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breaking a social norm
breaking social norms
challenging social norms
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Fun with Social Norms: Violation of the Fittest For my nonconformity/compliance assignment I chose to violate a social norm. I felt that doing it only once would not suffice, so I tried it a few times to see if the results varied from person to person. I went ahead and started with refusing a handshake. The first instance was a friend introducing me to a friend of theirs. He reached his hand out and I just looked at it and shook my head. I must admit it was hard to keep a straight face, but I managed. Concerning my personal feelings, I was surprised at how uncomfortable I was, considering that I was aware that it was an experiment. Despite this knowledge, I still felt a mild rush of embarrassment. His reaction was what I had initially expected. He looked slightly perplexed, and ev...
In order for you to continue to stay accepted in the current social society you live in today you must follow a certain set of social norms throughout your life, most of the time you do without even realizing it. As well as be followed social norms are broken everyday all around you on all sorts of different levels some harmless and some more serious and punishable such as stealing. Since I have moved out to Santa Barbara and have been experiencing life here now in school and outside of class I have really come to love the beautiful scenic and friendly feel that is given off here with the excessive palm trees on the streets filled with young eager students adjusting to the new college feel and experience finally living away from home on their own. I have definitely been noticing many new changes compared to back at home in Berkeley California where I had grown up my whole life realizing that social norms seem to slightly change as I travel down south. A distinct difference I had noticed when first moving out here is the drop in disabled homeless around town asking for change or money which seemed like an ordinary social norm back home. In Berkeley I would take the bart track to San Francisco every week for school and would rarely go a day without encountering all types of people everywhere asking for help and offering something for sale. I have noticed here in Santa Barbara the community is much more wealthy and seems to not be exposed to as much poverty everyday like you may living in a big city. I began to wonder what the reaction would be if I chose to break the social norm loitering around campus and downtown Isle Vista asking around for money or help. I decided to try testing out this experiment with a few different types of ...
A norm is a group-held belief about how followers should perform in a given environment.[1] Sociologists describe norms as informal identifications that administer society’s performances, while psychologists have adopted a more general classification, recognizing smaller group divisions, like a team or an office, may also endorse norms detached or in addition to cultural or societal expectations. [2] Norms running counter to the activities of the primary society or culture may be conducted and retained within small subgroups of society. [3] For example, Crandall (1988) noted that certain groups like cheerleading squads, dance troupes, sports teams, and sororities have a rate of bulimia, a publicly recognized life-threatening disease that is much higher than society as a whole. Social norms have a way of maintaining order and organizing groups. [4]
The daunting task of violating a social norm, something that I could be ostracized and ridiculed for, I still chose to do. Social norms are the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society. Doing weird things in public while surrounded by strangers is a recipe for disaster, especially for somebody like myself. I am awkward and have plenty of trouble talking to new people. Most of us are told not to talk to strangers when we are younger because there are all sorts of crazy people out there. There could not be a better way to break out of my shell and violate a social norm than to sit down and talk to total strangers while they eat.
When this idea for extra credit came up it really caused some mixed thoughts for me on the subject of social norms. The reason for these thoughts were the reactions of other students in class as to what societal norms they would break, and the amusement or satisfaction they would have in breaking those norms. For the most part, it appeared that the consensus was to, in some way, break a social norm that would reveal them as a nonconformist, or as an individual. With that it mind, I really began to reflect on why it is so important for people to be noticed, and how especially in the individualistic culture of the United States, it is celebrated to be a “breaker of the rules” or a nonconformist.
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...
