Social Norms At H. E. B Grocery Store

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. People who do not follow social norms may be considered “weird” or may face humiliation or even punishment. In order to observe other’s reaction to a violated social norm, I decided to conduct my breaching experiment at H.E.B grocery store. Some of the possible reactions that I expected to get from others are confusion or even anger. …show more content…
So, I decided to walk over to the lady’s shopping cart and take a bag of chips out of her cart, while she was looking. I placed the bag of chips in my cart and said “thank you” as I smiled. While she was still holding the cell phone up to her ear, she paused with a shock and disbelieved look on her face, and pushed her basket quickly to get away from me. After my experiment, I told the lady I was conducting a breaching experiment for school, she then laughed and smiled with a sigh of relief. She said “I thought that you had a mental problem for shopping out of my cart or that you was just crazy. That’s why I didn’t say anything to