Breaking Social Norms
In today’s world we are given a list of social norms we feel compelled to follow as a society. Social norms are the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society (YourDictionary). Norms typically change over time due to several different factors and reasons throughout generations. Over the past two days I have spent my time breaking the norm of giving personal space by sitting extremely close to strangers and documenting the people’s reactions while doing so.
In my experiment I went up to several different types of people and broke the barriers of personal space. I would go up to random strangers in places such as the library, park benches and coffee shops and sit as close to them as I could, …show more content…
When I would get extremely close to a male, I tended to observe that they thought I was hitting on them or that I was trying to make some sort of advancement towards them. For instance, I had one male stand up quickly and say, “I have a girlfriend!” With females on the other hand, I tended to get confused looks as to if they were trying to figure out where they knew me from. I also got very weird glances as if I was some sort of crazy woman. All of the results were similar in the fact that every person encountered was confused and wondering why someone was in such close proximity to them. Some of these reactions given left me feeling stupid and very weird. Had this not been for a class assignment I would have definitely been left feeling like an outcast or just plain awkward.
In conclusion, this experiment opened my eyes to see just how heavily we use social norms as guidelines for our society. We, as a society, have created social norms and expect ourselves and others to follow. It was interesting to see such strange reactions to a small change like just sitting a little too close to someone. There are no formal punishments for breaking these norms; however, it is quite the show when you do so. If you take a step back and look at the norms in different generations compared to ours, you can see just how we have changed and developed over
In today’s world we are given a list of social norms we feel compelled to follow as a society. Social norms are the rules of behavior that are considered acceptable in a group or society (YourDictionary). Norms typically change over time due to several different factors and reasons throughout generations. Over the past two days I have spent my time breaking the norm of giving personal space by sitting extremely close to strangers and documenting the people’s reactions while doing so.
In my experiment I went up to several different types of people and broke the barriers of personal space. I would go up to random strangers in places such as the library, park benches and coffee shops and sit as close to them as I could, …show more content…
When I would get extremely close to a male, I tended to observe that they thought I was hitting on them or that I was trying to make some sort of advancement towards them. For instance, I had one male stand up quickly and say, “I have a girlfriend!” With females on the other hand, I tended to get confused looks as to if they were trying to figure out where they knew me from. I also got very weird glances as if I was some sort of crazy woman. All of the results were similar in the fact that every person encountered was confused and wondering why someone was in such close proximity to them. Some of these reactions given left me feeling stupid and very weird. Had this not been for a class assignment I would have definitely been left feeling like an outcast or just plain awkward.
In conclusion, this experiment opened my eyes to see just how heavily we use social norms as guidelines for our society. We, as a society, have created social norms and expect ourselves and others to follow. It was interesting to see such strange reactions to a small change like just sitting a little too close to someone. There are no formal punishments for breaking these norms; however, it is quite the show when you do so. If you take a step back and look at the norms in different generations compared to ours, you can see just how we have changed and developed over