Examples Of Social Norms

As stated earlier, this experiment completely proved my hypothesis wrong. Many of the people that rode the elevator with me stared at me as though there were something wrong with me. Most were uncomfortable and fidgety and kept looking over their shoulder at me as they rode forward, and me, backwards. More than a few asked if I was alright and even asked my friend, who was acting as if he did not know me, knew what was was wrong. I even conducted a few controlled experiments where I rode the elevator forward to see if people would react to me then, but not a single person outside of the experiment even acknowledged my existence. I would have thought that in a place like L.A. County, people would be too busy to notice others, or people would have been raised to mind their own business and keep to themselves, but apparently abiding my social standards and making sure that others do as well is a higher priority.

Misfit. Rebel. Troublemaker. These are all names that may be given to people who go against the social norm. According to Andersen, Taylor, and Logio, the authors of Sociology: The Essentials, norms are defined as the specific cultural expectations for how to act in a given situation (2016). When someone disrupts the expectations, they commit a norm violation and may display deviant behavior. Since norms are so automatically built into our everyday lives, the rules of social interaction can be subtle and may be imperceptible to the people who participate in them. Therefore, sociologists often purposefully commit a norm violation in order to study what the rules or norms are. This approach, known as ethnomethodology, interprets society as being

I got some strange looks and definitely some confused ones. Those I had expected. One reaction that I had not anticipated was people trying to move into my eye line. I had one person actually shift their entire chair over while we were talking to try to look at me. During lunch I sat with people from my hometown and they instantly questioned what I was doing.

In the video Personal Space: How Close is Too Close? The reporter Taryn Winter Brill conducted and experiment to find out how uncomfortable people get when you invade their personal space. The reporter got as close as the intimate space range that made most people feel uneased. In one of the experiment in the elevator the other elevator riders notice how close the reporter got to the women that maintain her back press against the elevator because you could read the expression of awkwardness for the women that her intimate space was being invaded in their faces. If a person is a stranger to me it always feels like a treat.

My experiment consisted of me asking strangers, on the streets of Downtown Grand Rapids, for directions to Rosa Park’s Circle, and invading their personal space. To start, I would approach a stranger; tell them that I am lost, and that I am in need of directions to the Rosa Park’s Circle. As strangers began giving directions to me, I inched closer and closer to them. In addition to invading their personal space, I also held intense eye contact with them, trying my best not to blink. The whole time, although it was difficult, I kept a straight face while I performed my experiment. To make sure that I gathered enough information, and a variety of results, I tested my

I do think that a lot of other social norms are powerful, but I know that there are ways to get around that in today’s society. For example, it’s a social norm to not approach random people in movie theatres and initiate, and hold conversation throughout the whole movie, but Sara seemed perfectly fine with it the whole time. If I were to get the wrong person in that situation, I could be kicked out of the movie theatre and probably even cussed at a few more times than I was. I do not feel like I would violate this norm again just because of this possibility, but I do feel like I’m more apt to talk to strangers in settings where talking is

There is a reason behind almost everything that humans do during everyday life. However, we do not think about why we waved back at the person across the street, we just do it. Interpreting that person’s wave and reacting to it by waving back, smiling, or nodding is a part of sociology. After taking a sociology class you realize all these everyday behaviors have meaning. Now, all of a sudden I found myself thinking sociologically when I get into an elevator, wait in line at the grocery store, or even how I view myself.

Social norms are rules of conduct that materialize based on a society’s values. Social norms are not always the same since different societies have different values. Without social norms there would be chaos; social norms make society’s behavior predictable, for the most part. Most of our society likes predictability; it helps to make us feel safe. Each person is taught social norms through contact with other human beings. The family is one of the first avenues by which children begin to form their understanding of social norms. Parents are constantly teaching their children what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. I will never forget the time that my son asked me, very loudly as a woman walked by us with super short hair and

This paper will address what social norms entail and what role they play within a society.

When researching the topic of social norms and norm violations, there is an ongoing list. This is because almost everything we do in society is based on these social norms. If/when these are broken it can be punished as little as someone giving a dirty look, or as large as severe jail time. Social norms come into existence when a society does a specific task over and over until it becomes a normal occurrence. One of the biggest concerns is the war on drugs. Marijuana use is harshly punishments yet causes little to none negative effects. On the other hand, we have tobacco which there are barely any laws on yet it is killing thousands of Americans.

With the goal for you to keep on staying acknowledged in the present social society you live in today you must follow a certain set of social norms for the duration of your life, often you manage without acknowledging it. Even though social norms are broken regular surrounding you on a wide range of various levels some innocuous and some more serious and careless, like stealing. Social norms are not generally the same since different societies have different values. Without social norms there would be total chaos; social norms make society's conduct clearly predictable. To me our society is predictable anyway because it makes people feel more safe knowing that everyone is doing the same thing. When a norm is broken in our society people automatically

I always expected myself to be a cool, sophisticated, James Bond-like boy who always knew the right things to say; but in reality I was an awkward Vietnamese-immigrant boy with a massive communication problem. All my life, I’ve been the quiet kid who thoroughly enjoyed being by himself. In elementary school, I was able to evade any questions about why I would never talk; for one, I had no grasp of the English language until the third grade. However, by the time I entered middle school, English was no longer a mystery, in fact, it became one of my strongest subjects. I was getting smarter, but so were the other kids. Their understanding of societal norms was growing, and what they understood was that I was not a part of the social norm.

At times, I break the elevator norm by telling people that I will take the next one; however, I do it on purpose since

Admittedly, I only ventured to the grocery store and gas station, so it was a much smaller research field. I documented reactions from 25 people. Positive reactions were observed in only 8% of cases, and came in the form of concerned people asking if I was okay. Neutral reactions were observed in 40% of people, who acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Negative reactions, including stares and diversion from my path were observed in an overwhelming 52%. All of these observations in a public setting, where I only ran into a couple of people I knew, were in alignment with my

For instance, they would look away from me or down at the ground or any other way they could think of to avoid direct eye contact with me. I found this to be both humorous and amusing because I did not expect it to be so easy to make a group of people, who obviously out numbered me, get so uncomfortable and somewhat clumsy. When I gave them a smile they then seemed to calm down and seem less bothered by me. Although they seemed less uncomfortable, they still refrained from turning around after they passed me. I then shifted my gaze across the parking lot where a woman who seemed to be scanning the area was located. After she seemed to be content that no one was watching her she then pulled out a wedgie. I honestly was not expecting her to have performed such an action and did not know what to think. My attention then shifted to a group three Asian males who had just begun to walk down the same sidewalk I had been standing on. They were all communicating with each other and did not seem to think anything of it. However when one of the males had realized I was watching them he immediately stopped smiling and the darted his eyes away from