Breaking the Social Norms
Social norms are the unwritten rules of how to behave. There are many different social norms that we are expected to follow on a daily basis such as, chewing with your mouth closed, holding the door for people, and saying “please” and “thank you.” Human beings need these social norms to guide their behavior and in understanding other’s actions. Social norms are an expectation that everyone follows for the most part. Personal space is a pretty common social norm known to almost everyone except for a few. For the few who don’t know what personal space is, it’s the space surrounding someone to where invasion feels threatening or uncomfortable. We’ve all been there, someone sitting right next to you at the movie theatre even though it’s completely empty or when someone stands too close to you on an elevator. It creates a sense of uneasy and awkwardness within the person.
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I first learned of personal space at a young age from my parents and teachers. I chose personal space because like most people, I enjoy having my personal space. I don’t like when people invade my personal bubble. It puts me slightly on edge and makes me slightly uncomfortable. One distinct memory I have from elementary school was when I was kindergarten. I was just sitting on the carpet, minding my own business, when suddenly this kid just started playing with my hair. I honestly didn’t know what to do I felt so uncomfortable that I just sat there and pretended I didn’t notice. Even though personal space is something I value, I decided to break the social norm by invading people’s
Space can be defined as the zone between people (citation: tcn). Different cultures have different zone preferences. It’s important to realize that comfort levels can vary depending on those zone preferences (citation: tcn). Space can be intimate, personal, consultative, and public (citation: tcn). First, intimate space is within touching distance. Then, personal space is the area around an individual that is considered theirs. Next, consultative space is being at a distance that is appropriate for social interaction. Finally, public space is a zone that is open to all people (citation: psych).
To violate a social norm, i will be greeting strangers in a nontraditional way. This norm acts as a mechanism of social control by getting people to give an approved reaction to meeting strangers. It allows us to be friendly without getting too personal. Normally when we greet a stranger we say something along the lines of, “Hello, how are you?”, and the other person responds by saying something like, “Good, how about you?”. Instead I will respond by giving them some unusual greetings to break this social norm.
The social norm behavior violation that I engaged in was taking my dog, along with a stuffed animal dog on a walk around our neighborhood. I picked this particular social norm to violate because when walking my dog daily, many people ask to stop and pet my dog so I was curious how that would change if they saw me as well walking a stuffed animal. I also chose to violate this norm because every time I walk there are many people I encounter and I wanted to participate in something that involved many people to get a wide range of reactions.
There are many things that influence our behavior from internal influences to social norms. Social norms are implicit or explicit rules that govern how we behave in society (Maluso, class notes). 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.
By interacting with people throughout our lifetime we develop these ideas or rules that we follow. These rule are known as social norms and they are what we follow in day to day life sometimes with not even realizing it. With the elevator example we can see a situation that has rules, but maybe some people view them differently. Some people feel open and free to talk with a stranger as the ride together, others believe that the only communication should be tell someone what floor you need. These are rules that you learn for observation, but can be changed and modified through other interactions. I learned that you are supposed to be quiet and respectful on an elevator by seeing my parents act that way, but also because they would ask me to be quiet when I was younger when we would ride in
My social norm violation entailed facing people while standing in every elevator. In each elevator I used, I exchanged short greetings with the people boarding it then stood while facing them. Additionally, I looked directly into their faces one at a time, but in a polite and respectful way. This was a violation of social norms at the shopping mall, as everybody with whom I shared the elevator seemed to be concerned about my behavior. Despite my outward confidence in the elevator, I was scared and really felt embarrassed. I was mortified because I looked out of place and my actions were seen as unusual. Some of the irritated looks that I got from the public made me feel even more embarrassed. On the other hand, I was scared since I had no idea of what could happen at any moment as a result of my actions. At one point, I nearly trembled at the thought of being slapped by a huge man whom I was staring at. I also knew that I could cause panic, especially to the children and this made me feel guilty.
I chose to break a social norm by sitting/ laying on the floor of an aisle in a grocery store, engaging in deviant behavior, instead of shopping for groceries. Sitting on the floor of a grocery store is a case of deviant behavior because it goes against society by breaking the norm. Because the standard behavior of people in a grocery store is to walk and look around, with usually a basket or cart, shopping for desired items, the expected response of others would be feeling uncomfortable, awkward, and confused. Upon performing my act of social deviance, numerous people demonstrated the anticipated reaction. As people turned down the aisle, I occupied, conversations died down to whispers or stopped altogether. Of the people who questioned me on my
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.
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.
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
Social norms are the implicit or explicit rules a group has for the acceptable behaviors, values, and beliefs of its members. Implicit social norms are introduced to us at a very early age, and exert a powerful influence on our behavior into adulthood. Our culture is ruled by social norms. In many situations, people 's perception of these norms have a big influence on their behavior. Implicit social norms are not openly stated, but found out when disobeyed. Implicit rules are rules we conform to as a society, and generally these rules make living together more comfortable. Social norms are important because they define the nature of a group, clarify relationships among members, and express values. They are also important because they create cohesion within the society, and members of that society are very aware when such norms are violated. Social norms are often strictly enforced and offenders are often disliked for their conduct. Also, some norms are more strictly held to in certain situations than in
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.
space could be your own personal life, your vocational life or cultural interaction within the community.
Personal space has many factors that affect how different people react such as their culture, gender, race, age, etc. (The Development of Personal Space in Primary School Children - Springer 195). Personal space is when someone feels uncomfortable in his or her own space or bubble (Personal Space 1). People call their space a bubble so when someone gets to close it might pop (Wells 1). One-person controls how big or small the bubble is (Wells 1). There are four areas that break down space (Igarashi, Stade, and Vriens 4). Internal, mental, physical, and spiritual are the four boundaries that de...
A norm is “an accepted standard for how people should behave that is usually unwritten and learned unconsciously through socialization”. Every society in the entire world has norms. An example of these norms are “the expectation that children should follow their parents’ advice, that people standing in line should be orderly, and that an individual should accept an offer of a handshake when meeting someone for the first time”. These are things that everybody in this world does every single day.