In society there are unwritten rules for how a person should behave and what is acceptable called social norms. Social norms help provide guidelines for how a person should act in a certain social group, situation or location. Social norms can also come in different forms such as, folkways, mores, taboos, and laws. Folkways are informal norms that could be violated without serious consequences such as wearing inappropriate clothes for a special occasion. Mores are strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations without serious consequences if broken. Taboos are strong mores and when violated it is extremely offensive. Laws are norms that are established and if violated can result in serious punishment such as jail time. With these unwritten rules and laws, we can better understand how people act and their reactions.
Social norms also serve as predictors, they can help predict how a person will behave and the actions they will use in the future according to the social norms for a situation or location. As seen before, social norms can also change from one group to another and can also evolve with time. Having these social norms within a society helps maintain order to live in a controlled environment and when people break social norms it can lead to judgment, being rejected from a social group, or even prison.
For this social norm breaking assignment, I chose to violate the appropriate way to behave in public settings by talking to myself and observing people’s reactions to it. This is out of the norm because people usually don’t talk to themselves in public settings and if they do, they are perceived as being crazy or mentally ill. The social norm that I chose to violate can be considered a folkway because the rules for behaving in a public environment go without saying and when violated it does not have any serious consequences. To violate this norm, I will be talking to myself in different public settings along with different topics I plan to talk about when I am talking to myself and observe people’s reactions such as facial expressions and body language.
When violating the norms of a public setting I believe that the people around will react in a negative way, give me dirty looks, stare, and talk about me to their peers. They could perceive me as being deviant, crazy, or to have mental problems. I predict that most of the reactions I will receive will be negative and people will judge me for my inappropriate behavior. People might even come up to me and ask if I am okay or if I need any help.
For this norm breaking assignment, I chose to violate this norm in two different public locations to gather more information and observations from people. The first location I chose was the school’s library and for the second location a chose a small coffee shop. I chose these locations because they both tend to be quiet and I wanted people to be able to clearly hear and see that I was talking to myself instead of violating this norm in a louder environment were people might not have noticed. The majority of the people that observed my deviant behavior were mostly college students and just your regular average member of society. The ages of these people ranged from young adults to middle age.
Before I performed this social norm violation, I thought of what subjects I would be talking about. I thought of casual conversations I would have as if I was talking to someone else. I wanted it to be clear that I was having a conversation as if I was with someone and see people’s reaction. The first location I went to test this norm breaking assignment was the Wichita State Library.
The library is always full of people and it tends to be quiet. I made sure to not bring anything with me and I sat down in the middle of the computer section were there were serval people around me. I sat in front of a computer and did not login in as people usually do and just stared into a blank computer screen and began to have a conversation. I began saying things that you would usually say to someone you were greeting such as “good morning, how has your day been?” and as soon as I even said anything, the people around gave me weird looks and stared at me which made things very uncomfortable. I heard whispers and I even heard someone say “shh”. Some people were staring at me and others tried hard not to look and ignore me. Others seemed unbothered by it and continued to do what they were doing. For the second location I decided to go to a small coffee shop called reverie.
When I got to the coffee shop, I ordered a coffee like I regularly do and sat down in one of the middle tables. I began talking to myself and saying similar things as I did in the library. I received similar reactions to my behavior, but I noticed at the coffee shop, people seemed a lot more bothered by it than in the library. In the library people stared and gave me funny looks but then ignored it and continued to do what they were doing but at the coffee shop people seemed to keep staring and talking about me the whole time I was talking to myself.
Before violating this social norm, I was extremely nervous and I did not want people to think I was crazy. I couldn’t get myself to go alone and do the assignment so I asked one of my friends if she could come with me and just observe from a distance. She also helped me gather information on people’s reactions if I missed anything. I felt out of place and wanted to leave as soon as I began talking to myself because I knew this was out of the social norm and this is not how a person is supposed to behave in a public environment.
Most of my predictions were correct, people reacted in a negative way towards my deviant behavior. They stared, looked at me funny, and whispered to their peers. It was hard to break this norm because I received such negative reactions right away and it was hard to continue with it. It made me feel very uncomfortable because I didn’t know what people were saying about me, I just knew that they were talking about me. What I learned from this social norm breaking assignment is that social norms within a society are important to maintain order and stability. For every situation or location there are norms that people must follow to prevent them from being judged and ridiculed.
I also realized that I care a lot about what people say and by violating this norm I felt out of my comfort zone. I felt so uncomfortable and out of place that after I was done with my assignment, I explained to some other the people around me that I was doing this for a school project and they were all very understanding and it made me feel a lot better.
