Dr. Barnhardt’s Psych 107 Assignment: Social Norm Violation
Due: Monday, April 2nd, in class
This assignment is worth TWO points. Remember, all assignments must be typed.
The purpose of this assignment is to expand your understanding of social
norms.
In general, your task in this assignment is to violate a social norm and then
to write a brief description of the experience. DO NOT DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL,
CRIMINAL, OR HARMFUL TO YOURSELF OR TO OTHERS. A good rule of thumb: If you
aren't sure whether your proposed violation is legal, then it probably is not.
It is not enough to act "silly" or "stupid" to violate a norm.
Your description should be no more than 1 and 1/2 pages in length. It should
include the following information.
(1) What is a norm?
(2) What is the specific norm that you were attempting to violate?
(3) What did you do?
(4) In what way did this constitute a violation of the norm?
(5) How did you feel while violating this norm?
(6) How did others react to you? For this part of the assignment, you could
have someone else record the reactions of any witnesses to your norm violation
if it would be difficult to both violate the norm and observe the reactions of
others. Then you could use this information to help you with writing this part
of the assignment.
Here's a very brief example (without the definition). You cannot use this
violation for your assignment!
Yesterday, I rode in an elevator facing the "wrong" way; I had my back to the
door. This goes against a norm because everyone usually faces the doors of an
elevator, I guess so they can look at the number of the floor that the
elevator is on. There were a few other people on the elevator. At first, I
think that they thought that I was just getting on and was slow to turn
around. But then when I still faced the back of the elevator, they started
looking uncomfortable and wouldn't make eye contact with me. It felt a little
strange facing the wrong way, because I am used to facing the front of the
elevator. And it was strange to have all these people avoid me in such a small
space. But it was kind of fun too.