Social Norms Violation Experiment

We decided to break the social norm by confronting our schoolmates and friends with an awkward greeting. We decided to walk up to the targets of the experiment, bend down, and take hold of or touch their feet without explanation of why we were doing so. The three of us were excited to perform the experiment, and divided the labor as the following. One group member would hold the camera and record the actions of the other group member, who would greet the subject as described earlier. After the experiment was complete, the subject would be debriefed regarding what had just occurred and asked whether he/she would allow us to present the video. Our group was excited to begin recording the reactions of the people. Since Lunch (5th Period) was the most convenient for us to record the experiment, all of us agreed to record the videos around that time in the Cafeteria and in the hallway. Before performing the experiment, we hypothesized that the subjects of our experiment would react with mixed feelings of shock, surprise, and confusion.

When holding the legs of the subjects of our experiment and viewing the videos of the reactions of others who had been confronted the same way, I found that the results closely matched what we had hypothesized. Obviously, the victims of our experiment were unprepared for this treatment, and most found it to be unpleasant, while some were almost indifferent. The people to whom I performed the absurd action either made an attempt to move away from me or cried out suddenly and questioned what I was doing. While performing the experiment, I felt mixed feelings of slight fear of judgment and happiness. I found some of the subjects’ reactions to be humorous while watching the videos. At the end of conducting the experiment, though, I am satisfied at watching the reactions of people whose legs were suddenly seized.

Through this experiment, I observed a couple major concepts that relate to what I have learned so far in Psychology class. While conducting the experiment, especially on unfamiliar people, I noticed that I felt an urge not to appear different than others surrounding me in order to avoid judgment and fit into the group. While performing the experiment on one subject in particular, I received an exclamation of “What are you doing!” and an expression of contempt and puzzlement. This response caused me to feel excluded, and motivated me to fit in with the group, which relates to conformity, a concept in Social Psychology. I also found that this experiment as a whole relates to the Social Learning Theory, which states that we learn appropriate behavior through different types of learning, such as reinforcement, punishment, and observation. Altogether, I found this to be a fun experiment which helped us find a realistic application of Psychology.