Norm Violation-Soc 111

Norm Violation A social rule is something that is often taken for granted and seldom discussed at great length. And, although we call it a rule, is not even really that. It’s more of a generally accepted standard for interactions. A social rule does not even have to span all of society but can instead be limited to smaller communities. One thing that many of these “rules” have in common is the reaction to them when they are broken. Many peoples’ whole days have been made, or broken, by others’ adherence to these social protocols. For this assignment I was asked to break one of these social rules and to report on the experience. I have a feeling that many people may have been hesitant when prompted to unexpectedly deviate from a social norm, I am happy to report that I am not one of these people. I have always enjoyed playing with these unwritten standards and was looking forward to this experiment. Just as I was picking which one I would do, my phone rang and made the decision for me. It was my sister on the other end and she was waiting for me to greet her in the normal fashion, with either a “Hello” or my most often used “Ey yo!”. I made it clear that I was on the phone by breathing a little louder on the mouthpiece, and I could hear hers, but there was a silence longer than normal, breaking another social rule of long awkward greetings. She finally greeted me with a questioning “Hello?” I believe that she may have actually been surprised to hear my jovial response finally leading us into our conversation. The lack of greeting on my end, where the social norm places responsibility in that situation, was an obvious “speed bump” that hindered the course of the conversation and, in fact, took precedence over it. Although I had expected my obvious faux-pas to be addressed I was a little surprised of the constant reaffirmations I had to give to prod the conversation forward, i.e. “No, I’m not mad” ”No, really”. It was clear that small breaks or deviances