In this particular writing assignment, each student was apprised to ponder on a small traditional social norm and defy it in the simplest of ways, and then follow by observing the reactions of the audience. The reasoning behind this assessment is to give individuals a relatively modest sense of deviance and to prove that social norms are primarily symbolic. This also allows us to see that deviance is not always negative, but different than was is traditionally expected. I personally broke the common idea of feeling comfortable in your own home and observing the reactions portrayed by my immediate family and friends, which then led to utter confusion.
As previously stated in the introduction, I violated the social norm of feeling comfortable …show more content…
This resulted in ambivalent feelings toward my “sense of self”, thought of by Charles Cooley’s Looking Glass Self. It made me question as to why excessive politeness ever became an abnormality to begin with. For example, as it was stated in lecture, deviance is not a result of an action, per se, but the reaction of others to that particular action. In the midst of doing this assignment I saw that to be quite evident, because were as I felt singled out for doing wrong, I knew there was no harm being done. The experiment as a whole showed me how powerful social norms and behaviors have become and how deeply ingrained they are in our society today for no know reason. Which brings me to my final question, why do people keep from breaking social norms if they are not causing any detrimental …show more content…
I personally tend to stray away from breaking norms in order to avoid drawing attention to myself, and as a bashful and repressed woman, being in prominence has become one of my worst nightmares. Another possible reason as to why most individuals try to keep from breaking social norms is to rise in social status, which then can result in other benefits. For instance, deviance and capitalism are correlated with the people of high social status. In the outline it shows us that, in having high social status, you can get away with multiple criminal acts, such as white collar crimes, that would send the typical human being behind bars. This allows us to be more of a “thrill-seeker” knowing that high society will serve us with a more lenient
As previously stated in the introduction, I violated the social norm of feeling comfortable …show more content…
This resulted in ambivalent feelings toward my “sense of self”, thought of by Charles Cooley’s Looking Glass Self. It made me question as to why excessive politeness ever became an abnormality to begin with. For example, as it was stated in lecture, deviance is not a result of an action, per se, but the reaction of others to that particular action. In the midst of doing this assignment I saw that to be quite evident, because were as I felt singled out for doing wrong, I knew there was no harm being done. The experiment as a whole showed me how powerful social norms and behaviors have become and how deeply ingrained they are in our society today for no know reason. Which brings me to my final question, why do people keep from breaking social norms if they are not causing any detrimental …show more content…
I personally tend to stray away from breaking norms in order to avoid drawing attention to myself, and as a bashful and repressed woman, being in prominence has become one of my worst nightmares. Another possible reason as to why most individuals try to keep from breaking social norms is to rise in social status, which then can result in other benefits. For instance, deviance and capitalism are correlated with the people of high social status. In the outline it shows us that, in having high social status, you can get away with multiple criminal acts, such as white collar crimes, that would send the typical human being behind bars. This allows us to be more of a “thrill-seeker” knowing that high society will serve us with a more lenient