Social Norms And Deviance Essay

For this assignment, we were instructed to become deviant by publicly violate a minor societal norm. An action does not need to be criminal or rude to be deviant and can range from picking your nose in public to walking strangely in a crowd. Our society regulates what a normal behavior is, as well as the seriousness of varying acts of deviant behavior that goes against the norms. Norms and deviance change with the social context in which they are practiced. We were given this assignment in order to better understand the symbolic nature of actions in our society and the various interpretations associated with them. Although my act of deviance was minor, it did help to better understand the concept.
For my deviant act, I violated the norm of …show more content…
While I actually violated the norm, I became even more uncomfortable with the act. I became more aware of myself as well as the people around me and became self-conscious. I am a highly introverted person, and I do not like to draw attention to myself. This assignment went against that and made me very uncomfortable. I also felt uncomfortable in a motion sickness type of way. When I was moving up or down without seeing where I was going, I felt somewhat light-headed and started shaking. My nervousness and anxiety undoubtedly exacerbated this feeling, and I was glad when it was over. As can be assumed, I have never purposefully broken a social norm.
I have always followed most social norms in public in order to not stand out negatively, and if I ever accidently violated a norm, I always felt awkward and embarrassed. Being an introvert, my fear of drawing unwanted attention to myself has been the main reasons for me to follow the social norms in public. Admittedly, I am also paranoid to some extent that something bad will happen if I break certain norms in a certain situation, like a wrong place, wrong time situation. Despite my tendencies, I understood the purpose of these activity and begrudging did to