Social Norms In Society

Every day of my life the sociology of “norms” is at work in my daily life. It works on a subconscious level, keeping me from acting “strange”. These norms are my guiding light to acting “normal” and fitting in with the societies that I am a part of, they tell me how to conduct myself and what my expectations of other’s behaviors should be. When compiling a list of norms that I performed over the course of a day I was shocked by how quickly I had found 100 actions that I do to fit in, and to conform to society. Some were as big as not committing a crime, while others were as little as my attitude towards strangers. When all was said and done it only took me about 6 hour of my day to act out these hundred norms, that’s more than 16 acts

The main purpose of norms is the sense of order and comfort they bring to society. Our formal norms keep everything from murder to traffic violations at bay. These give people a sense of safety and order knowing that people cannot just go around murdering people, and that everyone has to drive on the same side of the road. Informal norms are extremely helpful in social situations because they guide people on how to interact with others. It gives them an outline of what is expected of them as they move through different social groups. Norms allow people to have some predictability in the everyday situations they encounter, they can think to themselves: “If this was an appropriate behavior at the last dinner party, it should be at this dinner party as well.” These norms also give us a way to interpret people and their actions, such as belching, in our society belching in public is rude, and you probably are not respectful of your company. In the context of another society belching lets the cook know you like the food. Norms give your peers an insight to how you are feeling about a