Overview
For this assignment you will learn about the power of socialization processes by breaking a learned social norm for organizing and observing what happens. A breaching experiment (Links to an external site.) is a social experiment in which individuals involved intentionally break social rules and violate basic norms and patterns of behavior learned through socialization.
Objectives
The goal of this assignment is to help you understand and analyze organizational systems and structures. It connects to our second learning objective for the course, as well as our second and third learning objectives for the Department of Communication (Links to an external site.).
Directions
Please complete the following and submit your responses numbered and titled as follows:
Experiment: For this section you will become a norm violator for experimental purposes and examine people’s responses. Choose one of the following social norms to violate and simply list which option you chose for section 1 of your report:
Option 1: Enter a full elevator, stand at the front of the elevator, and face backwards (away from the door). When the elevator opens, do not get out of the way and make people walk around you. Continue to ride until you are alone. Observe how people react to your behavior.
Option 2: Go to a coffee shop, order a drink, and then sit on the floor in the aisle. Observe how people react to your behavior.
Option 3: Go to a common study area and find someone who is studying alone at a table. Sit down in the chair next to or across from him/her. Observe how he/she reacts to your behavior.
Description: For this section you will describe what happened during your experiment. Please describe the following:
Location, time of day, weather conditions, general atmosphere, or other important information about place
Assumptions you made about the people present: race, gender, age, social role, etc. The goal is to be able to reflect on whether any of these variables may give us insight into the social order and reactions to the norm violation.
The normative behavior in this setting and your subsequent normative violation.
The responses of those who witnessed your norm violation. Indicate how these responses were a departure from the normal behavior you initially witnessed in this setting.
Analysis: In this section you should analyze what happened when you violated the normative order of this social setting. You should use sociological concepts from the textbook as well as those discussed in lecture and the video on socialization.
What is a social norm (put in your own words)?
What function does the social norm you breached fulfill for organizing in that setting?
Why did people respond the way that they did?
Were there sanctions for this norm violation? What kind(s)?
Discussion: Reflect on the degree to which you think the norm you breached functions as an important tool for organizing. In doing so, answer the following questions:
Did you experience any personal difficulty in purposefully violating a norm? Why or why not?
Do you think a person of a different race, class, gender, or organizational role than yours would have had the same
experience? Why or why not?
What would be the consequences for social order if you continuously violated this norm?
In the event that you receive no responses to your norm violation, indicate why you think this
was the outcome (NOTE: it doesn’t count if no one sees your norm violation).
How does this “experiment” shed light on the power of socialization into organizational norms?
There is no word count limit or maximum for this assignment; it will likely take 1-5 sentences to answer each question.
Grading Criteria
Assignments will be graded based on the following criteria:
Experiment—Did the student list which breaching experiment he/she conducted.
Description—Did the student provide the requested information about the setting.
Analysis—Did the student thoughtfully answer the analysis questions and connect to course concepts.
Discussion—Did the student connect his/her experience and analysis to a broader discussion on the function of socialization for organizing.
Style and Professionalism—Is the assignment complete the assignment as directed and is the report free of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors?
Rubric: (in the link)
book: ( in the link)
https://books.google.com/books?id=HOPKAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
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