it or not. Deviance describes actions or behaviors that violate the social norms of our society. These behaviors can violate formally enacted rules, such as laws that are put into place by government, as well as the informal type of “guidelines” that various cultures have informally established and shaped for themselves. As one may come to understand, norms are essentially expectations that are standard to a certain culture. These norms gently guide people in a society in “what to do,” and “what not to do,” in compliance with their societies' norms. With this said, it is important to keep in mind that social norms differ from culture to culture. One act that may be considered deviant in a particular society, may be generally accepted in another. Three main sociological theories of deviance include the cultural transmission theory (also known as the differential association theory), the labeling theory, and the control theory.
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
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...
In public there is an unspoken rule of thumb to behave a certain way. this can be referred to a social norm, or rule. We all follow these rules, such as leaving respectful space between persons or chewing with your mouth closed. Social norms comes from a person’s perception and culture of the situation, meaning when social norms are violated everyone reacts differently to the situation.
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
Giddens, Anthony, Mitchell Duneier, Richard P. Applebaum and Deborah Carr. Introduction to Sociology. New York: Norton & Company, 2012. Print.
A social norm is classified as a standard expectation of what is the correct or deemed acceptable conduct that a member of a society has. The social norm that I chose to violate is the one where as I describe, you evade people’s personal space. What defines giving people their personal space and not getting too close, is that out of respect in my opinion, people need to have space to breathe and to move. If you get too close to people, either the person is going to think you are sexually intimidating him or she, you are just creepy, or even worse think you are rude for intimidating a right people have to be inches away from you. As I was getting ready to do the assignment of monitoring the reactions I would get for violating any social norm of my choice, I had a hard time thinking about which social norm I was going to
Every day of my life the sociology of “norms” is at work in my daily life. It works on a subconscious level, keeping me from acting “strange”. These norms are my guiding light to acting “normal” and fitting in with the societies that I am a part of, they tell me how to conduct myself and what my expectations of other’s behaviors should be.
From a young age, children in are taught to behave in a way that satisfies their society's standards of behavior. Each society has its own standards of behavior, also known as norms. One set of norms may be similar to those of another society, or one society's own set of norms can be the complete opposite of those of another society. But no matter how different or similar, norms are a part a society's core for they are the guidelines to how members are expected to act, and draws a line between what is acceptable and unacceptable. Despite efforts to enforce norms through social control, there are many people who deviate from these norms. Deviance is behavior that violates the standards of a group or society (Witt, 2013, p. 135). The act of deviance comes in many forms that range from harmless acts like a girl shaving her head, or it might be an action that is more extreme like committing murder.
Deviance is a term used to describe behavior that goes against the established social and cultural norms. The concept of deviance is complex because norms vary considerably across groups, times, and places. Essentially, individuals commit deviant behavior when society defines it as such. Within the field of criminology, a number of theories exist that attempt to explain why some people engage in deviant behavior, while others abstain from it. One of these theories is Travis Hirschi’s, social bond theory, which eventually becomes the blueprint for subsequent control theories. This paper will analyze aspects of social control theory and social bonds, for the purpose of seeing if they can deter deviant behavior.
The Expectancy Violations Theory originated by Judee Burgoon explains a person’s response to unpredicted actions by their peers, and the numerous meanings that individuals attribute to the abuse or violation of their personal space. Burgoon defined personal space as the “invisible, variable volume of space surrounding an individual that defines that individual’s preferred distance from others” (Griffin, p. 85). Expectancy is what people predict (or expect) will occur, instead of what they wish.
While I was breaking the rule of personal space, I felt somewhat uncomfortable myself. I did learn that this is a real rule in our society and that I am not alone in how I feel. In my home, the kitchen is my personal space and I don’t like to have anyone in there when I am cooking a meal. I also don’t like people to stand too close to me when I am talking with them. I will automatically move a few steps away if someone, other than my family, is too close to me when they are conversing with me. Thus, breaking this rule was a little difficult for me and extremely fascinating at the same