How To Break A Social Norm

The social norm I chose to break was eating with my mouth open. I wanted to do something that I know wouldn't be too out of the ordinary but would still receive good responses. I spent time eating with my mouth open for two days, both in public places on campus and at meals in my fraternity house. The observations I made were very interesting and helped me gain a better understanding of how others react when someone breaks a social norm.

The first day I wanted to see how random people would react when I sat down near them and ate my food with my mouth wide open. I went to the student union and ordered Chic-Fil-A. I picked a spot by the TVs and started eating my food, purposely trying to be as obnoxious as I could without causing a huge scene. It was a little weird and scary for me to be around so many people by

I decided I would go to my fraternity house for lunch to see the reactions of people who actually knew me. We had meatball subs for lunch so I made two decent sized ones and sat at a table with 6 of my closer friends. It only took about a minute to see a reaction from some of the kids at my table. One of my friends told me to shut my mouth and the rest of the table started laughing. I stuck to my plan until another one of my friends told me to, “eat normally or go eat somewhere else”. Everyone’s face went from looking weirdly at me to giving me a straight stare. I got the observation I needed so I explained to them what was going on and finished my meal in peace. The most interesting thing this time was the sudden change of expression when one person decided to tell me it wasn’t okay to break the social norm and eat with my mouth open. All it took was one person to step up in order for the rest of the table to get on board. Most people won’t directly call you out for going against a social norm but they won’t hesitate to back the first person who