Breaking Social Norms In Psychology

Improved Essays
Breaking a Social Norms Analysis
In society we have these strict expectations that influence our behaviors. Such expectations can change depending on how you were raised, but society plays an important role in it as well. Each one of us has a part in these social roles, and we can change, social roles and our own behaviors in order to fit in. Social norms are rules which are laid out for us and are guidelines for our behavior that we choose. Most of the time these norms help us understand and anticipate what people will do. In a society like ours, we need social norms to appropriately make sense of peoples actions.
My assignment in psychology was to violate a social norm. Just thinking about this task makes me feel uncomfortable and it's

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    are learnt through socialisation. Socialisation is talking to other people. There are two types; primary socialisation which occurs in the family and is the first form of socialisation encountered, and secondary socialisation which progresses beyond the family in various social settings such as nursery, school, and work. Therefore, norms (how people are expected to behave) are created. People are expected to have the right values and beliefs.…

    • 2777 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Grocery Shopping Norm Invading someone’s personal space, shaking hands when you meet someone, and saying “thank you” when someone does something nice for you are all examples of social norms that most people practice. A social norm is a rule of behavior that is expected or considered acceptable in a group or society. From early childhood, we are taught many different social norms on how to act in a given environment or situation. Although most people follow the same social norms, some people do not.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I learned that breaking social norms is frowned upon by society very much. Societal norms are so set when an individual steps outside of those norms he/she is looked at as an outsider who should know better and follow the rules. Some social norms can be broken depending on sanction. For example, church is a formal sanction, there may be members that begin to shout or break out into dance in response to the feeling that overwhelms them from the music or the message that the minister may be preaching as opposed to when a person in a classroom setting he/she cannot just get up and start dancing or yelling across the classroom because the setting is different and the person will be looked as someone who is going against what it's supposed to be…

    • 552 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I have always had a bad habit of violating social norms whether it be raising my hand to use the bathroom, making loud noises in public, being completely silent when near close friends, or holding the door open at in awkward distance, or in awkward positions. One of my favorite social norms to break has always been awkward eye contact, or when someone else is staring at me, male or female I wink. I enjoy making people feel uncomfortable and violating social norms is the easiest way to do this, it is also the only way to do this. I had to do some thinking of a social norm that I could go against that I already do not break that often, and when I think I tend to fidget with whatever is in my hand. When I started my “Act of Deviance” I was originally just fidgeting with a pen in sociology, and then Lydia Cook started and…

    • 647 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Violating Social Norms (or: The Most Uncomfortable Elevator Ride of My Life) Upon completing this assignment, I have come to the conclusion that trying to violate a social norm on purpose is actually difficult and takes calculation, whereas accidentally doing it is so much easier. I chose to model my violation of a social norm off of the famous elevator groupthink experiment from the 1960s that has to do with conformity and ‘peer pressure’. I use to do this when I was a kid with my friends at the mall. We would have a high success rate, partly because there were about six of us.…

    • 798 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Chestnut Hill College Rachael K. Becht UEPS 250 Social Psychology PDE #2 PDE 2 For this assignment, I was asked to break a social norm. Social norms are rules that govern our behavior or the way we act or how we should behave. These social norms are what clarifies what is acceptable and what is not in society. The social science experiment I conducted involved me violating a social norm and observing the reactions I would get from those around me, for doing something out of the norm, according to society’s standards.…

    • 459 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Breaking Social Norm

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Breaking a social norm might seem easy, yet when it’s time to actually break it it’s nerve wracking. On a Wednesday afternoon around 1:30, Jerry and I lunched at Chili’s located in Miami Gardens. Approximately, there were about 12-15 observers not including the waiters. Because the bar area was the most crowded area in the restaurant, I decided to lunch there. Majority of the population were African-American male and female, yet there were a couple of white observers.…

    • 843 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Breaking A Social Norm

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Pages

    How people react towards someone who breaks an everyday society’s idea of a social norm can vary in many different ways all depending on the situation, the people surrounding the incident and who is breaking the norm. I, wearing pajamas in public setting such as the mall, my mother office, in my neighborhood and general popular places around town caused many to quite surprising reactions from my peers, family, strangers and friends. Sometimes people’s reactions are quite subtle and they tend not to show any interest in a change of action at all. However, at other times a person reaction to an alteration in the social norm can be quite large and exaggerated. Walking in public settings in a town that I grew up in (e.g. shopping centre, squares,…

    • 181 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Breaking A Social Norm

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages

    When adventuring on this homework assignment of breaking a social norm I thought a lot about what kind of norm I wanted to break. This norm could not end up with someone fighting me or me fighting someone not approving of my decisions. The norm I decided to break was to have an animated conversation with myself in public. The idea came from the idea that sometimes you talk to yourself in your head to figure situations. In my personal experiences I talk to myself outloud but in the privacy of my room.…

    • 299 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Norm Violation: Social Observations and My Experiment Everyone in our society has rules and different guidelines they follow and cannot break. Many people like following the rules and their guidelines because they feel like if they don’t have any rules or guidelines to follow, without them they would be acting differently and breaking several rules. In my sociology class, we were all given the Norm Violation project, at first, I didn’t know what it was or what to do because I didn’t know what was a norm. A norm is like following rules something that you know everyone does and expect everyone to do it the same way; it’s like everyone eats cereal with a spoon, you shake hands with your right hand when you meet someone new, you stop when there is a red light and you go when it’s green. They are just things that you expect people to do or know.…

    • 1388 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Breaking A Social Norm

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Why am I so reluctant to do this? These are all questions I asked myself when I first got assigned this project. The first few had answers that I could look up in a textbook. Social Norms are rules that are set by society telling you what behavior is acceptable in a certain group. Let’s pretend that you are meeting someone for the first time.…

    • 1198 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    As I was violating this social norm, I felt strange and out of place. I had a lot of awkward encounters that day and i think it was because i normally don't stop and start talking to strangers or greet them by using hand gestures. Normally if someone smiles or says hi, i smile back or say or hi and then we both go our separate ways. With this experiment, I would have to stop and greet them in an unusual and personal way.…

    • 217 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Brown (2011, p.8) Discuss the application of basic concepts in sociological explanation, using appropriate examples. (2.1) Social norms are the behaviours within a society or group of people. Norms are usually unwritten rules, which social groups live by. Many norms are learned behaviours that are passed down from generation to generation.…

    • 1122 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ymca Observation

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In my first observation I decided to go to the YMCA and look at different areas in the building. I went during 2-3pm on Saturday and 12-1pm on Sunday. On Saturday I visited the gym where I saw a plethora of kids playing basketball and a few adults playing by themselves with the occasional group of teens loitering by the courts. On Sunday, however, I visited the weightlifting room where I saw, essentially everyone lifting either with a partner or alone. Although, in the weightlifting room People’s age ranged from a teen to senior citizen.…

    • 291 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    By learning the norms of a groups social context, people form negative attitudes. Social norms are unwritten rules about how a group or individual should behave (Amodio & Devine, 2006). Social norms gives us expectation of how people in a certain group should behave and these groups can range from work groups to friendship group (Amodio & Devine, 2006). Norms defines behavior for every social group. For example, kids in school are aware of the norms that governs their behavior.…

    • 1191 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays