Breaking Social Norm Essay

For my second experiential learning assignment, I decided to break a social norm while going out to eat with my family at a restaurant: granted this is something I have a habit of doing but the reaction I got from my dining mates was particularly interesting this time. To give a little bit of background of the setting I was in at the time, I was with my mother, younger brother, and my mother’s friend at a restaurant in DC for my birthday dinner. The restaurant was crowded, but not many people were paying attention to what we were doing. The behavior I decided to break was dipping my fingers in the container caramel was in and then proceeded lick my fingers after doing so. I choose to break this social norm because one, the caramel sauce was really good, and two I was testing to see if my mother would say anything: normally on my birthday she lets me get away with

Firstly, a norm is defined as rules that regulate social life, including explicit laws and implicit cultural standards. This relates to the particular experiment because the whole point was to break one of these norms and see the ripple effect it had on the people around me. Another term is attitude, which is defined as a relatively stable opinion containing beliefs and emotional feelings about a topic. This has to do with the experiment because My mother, who had the biggest reaction when I broke the norm, and I have different attitudes when it comes to proper etiquette and it is something that is apparent in our behaviors when out and my mother’s role in trying to make me conform to being proper when in public. Going off of that, conformity is defined as the tendency people have to act and think like members of the group. This has to do with the experiment, because all social norms are used as vessels to make people act and think the same, and if you break them you are looked down upon by