Norm Violation Assignment

On Wednesday, September 23rd, I decided to perform an “antisocial” experiment. This consisted of me not talking to anyone for a whole twenty-four hours. The experiment included or rather prohibited me from texting, nodding, talking, and or various other forms of communication with other human beings. I thought this was the perfect way of displaying a social norm without going too an extreme, but I also knew I would acquire a wide range of different results. Although the idea itself sounds simple, in the world we live in today this experiment was definitely not going to be easy. As I am a talkative and outgoing person, I knew this

In the observe norm violation experiment, it was concluded to result in negative sanction. The experiment consisted of a friend of mine and I ordering our lunch at In n Out. It was my friend, Denise’s turn to order her meal. Denise ordered a double- double with no cheese, no thousand island spread, a single patty and only onions, tomatoes, and lettuce. The employee looked at her in a dumbfound manner and confirmed her ordered as a hamburger. Denise was not

Violating a norm, in society today, can make some people look at you incredibly differently from what is normal. Depending on the norm that is disrupted, some people make react differently than perhaps someone with different views. I decided to experiment with breaking the norm of conversational distance. “Social Distance” has separate zones that are a general rule of a conversation based on how well a person knows the people they are talking to. While defying the norm of social distance, I received two different reactions due to the difference in people I attempted it with. Disturbing a social norm can either make people uncomfortable or act okay with it, depending on different variables.

In social psychology and sociology field, a breaching experiment is one that evaluates the reaction of people to violation of accepted norms. The experiments consist of the exhibition of conscious engender, and social structure analysis that make the social reaction possible.

For my experiment on breaking norms, I choose to chew with my mouth open in the Clinton Dining Hall, and Subway’s eating area. I was very nervous to break this norm because I was brought up knowing that eating with my mouth open was not polite in public. I felt that maybe people would get

I frantically searched my desk, underneath my chair, and inside my backpack, and it wasn’t before long that my classmates began snickering. Confused, I demanded to know why they were laughing. At first, they didn’t bother to answer me, and instead continued in their self-sustained amusement. After being harassed for the entire school year, this was the last straw for me; the panic induced by my missing belongings and the increasing frustration of being ignored pushed me into a very desperate state of fight or flight mode. However, in this case, I chose to both fight and

The objective of my experiment was to see how people reacted to a violation in the social norms of elevator etiquette. Generally in elevators, people are expected to fill in starting from the back, facing the elevator doors, rarely making verbal contact, with the possible exception of finding out which floor people are heading to. 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 were in place, such as the informal rule that individuals should stand (rather than sit) in an elevator, and violated those unspoken rules without actually doing anything that would not be perfectly acceptable in another social setting.

folkway, the face reactions I received were quite humorous. Some ignored which was pretty acceptable on account of mid-terms, but the majority stared followed by questioning and maybe laughter. Understanding my violation how could you blame them, walking backwards is not only a walking folkway it is also dangerous to myself as well as my fellow class mates. As childern we grew up learning to speak a certain language or dress a certain way. When natural motor skills come in to

This week I decided the behavior I’d choose to violate would be physical appearance and space. I decided on violating these specifically because I felt like these specific nonverbal communication behaviors would generate the most amounts of different reactions from those around me. I also took this as a bit of a challenge for myself as I see myself as someone who is very aware of my physical appearance at all times as well as respectful with it comes to others personal space, so breaking two of my own nonverbal behavior “rules” would be something different and out of character for me.

My breaching experiment was actually not an experiment at all but a mistake, a breach of socially acceptable etiquette, with the predictable response, so I thought it was worth a write up.

In the middle of the night the cadets decide to tie Private Pyle to the bead and beat him, but Private Joker hesitated to hit until an unnamed extra instructed him to while in close proximity. (Kubrick) This is a perfect example of Milgram’s obedience experiment and normative social influence. Milgram’s experiment proved that when someone is instructed to perform an act that may cause harm to another they will perform the act when given subtle cues. Normative social influences is when we conform to avoid being out of the social norm and in fear that we may be harmed. (Myles 2014, p. 467) Private Joker did not feel comfortable attacking Private Pyle but in the end he decided to just to fit the social norm, and because he was instructed to do so by his peers. The cadets discriminated Pyle because he always messed up. Discrimination is a negative behavior. (Myles 2014,

The importance of  the breaching experiment is for the student to better understand how norms shape our lives and when they are broken, how they become the center of attention and deemed deviant among the viewers. Norms are things that are acceptable in a particular society, therefore when one acts out of a particular norm, they may receive strange looks, harsh words or even worse, depending on the action. However those who are diavent still have some awareness for what is generally acceptable, by watching the masses live their lives. Those who are deviant often do things for attention, because doing such is the easiest way to stand out amongst the crowd. Some deviances are positive, but mostly negative and the breaching experiments allows the student to first hand experience the reactions of people in how they deal with someone who has interacted with them diviantly.

In this paper I’m writing about a violation i witness, and one norm violation i committed myself. Before I did this I had to figure what a norm was. “Norms are reality expectations and the right behavior” (Aiken, 1991, p.121). Avoiding a norm violation is to go against the right behavior that you shouldn’t commit if it isn’t the right thing to do. There are many types of norm violations you can break. Mores are the “Norms are very strict to enforce because they are thought different essential to the core values of the group” (Aiken, 1991, p. 132). A folkway is a “norm that isn’t as strict and enforced as mores or values” (Aiken, 1991, p. 136). Norms aren’t the same everywhere, because behaviors that might be legal to do in the United States can be illegal in other countries and they can get offended if you disrespect them. Cultures are a very big thing when it comes to being respectful and disrespectful when it comes to a perspective of behavior. This is due to different type of cultural systems because in the United States we will accept some norm violations but in another country they might find it offensive. Values are considering standards in which people define what is desirable, and undesirable, and also good, or evil, and gorgeous from hideous. When people accept our values in the right behavior, that’s when we approach them with a smile and a handshake, or even better we can approach them with a present. When norms are violated we become angry and disappointed, so

The norm that I violated originally was , I pretended to have a strange addiction to deodorant. What i had done was, I got a brand new bottle of deodorant and took it all out. And cleaned and washed the bottle until there was none left. I then got foil and lined the bottom of the bottle so I would be able to put melted white chocolate chips in the bottle

This week’s assignment included observing a group of two or more people in a casual setting. The setting in which I was able to observe was a hospital cafeteria while waiting for my daughter’s doctor’s appointment. It was just after the lunch rush and there were many different groups of people.