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Examples Of Social Norms

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The social norms I decided to break were the unwritten rules of eye contact. In general, we all adhere to the descriptive norm of eye contact being normal. However, there is a fine line in the injunctive norms that tell us what is correct eye contact and what is incorrect. It is normal to look a person in the eye while in conversation; in fact, it is considered rude not too. In addition, there is the norm that tells us to break eye contact when a person has finished speaking and the conversation as stalled. The two specific acts I set out to do were, not look someone in the eye during conversation, and not break eye contact when the conversation has paused.
I was seated in a hallway while waiting for a class to start. A classmate arrived, …show more content…

I expected the outcome to be a little different because of the higher level of familiarity. While in conversation, I repeated the process as before. This time my observer noticed a physical reaction even though we were in a public setting. When I did not make eye contact during conversation my friend shifted as is to draw attention back to her, yet she made no noticeable negative feedback. When I switched to making silent eye contact, my friend would laugh and raise her eyebrows and even nod. I took this as an invitation to say whatever she thought I may want to say but was not. This reminded me of the reciprocity discussed on page 194. Because she was more interested in sharing open conversation, she disregarded social norms. She was expecting me to return that favor to her, at this point I felt my experiment had backfired.
I believe our familiarity affected the outcome because instead of feeling insulted by breaking social norms she went right along with me. This makes sense to me because the eye contact norm is more relevant with strangers and acquaintances. Spouses can sit in quiet eye contact for long periods without any uncomfortableness. From this is would conclude that looking another person in the eye is a personal act. The closer we are with a person the more we are comfortable with and why we are easily offended by the stranger’s silent eye

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