We live in a capitalist society, and many of our everyday actions are integrated with the economic system. When we walk into any store, we are participating in the grand tradition of capitalism but, as in all social structures, there are rules. When we enter stores, we must act proper in order that the economic processes can go smoothly. For my social experiment, I plan to enter a Walgreens and subvert the capitalist process by staying in a store for an extended period of time and requesting free goods. I plan to directly ask an employee if I can have items for free, and also request outrageous discounts. I chose to conduct my experiment at Walgreens because it is a small store that has a variety of products. That way, I can wander the …show more content…
Even though I was very anxious during my experiment, I found it to be freeing. I enjoyed acting inappropriately in public, and it allowed me to leave my comfort zone. That being said, I do not think I would do it again. I found that there was no benefit to my actions. Since I did not receive any free items or discounts, I accomplished nothing in my attempt to subvert the economic process. Also, I made the employees uncomfortable, and I do not wish to create awkward situations for others. I believe that my experiment was successful. I demonstrated one of many ways that I could break a folkway and cause tension in the world around me. However, if I were to do it again, I would change a few aspects of my experiment. I would have not bought any items form the store, because I looked less suspicions when I was buying items. Furthermore, I could have always spent more time in the store, acted more awkwardly, or engaged more …show more content…
I believe that it is important and sometimes necessary to question and subvert the folkways we all live by; however, social norms are not inherently harmful and subjugating. The reason we do not act odd in stores is that store owners fear shoplifting. In order to preserve their stock and, by extension, their livelihood, managers must watch customers and make sure they pose no harm. Now that I have acted as the subject of that suspicion, I understand and have a greater appreciation for the
With the Walgreen's proposed acquisition of Rite Aid, we posed 3 questions to our members. Here are the questions and the results:
Since 1901, Walgreens has had a strong passion for customer service. The founder, Charles Walgreens, goal was to create a drugstore that was like no other. He said that for as many drugstores as he had worked at, he had never worked for one that had a focus for good customer service and low prices. Walgreens has grown by leaps and bounds since 1901 and is now recognized as the leader in the market with over 7000 stores. Charles Walgreen had an eye for good managers. He said he was able to pick people that he knew were smarter than him so to promote them and make them the heads of his drugstores. As a store manager, not only is it your job to run a store which includes ordering, customer care, and inventory control, but also it is your job to manage the staff. As a part of managing staff, it is their responsibility to hire, train and develop, and terminate if need be. While there are many jobs to choose from when it comes to HR and employee staffing, I choose this one because it is by far to me the most intense.
On the above date Detective Russo and I were conducting a business check of Walmart.
Shoplifting is a plague that is sweeping this nation. Because shoplifting has become such a problem, stores are forced to raise prices to make up for lost sales. This is not their fault, however, few people put the blame where it belongs. The thieves that plague our economy are to blame and the stores have every right to try to stop these people at all costs.
It was very difficult for me get out of my comfort zone and break the norms. I have always been taught to follow rules, and to respect my values, and what I believe in. Folkways and mores cannot be broken without the stares, glares, and frown of the people watching. Depending on the violation, as for the couple in Walmart, that was a norm that was very disrespectful and I understand the stares and glares were towards them, as for the man dressed as a women I believe society makes it hard for people to be who they want to be because of the constant judgment and the expectation we hold for people to hold themselves
When someone goes against something that everyone around expects he or she to act, it’s called norms violations. In other words, that person is doing something which is unacceptable to society or culture. In this sociology breaching experiment, I chose to violate a social norm in public areas – cutting a line without asking, so to observe what people acted and how they responded. I decided to go to Safeway and tried being a line cutter without asking anybody. If they asked me why I did it, I simply replied to them that I did not feel like either wanting to wait or getting in a line. By acknowledging that norms are quite essential in our society, I was aware that our society will have no foundation to stand if there is no norm. Cutting a line while others are queuing is a part of our social routine; even though I was kind of embarrassed, I got a chance to learn different kinds of
The experiment I have chosen to break a folkway was to walk around either a store or the mall with all my clothing backwards. This was to test and see the reaction of people since it is not normal for a person to be walking around with their clothing backwards. Of course, the first thing I did was make my own inference on how people would view me as I did the experiment. I predicted that people will looks at me very strangely and would at least laugh. The most I want to see from a person is just their facial reaction plus a few comments.
