My Social Norm

Have you ever wondered why we hold the doors for those behind us? How about the reason we use utensils when we eat? What about why we always stand facing the doors in the elevator? These are all examples of what are known as social norms. According to Dr. Ward social norms are “basic rules of society that help people know what is and is not appropriate to do in any situation.” These basic rules of society are usually unwritten and unspoken and many of us pick up on them over time. Although, some social norms are very common throughout many cultures, there is a lot of them that vary depending on which culture you are apart of. For example, here in America, a major social norm that we have is when eating, the polite thing to do is to use spoons and forks, instead of digging in with your hands. For instance, we would not eat spaghetti with our hands but we would use a fork. In some Thiland cultures it is considered rude to put most foods in your mouth with a fork. Then there is also some cultures such as Chile in which it is impolite to use your hands for anything, even foods such as french fries, they use forks while eating.

The five social norms that I am glad exist are the standards of personal space, the expected standard for personal hygiene, the expected standard for manners in public i.e. avoiding belching or flatulating in public areas, the norm of individual choices, and the social norm of education being a standard.

We’re trained as individuals to follow social norms, so breaking them can feel very uncomfortable. It was weird acting out of my comfort zone in order to accomplish this. I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea or see me as rude in any way. Most of the people acted how I expected they would. They didn’t know how to react/ they didn’t expect it to happen. It was more of a shocked reaction where they didn’t know what to say. The hardest part was getting a picture of the experiment in the act without being seen by the person in question. Especially in a dining hall it’s hard to hide a camera when you also need to be within view to take a picture which is why we tried to accomplish this in the less crowded cafe. This experiment made me realize how many things I see as “not normal” because society trained me to believe so. We follow trends without even realizing it. It’s made me wonder more about why I do the things I do, and why I think the way I do. Breaking a social norm shows you how dependent society is on social norms in

For our Social Norm Project Caitlin Avery and I decided that we would get onto an elevator and press all of the buttons. We choose this experiment because we both are a little bit shy and felt that this experiment would be stepping out of our comfort zone without making either of us feel too uncomfortable. When we conducted this experiment we made sure to get on the elevator when there was a good crowd of people riding (around 10-15 people) and then the two of us pressed all of the buttons until they were all lit. As we rode the elevator we watched to see what the other passenger’s reactions were. Most people did in fact notice that we had pressed every button and had a puzzled expression on their face, but you could tell that they didn’t think much about it and went back to looking at their phone. I did notice a few people who had

The social norm I violated was leaning or being near the sides or corners of an elevator. I volunteered in a hospital during my spring break so I decided to violate the elevators social norm, because I have to constantly take the elevator. In my nature, I am very timid, so violating a social norm required guts and perseverance. When I entered the elevator, I stood in the middle of the elevator while everyone else were leaning on the sides or corners. After a quick few seconds of standing in the middle of the elevator, the nurses were not taking their eyes off of me and were murmuring. The doctor literally asked me if I was feeling okay and politely asked me to go to the volunteer office right away so I can be sent for a checkup with one of the doctors. The patient stared at me for a few moments and looked away because he looked really ill. While walking out of the elevator, the two nurses continued to murmur and constantly looked at me until I was gone from their vicinity.

In society, we are accustomed to the normative social influence of rules for us to follow, from how we act in public to what we wear. Whether it was visible to us at the time or not the general public does follow this social norm that governs us for one simplistic reason, we don’t want to be embarrassed for being out of the social norm. The need for social acceptance is presented in our everyday behaviors, actions, and reactions to social normalities. Even with the acceptation of the many people who pretend not to notice a change in a person social norm, when a social norm is broken, the majority will notice it. However I did learn something during the time I was the social norms breaker, “individuals will tend to either fully conform to the

Culture is what we make of it. The way we live in our country or in our own city can differ from others; the way we eat, what we eat, how we talk, how we act, ect… (Henslin, 2013) In every culture there are social norms, or unwritten rules that people in a culture comply with. To break a social norm would be considered deviant; to defy the way everyone else does something. (Henslin, 2013) To begin my research I decided to head to a local hot spot.

