Breaking Social Norms Essay

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In current society, social norms are an important aspect of culture. A social norm is an expected form of behavior in a given situation. Social norms include shaking hands when meeting someone, making eye contact when talking to others, and even the cultural standard to not burp in public. When social norms are broken on accident, a variety of reactions can occur. In order to break a social norm, certain characteristics are needed. For example, confidence, courage, and determination are needed to break a norm. A person must stand their ground during a seemingly awkward situation due to observers’ reactions to the event. On another hand, in current society, positive characteristics like compassion and helpfulness are practically stigmatized …show more content…
On the experimenter’s side, this day showed her the positive effects of being more compassionate. Also, it shows the difference in social norms for general days and the required acts for an experiment. This experiment highlights the almost overbearing stigma around being nice to others. This assignment allowed for the experimenter herself to see that the more compassionate she is the more positive characteristics make an appearance in her life. Behaving in a way different than what is perceived as normal or what is normal to a specific person will have psychological effects. For example, one cost would be the idea that not everyone has an aptitude for being compassionate and if someone like that tried and failed it would harm them. Also certain professional settings do not allow for open compassion due to the work. Compassion can lead to negative aspects like being taken advantage of or having first impressions that include characteristics that incorporate the ability to be overly nice and not have enough grit to stand up for themselves. Becoming more compassionate in general is a benefit because compassion allows people to connect on a deeper level. Practicing compassion can be positive psychologically because it allows people to help others and that can ignite more people to do the

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