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Analyzing Stanley Milgram's Violation Of A Social Norm

1061 Words5 Pages

Many people can say they were taught at a very young age by parents the appropriate way to "behave" in certain situations. For example, horsing around in church, screaming in restaurants, throwing tantrums in stores, etc., are things your mother might have called "misbehaving" or "unacceptable behavior", but sociologists call such abnormal behavior, Social Norms. Social Norms are defined as, “the accepted behavior that an individual is expected to conform to in a particular group, community, or culture.” The social science experiment I correlated involved the violation of a social norm, while I documented the reactions of local observers for doing something classified as “unusual behavior” or “not normal” in society. I eported the reactions …show more content…

It taught me a lot more about social norms that I thought I couldn’t understand before. I got to see firsthand how social norms play effect in society, how it works, and shaping individual’s lives. I learned that people will react, although it might be different then what you expected. Behavior changed, personalities changed but overall society changes. I gathered understanding, but I also felt challenged. In the reading, about Stanley Milgram. Milgram conducted a study about, “procedure for the study of destructive obedience in the laboratory (Milgram 1).” Overall, Milgram wanted to investigate “obedience”, authority acts for the genocide killings of WW11, were they just following orders. Our behavior is under the control of these social norms, or unwritten rules that society follows just as that of Milgram’s Obedience experiment. Social norms are shared by members of different cultures, groups and communities about how to behave. It was a challenge for me not to behave in a certain aspect, how I was taught. The difference between my challenge and that of the participants on the Holocaust was they served to make vivid tragic conclusion, by obedience. Milgram says this, “I would tell them to stop looking at individual responsibility and start looking at social institutions. I’d ask them to examine the conditions that take responsibility away from people, and let them regard others as a species apart.” The connection between the experiment and the reading, “Michael Brown, Ferguson, Missouri…”brought light about society rules. This online article talks about the issues in America about African American culture v. Law enforcement, and before I didn’t look too much into both perspectives until I recorded the discomfort people felt when I didn’t follow society’s rules. I definitely think that if I was to conduct this

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