Social Norm violation.
Norm violation exercise This assignment will make you more aware of the salience of the social norms which control our daily life. It is designed to encourage you to become more critically aware of your social environment. In the sea of norms in which we live, many norms governing behavior are followed so automatically that we have no conscious knowledge of them. The constraining nature of social norms is not perceived as long as one obeys. Norms are not all equally strict, nor do they all carry the same severity of sanctions. It is only when one attempts to do otherwise — to be deviant — that we become very aware of the existence of social forces. Some of the norms we take for granted are specific; for example, couples are expected to identify themselves as committed to one another, otherwise an unsuspecting single person might define the people as unattached and believe one of them is being flirtatious rather than just friendly. Other norms are vaguely defined; for example, friends are expected to be friendly, but there are no clear rules about what and when they should be doing to demonstrate their friendliness. If you believe that conducting this experiment may cause injury to yourself in some way, please contact me right away (within one week of the assignment being posted) to discuss an alternative project/ paper. Description of Assignment You must spend some time exploring your own culture. Your goal is to break an informal social norm in front of others, observe reactions (of others — as well as your own), and use this data to discuss the impact of culture and social structure on our lives. This means that you must violate a folkway. Behaving out of the norm for you, as an individual specifically, does not constitute breaking a folkway!! Folkways are general expectations of behavior that are widely accepted, not simply matters of personal expression or style. Do NOT break any laws!! You can learn a lot from small acts of non-normative behavior. Feel free to break a folkway in a kind way (e.g. give away money to strangers). You may learn more from doing something that seems innocuous than from doing something that is obviously going to create a great deal of extra work for someone else (e.g. if a store-keeper reacts negatively to you making a mess that s/he will have to clean up – that is not an interesting finding!). Please keep in mind that this is not an invitation to be deceitful, harass, “punk”, or otherwise emotionally, psychically, or physically injure other/s. You should conduct your experiment (the same experiment – not different or modified ones) at least two times with different audiences; note — this may vary depending on the norm you violate. You will want to violate the same folkway in 3 different settings to test the impact of social structure on people’s behaviors and feelings. While conducting the breach, try to keep your mind free of expectations and take the opportunity to explore the social world. As you break the norm notice how others respond to this break in normal daily behavior.