Essay About Norm Violations

A norm is a social guideline for how we think, feel, or act. Norms are violated on a daily basis, but what sets the norm violations apart is the severity of them. A norm violation would be considered not as serious if it is something like burping and farting in public. While doing this in public may offend someone, it is usually forgiven or ignored. Then there are violations that are more severe that can damage the ethics or morals of people in a certain society or native culture. An example of this could be invading someone’s personal space by going up to them and slapping them on the butt. Doing this would result in a negative sanction from the public. Sanctions are a response you get for either upholding a norm or violating one. More than likely you will get a positive sanction for upholding a

The way we and our society perceive norm violations depends entirely on our culture and upbringing. In some cultures the norm violation of speaking loudly in a restaurant or standing abnormally close to someone may not be as big of a violation as it is in America because their culture does not view it as such. For example it is in proper to eat or shake another person’s hand in India because the left hand is considered to be filthy and only used in the restroom while in America, people write, eat and do other activities while using their left hand. The values treated by other cultures will always remain the same because people grew up knowing their own version between right and wrong. People do incredibly awful things because they believe that it is their version of justice in the world, such as extreme Islamic beliefs that result in terrorism. No matter what the person believes in or what our version of right or wrong is, we could never judge one man’s social norms because we, ourselves, look wrong in their eyes as