Social Breaching Experiment

My first test of my experiment was in a convenience store. I walked in; whispering hello and proceeded to grab a cup of coffee. In my whispering voice I asked a female employee about the coffee lids and interacted with the lady at the register. I observed that in both instances the females would lean

Throughout the course of two weeks, I observed my fellow classmate Stacy Kydd while using empirical observation. Right off the bat, Stacy appeared to be introverted. For instance, during the bridge exercise, Stacy was one of the last people to participate. When she was left with just a few other girls, her face appeared flushed. She seemed to get embarrassed easily. This led me to believe that Stacy is not only introverted, but also timid and shy. In addition, when decided whether or not to cross she seemed apprehensive as well. Eventually when we were pushing the seats back into their original positions, she pushed mine for me. When I looked up surprised, her cheeks turned pink. When I whispered to her to say thanks, she smiled back shyly.

The Social Penetration Theory is an explanation by two communication theorists, Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor. This theory attempts to explain how relational closeness develops. Since we all have hundreds of different relationships, with thousands of different people during our lifetime, it is an important theory to study and understand.

Identify behavioral changes that result from the presence of others. Why does the presence of others produce changes in our level of performance or awareness?

I decided to commit a norm that involved interacting with strangers as I went to several stores by myself and just randomly say hello to individual’s I walked by or had a close radius to. I began my experiment at a local grocery store and began to say hi to people as I randomly walked around in the store. I started walking around the store and stumbled upon some young girls from about the age of 15 or 16 and said hello while walking by the young girls as they just proceeded looked at me smiled and say hello back once they responded to me they quickly walked away and seemed like they began to avoid me. After saying hello to the young girls I than went ahead and said hello to a more elderly woman who looked like she was about in her 50. At the moment she was looking for a item off the shelf as I proceeded to walk towards her, I said hello and her reaction was not out of the normal she responded with a hello and then stopped me before I could walk out of the aisle to ask me if we have met before in a confused

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.

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.

Naturalistic observation involves recording subjects' naturally occurring behavior while they are in their natural environment. This experiment revolves around this type of observation. Specifically, it involves the observation of the various human dyads (male-female, male-male, female-female,) social interaction, within in a public environment. Focal points of observation included conversation space (distance between individuals heads,), and body language.

This paper will detail the account of an observation of human interaction. It will include a brief description of the location, the setting, emotional atmosphere, the demographics of the people being observed and various other pertinent details. I will focus on and describe behaviors and interactions between the participants. In the paper I will also identify the unwritten rules of social interaction as they apply to the situation. The information gathered during the observation will be used to draw conclusion about the specific social interaction and how it may relate to all social interactions in general.

Secondly, being an individual member of a larger crowd has been shown to inhibit helping behavior. Levine (1999) discuses this “audience inhibition and diffusion of responsibility” (p. 1135) in his analysis of bystander nonintervention. In three separate experiments by Latane and Darley (1969) these effects were demonstrated and it was determined that “[p]eople are less likely to take a socially responsible action if other people are present than if they are alone (p.259). They further state that due to the different types of situations tested that the same process must occur in real life as well (p.

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

     We started by observing what happened when one of us went up to a stranger and sat abnormally close to them while they were studying at the library. We did this numerous times and with different genders of people to obtain different types of responses. The group and I went even further as to go up and hug random people. Needless to say that they were surprised and were left confused and uncomfortable. We did all of this while videotaping them so we could document the reactions of each.

I noticed a woman in the seafood department looking over the selection of first. I walked toward here and got within one foot of touching her and said, “Hello” even though she saw me approaching, she jumped back as if she was startled. I continued to try to get closer to her as I asked which fish her thought was good. She walked to the other side of the shopping cart and put it between us. While I tried to be courteous and cheerful and non-threating, I couldn’t help but feel as though this woman was a little bit scared. She didn’t know how to react to my actions of wanting closes and closer proximity for our conversation. I also tried this experiment at my apartment complex. I went outside to the courtyard this afternoon and walked by a line of par benches. An older lady, perhaps someone’s grandmother, was sitting and watching the kids play in the sand box. I purposely sat down right beside this woman, almost touching her leg with mine. She jumped up and let out a small scream. I had frightened her. I slide over and apologized for my action. I went on to comment on “What a gorgeous day it was and how cute the kids were. This was a hard experiment to perform. People naturally want to keep their “Me space.” I found it hard to violate this space on both

Audience Inhibition: The tendency for people to perform differently when in the presence of others than when alone.

Students taking part in the study thought they were taking part in a marketing study for a game. When the receptionist greeted the participants she informed them she would be next door while they signed the questionnaires. The receptionist produced much noise as possible in order for the participants to hear her; she shuffled paper and slammed drawers. Out of nowhere a big collapse was heard, which resulted in her screaming asking for help. Those who were in a condition with others were less helpful than when participants were alone. Participants blamed inhibition for not helping because others would not show any action. The behaviors of others influence one’s own behavior in the process of deciding to help or not. People are more influenced by others than what they think. This can be a negative factor as society acts on others actions it can make people become passive. The presence of others tends to decrease responding to a situation. Those who are alone are rated hire to respond to a situation compared to those who are in a group (Shotland & Heinold, 1985).When other bystanders are aware of one another the bystander group results in no help at all towards the victim.