Instead, I stood up and handed the desired two-liter of orange Fanta to the confused, uncomfortable woman. As a group of three teenage guys started walking down the aisle, their conversation ceased and proceeded to stare. Feeling sheepish, the one boy left to obtain something on another aisle while the other two proceeded to get some cases of cokes. The weirdness and creepiness of my actions were clearly evident on the faces of passersby because we’re instilled by our parents that you can’t just sit on the floor of a grocery store. Although I had gotten permission from the manger to perform my act of social deviance, the employees had no knowledge of my social experiment. They nervously avoided the aisle I had occupied and occasionally would walk past to see if I was still there. Throughout the experiment, I refrained from most eye contact relying on my peripheral vision or staring at people’s feet and only talked if I was spoken to. I sat and occasionally laid down in the aisle for about 40-45 minutes at
The objective of my experiment was to observe how people reacted to a violation in the social norms of elevator etiquette. Generally in elevators, people fill in starting from the back, face the elevator doors, and rarely make verbal contact with others. Unless the passengers of the elevator know each other, conversation is sparse and often limited to small-talk. As a result of this, my goal in the experiment was to introduce a foreign behavior to the elevator, something that nobody would expect while going about their day. Thus, I entered a situation where a certain set of expectations was in place, such as the informal rule that individuals should stand (rather than sit) in an elevator, and violated those unspoken rules without acting in
... you see someone. But having a few laughs about what you just did because you looked ridiculous doing it, is all apart of life! I live by the motto that life is suppose to be fun. It shouldn’t be all serious and work. You need to have a little time for adventure as well. Some things can be a little strange, such as eating with your hands, but hopefully that person you are with has a good attitude about it and will just go along with it all. Social norms can be a good and bad thing. They are good, because the keep everything in line and makes sure that humans are acting accordingly in their daily activities. But they also can be bad because it puts pressure on everyone's perception of what freedom is and what is acceptable or not. Social norms will always have a controlling impact on the behavior of individuals, occasionally developing them into a new form of person.
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.
For my breaching experiment, I decided to break the social norm of looking at someone while engaged in conversation with them. Today, it is socially unacceptable and impolite to avoid looking at someone when talking to them. The background assumption for a typical conversation is that direct eye contact will be made more often than not; otherwise social norms are being violated. Avoiding eye contact during an exchange tends to dehumanize the person that is not receiving the eye contact. It is impolite and offensive, not looking at someone who is talking makes it seem as though the topic being discussed is unimportant. For my research experiment I would constantly talk to someone without initiating eye contact, or with my back facing toward the subject, not turning around or making eye contact until I had to ring up their order or make the drink for them. This research is important because it uncovers what happens when the social norm of
Not just because I was violating a norm but because I was not interacting with my best friend’s emotion for something that she was worrisome about. If I had to refuse to “mirror” the nonverbal display to strangers or people that are not really close to me, I think I could have made a more extreme case with the study. Yet, I realized violating social norms can possibly lead me to lose the people I am violating the social norms with. Moreover, I felt like the result of refusing to “mirror” the image might depend on the closeness of the relationship between two. I think if the person who is being ignored of their emotions is close to the person who is refusing to mirror, that person would more likely make external attribution. On the other hand, if the person being ignored is not close to the other person, that person is more likely to make internal
Breaking those norms made me feel 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 breaking the norm. I faced a couple of difficulties during my assignment when it came to violating the social norms.
... day. The hardest part of the experiment was going against social psychology; it was very uncomfortable going against the social norms. We also found that it was difficult to match all of our schedules to be able to do the experiment all together when the gym was full. Overall the experiment taught us that social norms have molded society to believe that they should restrain their original thoughts and actions when in a public place. Lastly, individuals should not disturb other social norms that occur within the range of accepted actions, especially in the area of clothing.
Social norms refer to the way that members of a society are expected to act and behave. These norms provide structure and conformity for individuals within a society. They also provide a sense of “normalcy” amongst individuals within a society. In a society, “we tend to follow our own cultural norms without questioning them, because we regard them as the ‘norm’.” (Henslin,2012). To intentionally break a cultural norm, takes some thought and effort to consciously go against our inbred “culture within us.” When pondering about social norms that I could break and the reactions of others, I began brainstorming various social norms. One in particular norm came to mind. In American society there is a social norm that if you use the drive thru window
To conclude, breaking the norm inside the gym was mixed with positive and negative sanctions. I was given a displeasing gesture (negative; the look) and was rewarded with smiles and laughs (positive). I’m sure most of the members enjoyed it better than I did, simply because I was nervous, embarrassed, and almost busted my but a few times. I was rather pleased with the trainer’s reaction because he maintained control yet didn’t freak out towards my actions. I was over all satisfied with everyone’s reactions and glad that I’m not banned from the gym (I did tell my trainer after that it was a social experiment).