In this project, we were asked to violate a social norm in a

public setting and make observations on what we saw and how our

audience responded. The social norm that I chose to violate was

simply that of common courtesy. I decided to go to the mall and

walked around, bumping into random people and saying absolutely

nothing in apology. I simply bump into them and keep walking as

Norms are a very important part of society. In the book,

norms are defined as “the specific expectations about how people

behave in a given situation”. Without norms, a society has no

foundation on which to stand. It would have no, as the name

promotes, normalcy. Norms are what make a society unique.

Other concepts such as ethnocentrism also tie into how norms

affect a society. People who are ethnocentric often compare the

norms of their society with that of others and through this,

determine that their own society is superior. In contrast of

these ideas, I believe that all societies are normal according to

their owns norms, not the norms of others.

In doing my experiment, I expect many different kinds of

rections from people I encouter. I am

unique reaction. I walked past him and ran into his shoulder.

that common courtesy is a big norm in our society. People should

aggitated when i didn’t apologize for it and got a little loud

heard him for a second or two and a I guess he went about his

kept walking, which caught me quite off gaurd. I did not

first person i bumped into was a middle aged woman, white,

My experiment started at about twelve p.m., as soon as the

Some topics in this essay:
Taco Bell, Social Norm, Bell Subway, Mall August, kept walking, food court, norms society, common courtesy, social norm, walking happened, kept walking happened, people excuse surprised, doing experiment, own society, major reaction, society people,