Breaking A Social Norm
In normal sense, norms are basically something that has an authoritative standard. According to my textbook that is "Sociology of Modules" by Richard Schaeffer, norms are the established standards of behavior maintained by a society (Schaeffer 2018, 61). Norms are followed by everyone in our day to day life in our society. But for my research paper, I was supposed to break a social norm. The result of breaking a norm was pretty interesting and funny.
Norms are not always compulsory. It depends on the situation, time and person's own way of accepting or declining norms. Anyways, Norms are of different types also. Main three are informal, formal and folkways. Informal laws are generally understood but not precisely recorded (Schaeffer 2018,61). Formal laws are norms that generally have been written down and specify strict punishments for violators (Schaeffer 2018, 61). Folkways are informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated without serious consequences within a particular culture (Sumner, 1959/1906). The norm I broke was actually a folkway norm which we use for daily life.
Norm varies from society to society, place to place and even from one country to country. The norm which is so valuable to one society …show more content…
can be very normal to another. Let me explain this. So I am originally from another country called Bangladesh. All my life I lived in a city. But when I was a little kid I went to visit a village with my parents. That village had little stalls on the roadside which are called 'tong' in a native language. Those stalls used to sell tea, cookies and refreshments kind of stuff. Mainly those are famous for selling tea. One day when I was passing through one of those stalls and I saw people are having tea in a very weird way. They had a teacup and saucer set in their hand. They poured the tea into the saucer from their cup and drank it from the saucer with a very disturbing slurping sound. As an outsider, coming from a city, for me it was really disturbing, weird and funny at the same time. But for those native villagers, it was their regular social norm. So, even after living in the same country social norms are different in cities and villages.
Now, let's talk about the norm I broke for my research paper. I was thinking about ideas for the paper. Initially, so many ideas were in my mind but I wanted something really interesting. Last Friday I went to a small get-together party of family and friends. Everyone was served coffee. I was having my coffee too. Suddenly, I had an idea on my mind. Why don't I do an experiment of breaking norm here? There were many people. I would get some reactions too. I remembered about my childhood experience from the village how people were having tea in that village.
So, I started pouring my coffee to a saucer and started drinking from it.
Everyone was busy with themselves. To grab some attention I started drinking from saucer along with that annoying slurping sound. Then everyone looked at me and their reaction was pretty funny. All of them started laughing at me. All of them started noticing my way of having tea. Some of them asked why was I having my coffee like those villagers. One of them said the sound was disturbing and I need to stop. My mom got a little bit furious and she said I was embarrassing her in front of everyone. My little sibling said I was being an uncivilized person. So, the reaction I got from breaking the norm of having tea in a civilized way was laughter, disturbance, anger, and
embarrassment.
When I was done getting their reactions I explained them why was I doing that. I told them about my little experiment to get their reactions to my paper. Then all of them laughed at their own reactions and it kept them thinking how social norm matters in our life.
So, at the end, I can say even though It wasn't a big experiment of breaking norms but this small experiment showed that how the social norm effect peoples way of thinking. Just by having my coffee in a different way I got so many mixed reactions. Even though people don't follow norms in all situations still norms are controlling people's emotions. Breaking some of these norms is unusual and weird to them.
Norms are not always compulsory. It depends on the situation, time and person's own way of accepting or declining norms. Anyways, Norms are of different types also. Main three are informal, formal and folkways. Informal laws are generally understood but not precisely recorded (Schaeffer 2018,61). Formal laws are norms that generally have been written down and specify strict punishments for violators (Schaeffer 2018, 61). Folkways are informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated without serious consequences within a particular culture (Sumner, 1959/1906). The norm I broke was actually a folkway norm which we use for daily life.
Norm varies from society to society, place to place and even from one country to country. The norm which is so valuable to one society …show more content…
can be very normal to another. Let me explain this. So I am originally from another country called Bangladesh. All my life I lived in a city. But when I was a little kid I went to visit a village with my parents. That village had little stalls on the roadside which are called 'tong' in a native language. Those stalls used to sell tea, cookies and refreshments kind of stuff. Mainly those are famous for selling tea. One day when I was passing through one of those stalls and I saw people are having tea in a very weird way. They had a teacup and saucer set in their hand. They poured the tea into the saucer from their cup and drank it from the saucer with a very disturbing slurping sound. As an outsider, coming from a city, for me it was really disturbing, weird and funny at the same time. But for those native villagers, it was their regular social norm. So, even after living in the same country social norms are different in cities and villages.
Now, let's talk about the norm I broke for my research paper. I was thinking about ideas for the paper. Initially, so many ideas were in my mind but I wanted something really interesting. Last Friday I went to a small get-together party of family and friends. Everyone was served coffee. I was having my coffee too. Suddenly, I had an idea on my mind. Why don't I do an experiment of breaking norm here? There were many people. I would get some reactions too. I remembered about my childhood experience from the village how people were having tea in that village.
So, I started pouring my coffee to a saucer and started drinking from it.
Everyone was busy with themselves. To grab some attention I started drinking from saucer along with that annoying slurping sound. Then everyone looked at me and their reaction was pretty funny. All of them started laughing at me. All of them started noticing my way of having tea. Some of them asked why was I having my coffee like those villagers. One of them said the sound was disturbing and I need to stop. My mom got a little bit furious and she said I was embarrassing her in front of everyone. My little sibling said I was being an uncivilized person. So, the reaction I got from breaking the norm of having tea in a civilized way was laughter, disturbance, anger, and
embarrassment.
When I was done getting their reactions I explained them why was I doing that. I told them about my little experiment to get their reactions to my paper. Then all of them laughed at their own reactions and it kept them thinking how social norm matters in our life.
So, at the end, I can say even though It wasn't a big experiment of breaking norms but this small experiment showed that how the social norm effect peoples way of thinking. Just by having my coffee in a different way I got so many mixed reactions. Even though people don't follow norms in all situations still norms are controlling people's emotions. Breaking some of these norms is unusual and weird to them.