Breaking Social Norms Assignment
To explore the power of social norms, you are invited to complete this participate-observation assignment.
Norms: generally accepted ways of doing things.
Your assignment is to violate a social norm in a safe and respectful way. For example, you should not do anything that breaks a law, disrupts a class or public event, involves sexual behavior or sexually explicit speech, hurts or threatens others, or includes taking or damaging other people’s property — such norm violations will result in a score of zero.
Examples:
• Sing loudly on a public bus, subway, or train.
• Position yourself six inches from an acquaintance’s nose during a conversation, consider
COVID restrictions.
• Stand on your chair in a restaurant and recite the national anthem.
• Continuously jump up and down while waiting in a check-out line at a grocery store.
• Get into an elevator that is crowded with strangers, and after the doors close, introduce
yourself to the group.
• Show up at a casual place in formal attire, or the opposite.
• Eat your soup with a fork at home in front of others.
• Say goodbye when you answer the phone.
• Stare at the ceiling in a busy place
• Hand someone a pencil when they didn’t ask for it.
• Eat vanilla pudding out of a mayonnaise jar.
• Order something unusual at a restaurant or drive-thru
Turn in a reflection of the norm you violated, the way you felt, and the reactions people had to you. Consider why it might be considered a norm or if the behaviour is acceptable elsewhere?
For example, you might describe whether the experience was uncomfortable, fun, liberating, scary, or something else. Or you might discuss the social psychology of other people’s reactions to you.
This assignment should be two – three pages, Times New Roman, 12 pt font, Double Spaced, APA formatted.
You may use first person and speak casually, however it should still have appropriate spelling and grammar.
