FREDRICKSON: PSY 380

NORM Paper Assignment

Brief Introduction

Much of our social behavior is shaped by specific social norms. These norms are often unwritten and implicit, yet their influence on our social behavior can be quite strong. One way to assess the power of social norms is to examine people's reactions when a norm is violated. The purpose of this course project is to give you increased awareness of the influence that implicit social norms have on social behavior. Your assignment is to engage in some norm-violating behavior, and then to analyze both your own and other people's reactions.

Procedure

The first step is to identify an implicit social norm about some common, everyday form of public behavior. (Explicit rules and laws don't count.) Next, you need to choose a behavioral action that somehow breaks, violates, or deviates from that norm. This action can often be simple and even subtle, rather than outrageous. Consider, for example, norms regarding interpersonal behavior or social etiquette. For example, whenever someone asks "How are you?" or "How's it going?" respond with a detailed answer describing your state of health and current physical symptoms, emotional states, recent activities, and so forth. Or, when your phone rings, pick up and say "Is Edmund there?" instead of saying "Hello?" These are just examples, you should generate your own. Be creative!

Whatever behavior you choose to enact, you should repeat it several times, perhaps for an entire day. This will give you many opportunities to assess people's reactions (including your own) and to note any interesting patterns.

Be sure to build at least one comparison variable into your observations. For example, do people's reactions differ as a function of sex? ...age? ...locale? (on- or off-campus) or type of situation? Be systematic in your observations. Gather enough "data" in each type of situation so that you can compare and contrast them with reasonable certainty.

THREE IMPORTANT CAUTIONS:

1. You are being asked to behave in a way that does not fit with an implicit social norm; you are not being asked to break a law or any other explicit rule (i.e., We will not bail you out of jail).
2. In accord with ethical principles of psychological research, you should not engage in any behavior that could harm someone else, either physically or emotionally (i.e., Don't be cruel).
3. As with the Helping Project, you need to get your norm approved by your GSI or you will not receive credit.

Assignment

Write up your analysis in 3-5 pages (double-spaced and typed). Begin this report by specifying the implicit social norm that you were trying to violate. Describe your norm-violating actions and the settings in which you operated. Next, detail how people reacted to you when you violated this particular norm. How did you react? Describe both verbal and non-verbal responses, your own subjective experiences, as well as any patterns you noticed across individuals, and especially across settings. A final and critical task in your written analysis is to explain the ways in which your observations and experiences fit with the concepts discussed in lecture and/or the textbook's discussions of normative social influence in Chapter 8.

HINT: Your notes from October 21's lecture may be particularly useful, and you may benefit by re-reading these notes and/or Chapter 8 after you violate your chosen norm, but before you finish your written report.

IMPORTANT:

Do not put your name on any of the pages of your paper. Instead, your student ID number should appear in the top, right corner of each page. You should also turn in a cover page (not attached to the paper) with your name, student ID, and title of the project and paper.

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