Breaking Social Norm Essay

In this society, there are invisible set of rules that people follow. People do not acknowledge or see these rules yet they follow them without knowing. These set of rules are evident in every society, varying from friends to family to towns and nations. Either big or small community, these set of rules apply everywhere. These set of rules are called ‘social norm.’ Social norm is a “code of conduct shared by a society and enforced through internal sanctions, including shame, guilt, embarrassment anxiety and loss of self-esteem” (Mengel 2007). Social norm “govern behavior in groups and societies” (Bicchieri and Muldoon 2014). These social norms is a powerful tool in a society; there simply could not be a community with no social norm. If one individual breaks this social norm, conflicts arise. The majority of the community feels violated when an individual breaks the social norm. Through this, consequences arise; the majority could feel uncomfortable and violated, therefore punishing the individual by rejecting the individual. This would also result in ostracizing. The individuals will

We had planned to breach the social norm by walking in a shopping mall while holding an umbrella. Aryo and I asked Panji, Aryo’s cousin, to hold the umbrella and walk while Aryo and I followed him in a distance, gathering up the various expressions of the shoppers. Panji was to walk around the Ciputra Land Mall, located in Semarang, one full time. The setting was during a crowded Saturday from 1:25 P.M. to 1:35 P.M. We had hypothesised that the majority would simply look away or laugh or ignore, due to the uncommon situation they will see. I hypothesised that the majority would ignore the uncommon action and would not want to be a part of the action. Because this action is uncommon and, what many people call, weird, people would not want to participate in an action where others might look at them and have a bad