Norm Violation Essay Example

Norm Violation The social norm that I chose to violate was to go into an elevator and instead of turning around and facing the door upon entering; I had my back to the door and faced the other people in the elevator. In normality a person enters an elevator, pushes the button for their desired floor and turns to face the door to avoid eye contact with strangers, and prepare to exit the elevator. The reason I choose to violate this particular social norm was because I’ve never seen anyone else do it and I was curious as to what would happen. I decided to enact my “elevator plan” in Lindquist Hall’s elevator. I picked this location because Lindquist has 6 floors so the elevator ride would be lengthy and would give me a chance to make the observations needed. Also, I know that Lindquist Hall usually has many people at all times which would give me ample opportunity to observe several different people. Before I began my experiment, I felt nervous and a bit antsy. I waited on the first floor until 3 people entered. I selected the female to begin my experiment with. As I turned by back to the elevator door to face her, I began to feel a bit uncomfortable. After I stared for a while, my discomfort seemed to transfer to the woman I was staring at. She became fidgety and exited the elevator on the third floor. Once she had left, one of the other two on the elevator had noticed the situation and I once again began to feel awkward. Although I wanted to explain myself, I resisted and exited on the next floor. During my experiment, the woman I was observing became fidgety and avidly avoided eye contact. At one point on our 2 minute elevator ride, the woman asked me if I wanted a piece of gum, I tacitly turned down her offer and continued to stare. Once the woman had left the elevator, one of the males on the elevator had noticed my obvious staring problem. Although he never said anything I could tell by his nervous eye contact that he had noticed. Throughout this