Social Norm Breaching Experiment

For this assignment I didn’t really know of a good way to break a social way, so I picked the one from the example. Joining a conversation of someone you do not know is probably the easiest thing to do. It was time to determine where my observations would take place. I didn’t want to do it while people were walking to class. Most people are in a rush to go to class or occupied by there smart phones. So I decided to do it at one of the ASU dinning halls. The reason I picked a dinning hall is because I felt like it would be easier to hold a conversation with someone sitting still than a person in motion.

Essentially Social Norms are implied rules that people automatically know to abide by and do not need to be told. Things ranging from not talking in church to not sleeping in class. Anything relating to that would be considered a social norm. A few theories related to breaking social norms are Social Impact Theory, Public Compliance and Normative Social Influence.

For my breaching social norm experiment I was determined to do something I would never do even if it was a dare, especially since my ability to interact with strangers is not the best. So, I decided to make people feel uncomfortable by holding their hand. What I would do is walk up to the person from behind and slowly make my way to their hand to make them feel even more uncomfortable. People normally hold hands with their significant other, or with someone they know like a friend or family member, so to be holding hands with a stranger is out of the ordinary and awkward.

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.

A social norm is a rule or behavior that is typically perceived as acceptable to a group of people or to a society. For example, some social norms may include: not invading someone’s personal space, facing the front in an elevator, or not chewing with your mouth open. Anyone who does not follow these “norms” may suffer some type of consequence for their action. For my breaching experiment I decided to break the social norm and go into the men’s bathroom and use the restroom.

For my breaching social norm experiment, I was determined to do something I would never do even if it was a dare, especially since my ability to interact with strangers is not what I consider advanced. So, I decided to make people feel uncomfortable by holding their hand. What I would do is walk up to the person from behind and slowly make my way to their hand to make them feel even more uncomfortable. People normally hold hands with their significant other, or with someone they know, like a friend or family member, so to be holding hands with a stranger is infrequent and abnormal.

I brainstormed and contemplated about what social norm I should break in order to achieve this assignment. I fathom the idea that some social norms and expectations would be quite difficult to accomplish. Surprisingly, without much thought I knew exactly what norm I wanted to break. I decided to break the well known concept that each gender must go to the restroom in their designated restroom area. I planned on starting the assignment by choosing a few public restrooms in which I would enter the men’s restroom. That particular behavior breaks a social norm because with most public restrooms; genders are separated by signs or names. Thus, there should be no reason why men or women end up going into the same restroom. I personally believe that

Experiment Description: Being a college student I am aware of just how asocial and isolated college students tend to be while on campus. My experiment consisted of sitting next to people, more specifically, searching for those who were sitting by themselves at a table with empty chairs surrounding them. After finding the best subjects I would then walk right up to their table without speaking and sit down right by them rather than on any of the several available chairs around them. I executed this experiment at the library located at Cal state Long Beach during lunch hours (12:15pm-1:00pm) meaning the library was usually crowded. I would look for someone sitting alone at a big table and would then go ahead and make

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.

Our breach experiment consisted of rudely breaking-up a group conversation, and capture their reaction to the breach, as well as note down the words that were expressed back. Namely, “informal” norms in this experiment were violated in our study. Informal norms are understood but not precisely recorded; for example, a student comes to school dressed in a monkey suit; making fun of the nonconforming student is usually the most likely response that student is going to receive by others (Schaefer 63). The target audience in our experiment was to approach a random group of students outside the lunch area at the MVC campus, “who happened to be male,” while they were having a conversation, and rudely drop in, and ask “what they were talking about?” When the initial breach took place, the reaction our group received was one of, why were we asking, why did we want to know, and who were we, as they looked at each other with confusion and taken aback.

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

Most individuals in society are conformist and make sure to stay in the loop. For my experiment, I decided to break the social norm of small talk in public restrooms. Everyone knows to go to the restroom, do their duty, wash your hands and go on your way. Individuals do not take the time to socialize while in the stall especially when someone is focused on not making too much noise. So, what I had done was start small talk with other women who would go into the stall next to me and even got a little personal which would cause embarrassment. With this in mind, I imagined girls would just simply ignore my comments or even ask me to leave them alone; also, older women would respond kinder than a teenager.

The title of this odd social experiment is Parental Permission. The title will make more sense once you become more familiar with the project. The aim of this project was to break an everyday social norm; a social norm is a set of rules or behaviors that are considered acceptable in society or among a group. As citizens of a society we all adhere to many social norms, a very common social norm is tipping a waiter or simply wearing clothes.

Relationships are like onions, they take time to open up and you have to peel layer by layer to get to the center. Life happens, people come and go and the relationships that are made happen over time. A relationship is built over prolonged exposure to someone and they do not happen over night. When you first meet a person most judge, they look at a person’s appearance, their behavior, and their overall attitude. But as time goes on and you get to know someone on a more personal level you learn whom he or she really is. This idea is called the social penetration theory. Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor established the social penetration theory in 1973. They created this theory to have a better understanding of intimate relationships between two people. The social penetration theory is important to the communication process because it looks at how relationships develop and how over time relationships evolve from where they stared by self-disclosure. With the social penetration theory as the main focus and with the support from communication studies, this paper is assessing the formation of new relationships.

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.