Description
Now it is time for you to explore the power of norms and compliance for yourself. For this discussion, you will either 1) violate a norm, or 2) enlist the compliance of another person.
NORMS – Our behavior is controlled by unwritten standards of what is socially acceptable in given situations. Often it is only by behaving in a way that violates the normative standard that we become aware of its existence or potency. Put yourself in the role of a norm violator; you may either create your own norm violation situation or utilize one of the situations listed below. As you violate the norm, note the reactions of others to your actions as well as your own feelings while you are acting as the deviant.
Enter a restaurant, coffee shop, snack bar, local ice-cream parlor, and inconspicuously observe the interaction between two people seated at a small (four-place) table. Then sit down in the third seat at their table or booth. Sometimes you might say, “Pardon me, is this seat taken?” or “Is it OK if I sit here?” before sitting down; at other times, just sit down and begin to study or eat without acknowledging the couple’s presence. Is your act taken as a violation of their “intimacy,” their “property”? Does it matter if you excuse yourself or get permission first? Make systematic variations and record the results. See if you can work out a way of recording the reactions so that they can be compared across several experimental variations.
Enter a restaurant with a friend and sit at a table or counter seat recently vacated (perhaps by a confederate). While you wait for new service to be brought to the table and the old removed, proceed to eat some of the food left over from the previous diner. In order to make it clear that health-and-disease concerns are not really the major ones operating, eat some packaged crackers or bread sticks that obviously have not been touched. You might also have a confederate leave an uneaten piece of pie or doughnut, etc. How do your unsuspecting friend and the waitress react? If the pie was paid for and left (by your confederate) are you not allowed to eat it? Why not?
When talking to another person, either stand very close (within a foot) or else maintain a distance of nearly three feet. Does your proximity affect the other person’s conversation and other reactions to you? Is there an “ideal” distance within which you are expected to approach a close friend? An acquaintance? A stranger? Does violating the personal space of others disturb you? If so, why? You might precede this experiment by first establishing through observation the personal space or “buffer zones” that characterize certain people you know or people in particular situations. Do older people like more space than those your age?
To test for the operation of other pervasive, subtle norms that exist in your town, simply walk across a park or hang out in a public place holding hands with a friend of the same sex.
COMPLIANCE – Fundamental to social life is the necessity for individuals to comply with the requests, needs, or demands of other individuals at least some of the time. A community where everyone did his or her own thing, oblivious or indifferent to what others wanted, would at first seem to promote individual freedom but might be more likely to create social anarchy and widespread frustration. “Optimal” individual freedom often involves some measure of altruistic sacrifice in a community where others can be counted on to do likewise. This balance between doing for others and doing what is best for oneself is indeed a tenuous one, since we know too well that it is easy for some people to be excessively compliant, to diminish their own independence by doing what they are told or, more subtly, what they are expected to do. Part of the tragedy of Watergate involved the perversion of normal, acceptable processes of social compliance into unquestioning compliance, which appeared in the guise of loyalty but was more like blind obedience to authority. Try one or two of the following scenarios (or create a compliance situation of your own) to test the ease of which you can gain another person’s compliance. Which factors appeared to increase or decrease compliance? Include the characteristic of the situation, the source of the compliant request, or the person who receives the request that appears to influence the rate of compliance.
You allegedly need to make a phone call; ask someone if you may use their cell phone so that you don’t have to use your minutes.
As you drop your notebook and the pages fly out, you request help from one or more strangers nearby. You can do the same with a shopping bag with a bottom that easily opens up. Another variation is accidentally spilling a box of paper clips and then asking for help collecting them.
Pass out leaflets on a corner and try to get a passerby to help you distribute them. Record how many people refuse you. For those who agree to help, record either how many leaflets they pass out or for how long they help. Or, when someone else is distributing leaflets, try to get passersby to help you pick up discarded leaflets in an anti-litter effort.
Take a camera to a shopping center and ask randomly selected individuals if they will do you a favor by letting you take their picture as they make a funny face, jump in the air, skip a rope, etc.
At the completion of the activity (either violating a norm or enlisting the compliance of another person), share with the class what you did and how people responded. Then, explain your observations from a social psychological viewpoint; be sure to relate your experiences to the theories, terms and concepts in this chapter. question 1 ..one paragraph is fine
To what extent do these classic lessons in stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination apply today? What modern examples of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination exist today? How might social psychologists explain these trends? question 2 ..one paragraph is fine