During this experiment I choose to use the elevator with doors in the front and back. The elevator back doors are for storage and janitors. Which really left my peers with so many assumptions and questions on why I am facing the opposite way. I stood at the front desk with a friend of mine to arrange the perfect opportunities to get reactions. Whenever I spotted 5 or more individuals enter the two sided elevator I got on with them. Whenever we entered, I kept walking straight towards the back door as if I was going threw. The further I walked the more their heads would turn to see where I was going. People then noticed the breaking of the social norms. The groups that were involved equally reacted different towards the experiment. Of course, I got use to the stares and disturbing looks. They all stayed away from me looking very uncomfortable. There was a couple of people that asked me if I was okay or need help. Which shocked me the most because I really did not expect any one to
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...
In my walk through the toy section in Walmart in Sonora, I noticed that the boys and girls toy sections were very distinct. It is easy to tell the difference, the girls section had mainly pink packaging and dresses on the shelves. The boys section was mainly in dark blue packaging with swords, lightsabers, and toy guns prominent.
Shoplifting is a major problem in today. The temptation of not paying for something, just hiding it away and saving your own money is a large factor for some people. The culprit just thinks he's getting a product for free and doesn't know what he's actually doing to himself and the community. Shoplifting effects everyone, yourself and the everyone in the local neighborhood.In this essay I'm going to explain some of the circumstances of stealing from local stores, or any store. After I've been caught stealing I found out how wrong it is and how it is a disadvantage to everyone.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates retail stores in various formats in the United States and Internationally. It has two segments: The Wal-Mart Stores and The Sam's Club. The Wal-Mart Stores segment includes Discount Stores, Supercenters, and Neighborhood Markets in the United States, as well as Walmart.com. It offers apparel for women, girls, men, boys, and infants. They also offer hardware, electronics, home furnishings, small appliances, automotive accessories, sporting goods, toys, pet food, cameras, health and beauty aids, pharmaceuticals, jewelry, optical department and photo processing services. The Neighborhood Markets include dry grocery, meat, produce, deli, bakery, frozen foods, pharmaceuticals, photo processing, health and beauty aids, household chemicals, general merchandise, and a pet supplies departments. The Sam's Club segment comprises the warehouse membership clubs in the United States and samsclub.com. It offers electronics, jewelry, sporting goods, toys, tires, books, grocery items, and selected private labels. As of July 31, 2005, Wal-Mart operated 1,276 Wal-Mart stores, 1,838 Supercenters, 92 Neighborhood Markets, and 556 Sam's Clubs in 50 states in the United States. The company operates various retail formats in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. It operates 261 Canadian Wal-Mart stores and Sam's Clubs, 11 units in Argentina, 150 units in Brazil, 88 units in Germany, 16 units in South Korea, 697 units in Mexico, 54 units in Puerto Rico, and 292 units in the United Kingdom, as well as 48 units in China under joint venture agreements.
My breaching experiment involved three social norms. These social norms forced people to be in an uncomfortable situation and make a decision as to how they should react to it. The first social norm I experimented with was sitting next to someone in an uncrowded movie theater. I chose this because of the awkwardness it caused. At all three of my trials, occurring from 1-9 pm, there were over fifty empty seats at Carmike on February 21st. The next social norm I analyzed was sitting in someone’s assigned seat. This was chosen because I felt it would be engrossing to observe the different reactions fellow high school students retaliated with, all being different races. At Liberty High School I took someone’s assigned seat five different times,
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
My social experiment, took way too much thought to complete. I could not think about what I should do for this project until about noon on that beautiful Sunday. I invited a couple of friends to go with me to Walmart, but I was unsuccessful and I only got one friend to accompany me. Even so, we had fun.