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.

Hello Kiersten…I like how you went into the types and classes of deviance and defined each of them. I definitely agreed with you that human trafficking would be considered a deviant group because these groups of people are engaging in behaviors that violate the social norm. This is a crime to humanity not just to these victims. I puzzled me to know that 14,500- 17,500 people are being trafficked into the United States yearly. This is preposterous to know that as a world power, we are allowing such behavior to go on. You also mentioned the emotional, physical, mental and psychological effect on these victims. Last year, I read a story about a Chinese lady named Lili Huang, 35, who brought a 58-year-old woman from China to work for her as a nanny

Within the last few weeks I decided to take part and violate a social norm. Recently I decided to switch out the hard drive in my iMac so the performance would improve on it. I invited my close friend over to keep my company and if he wanted to help he could. He is not too computer savvy as I am, which lead to numerous questions. As he opened the flood gate and started firing questions at me I start to stand close to him. After his third question I moved from one spot and move a lot closer to him. I not sure how far we were from each other, but I started to feel uncomfortable myself as I am sure he was wondering what in the world was going on. He reacted by leaning backwards in the opposite direction and then just flat out told me that I was

For my social norm project, I chose to relax in a strange location. Initially I had planned to lie down on a beach towel next to a stop sign but, I changed my mind and decided to lie next to a walking path so that it would be easier to observe people’s reactions. The location that I chose was next to the walking path behind the Dairy Queen in downtown Brighton specifically the place where the path branches off to a boardwalk over the mill pond. I placed my beach towel right next to a sign that detailed prohibited activities, which did not include loitering. Behind me were some trees, the lake, and a particularly noisy group of geese. Across the sidewalk was a graveyard, making my relaxation spot even less ideal. When I first laid down, my feet

In every aspect of society, there are social norms. Without norms, there would become chaos because we need norms that define behaviors as proper and others as improper. Whether it be dressing a certain way at your job or treating a fellow employee or classmate a special way. Last weekend I broke a norm. It was an awkward experiment, but rather interesting. Here’s what happened.

From my perspective, it is hard to define being abnormal. Above all, the judgments of whether an individual is abnormal or normal depend on the specific culture. What seems to be unusual in one culture might be normal in another culture. Therefore, the first criterion of abnormality is that an individual’s behavior or thinking pattern is against the social norms and the values of the culture he/she belongs to. The second criterion of abnormality is that one’s daily functioning may be disrupted and it puts one at the risk of self-harming and harming others. Personally, the concept of abnormality is based on the comparison with the majority of the society. If a person is very different from most of the people and behave not aligned with the social

I am comfortable in my own skin. I wear the clothing I want to wear, I do the activities I want to participate in, and I am who I want to be. But, I was not always the girl who wore bright colored dresses with bright shoes instead of the typical teenager look that consisted of a Hollister shirt, black leggings, and UGG boots. Everyone has come face-to-face with the barrier between social norm and a scary thing called uniqueness. This inconvenience is discovered around the awkward stage in a student’s life, also known as middle school. This is when students have to choose between the social norm and looking different. In my case, I never actually had the opportunity to choose my own path. My divergent physical traits chose the path for me.

At a very early age, children learn about social norms to help them become proper citizens in society. Examples of some social norms that students learn are: “do not yell in the library,” “do not speak unless spoken to,” “do not talk to strangers,” and “close the door when you use the restroom.” As you grow older, these rules become unspoken because everyone knows how to act like a proper individual in society. The textbook definition of a social norm is something that is a rule of behavior that society accepts. (Bicchieri) Since everyone knows these unsaid rules of society, what would happen when someone decides not to follow these rules? What would people think and react? In this paper, I discuss my violation of the social norm “don’t talk to strangers” and discuss what I learned from this experiment.