Social Norm Transgressions

“Etiquette is all human social behavior. If you’re a hermit on a mountain, you don’t have to worry about etiquette; if somebody comes up the mountain, then you’ve got a problem…” This quote from American journalist, Judith Martin, illustrates the concept that the presence of others creates or inspires expectations. Social norms, or specific cultural expectations for how to behave in a given situation, are practiced throughout various societies and cultures across the planet. People relay on social norms to provide order and predictability in social situations. Social roles are the part people play as members of a social group. With each social role one plays, the behavior changes to fit the expectations both you and others have of that role. It is most common for people to conform to the guidelines provided by the roles we perform. When one does not conform to the social norms, it is considered abnormal behavior. For this assignment, I faced the challenge to disregard expectations of social roles and norms in society.

Misfit. Rebel. Troublemaker. These are all names that may be given to people who go against the social norm. According to Andersen, Taylor, and Logio, the authors of Sociology: The Essentials, norms are defined as the specific cultural expectations for how to act in a given situation (2016). When someone disrupts the expectations, they commit a norm violation and may display deviant behavior. Since norms are so automatically built into our everyday lives, the rules of social interaction can be subtle and may be imperceptible to the people who participate in them. Therefore, sociologists often purposefully commit a norm violation in order to study what the rules or norms are. This approach, known as ethnomethodology, interprets society as being

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.

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.

Every society and culture has their own societal norms. These norms distinguish what kind of behavior people are expected to engage in. When a person behaves in a way that violates a particular society’s norms and a percentage of that society looks down upon that behavior, that person’s behavior would be classified as deviant (textbook 1). For example it is a societal norm in the United States for adult men to be employed, so people expect them to be employed. If a 30 year old male does not have a job, then people in his society would look upon him negatively, and the 30 year old would be categorized as a deviant.

Part One: Teenagers do not like to dress up and where ties. They like to make fun of people that dress up for no reason. My social norm that I am breaking is to dress up in fancy clothes. I am going to do this by go to school one random day and just dressing up for no reason and see how people react to that. Then I am going to go to Mcdonalds with some friends, that are dressed normally.

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

There was forever a peculiarity that I was not blind to, a certain strangeness that grew increasingly and often times embarrassingly pronounced the more I became aware of the rigors of social norms. His whole existence spoke of an inner duality, a cosmic unbalance that resulted in his inherent oddity.

We live in a world where we are defined and judged by our every detail. It does not matter if it is our race, religion, gender, sexuality, or economic status, people are always ready to make inaccurate conclusions of who we are. The problem with this is that over time it has made our society fill with hatred, leading to certain groups feeling as if they are superior to others. Minorities have been oppressed and and discriminated against with barely any hope for the future. As a result, it is up to people worldwide to come together and fight for the right of equality.

The norms of a culture are the rules that govern behavior. Norms define what behavior is required, accepted, or prohibited in particular circumstances and provide cues regarding how we should act—what people “ought to do” in their daily routine. Because there are cultural norms in society ideas about how we should behave, dress, think, etc. We generally have to meet the expectations of others that we will conform to these norms. Break a norm in public and judge the reactions of others.

According to William Graham Sumner there are three categories of Norms; folkway, mores and laws. Norms are standards or guides for behavior that are expected in society. Mores are behaviors that have extreme punishments when broken and laws if broken have mild consequences. Folkways are a norm that is expected but not enforced and this is the kind of norm I have been tasked to break. For a sociology project is was expected of me to break a social norm to explain how sociology effects daily life.

ciety has molded us to be or act a certain way, this all sdepends where we are in the world. For example in the United States it is considered completely normal for a women to show skin like their legs, arms, stomach, and chest while in some Islamic states, were it is considered a social value for women are not allowed to show any form of skin whether its legs, arms, and sometimes their face. One’s own society norms, values, and sanctions vary depending where you are geographically in the world as well as your status in your society. I witnessed many norm violations being done on a daily basis and did a couple myself. In every class of individuals one establishes their values which help create their norms while creating negative and positive

When one goes to college you are expected to socialize and make friends. The media portrays college as a new experience where students should engage in opportunities outside of their comfort zone. Being at UCLA is such an accomplishment because individuals like myself who are from low socio-economic backgrounds are often not expected to get this far. However for many Caucasian folks, going to college is what is expected.

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.

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.