Elevator experiment testing social norms and deviant behavior

Behavior Experiment

The experiment took place in a busy office building at around five o'clock in the evening. It started on the ground floor and involved walking into an elevator and not turning around. The total number of people who entered the elevator was six, two stopped on the third floor, which was the first stop and the other three stopped on the fifth, which was the last stop. The experiment ended on the fifth floor and took a little over three minutes.

Reactions

The other five people upon entering the elevator realized that not everybody turned to face the entrance as usual. The group seemed baffled with the occurrence. Two people, a female and a male laughed asking jokingly if they were supposed to turn around. They appeared friendly and continued with interesting comment until they left the elevator. The other three smiled but seemed less concerned. However, the experiment attracted an unusual attention. At the first stop, where the two stopped, there were other people waiting for the next elevator going down as suggested by their conversation. On seeing the occurrence, they burst in laughter wondering what was going on. The other three in the elevator were suddenly quite even though they appeared concerned with what was taking place. At the fifth floor there were two other people waiting to get into the elevator going down. They could not understand what was going on, they made faces at each other, an indication that something was unusual. It seemed as though they concluded that what happened was a case of a mental disorder caused by stress.

Alder & Alder (2012), explain that such kind of behaviors done in public are a violation of social norms. Norms are socially accepted and expected behaviors in public that guides people's actions and presentations in public. When broken, they do not constitute serious violations neither do they cause much outrage but the violator is looked at as odd. The experiment above, according to Alder & Alder (2012), constitute what William Summer referred to as common folkway norms ( p. 11). It is not normal for anybody in their right mind to into an elevator and not turn around. It is unacceptable and the reaction from the spectators is reason enough to qualify the act as violation of a norm.

There were reasons for choosing the experiment; first, the area was easily accessible. There were no restriction while entering the building. Second, the place was suitable for observation of the spectators' reactions. Their comments could be heard easily. Therefore, the setting was conducive for the experiment as it was possible to get reaction and feedback after the experiment, validating the results.

Interactionist Perspective

Erikson (1966), raises the question of the influence of one's background on deviant behavior, even more puzzling is the fact that people from the same family can turn out differently (p. 68). Sutherland & Cressey (1978), propose that people learn deviant behavior from those close to them. This theory is consistent with Gauthier & Forsyth's (1999) research where HIV negative men where aggressively wanting to get infected with the virus. The closeness in the gay community influenced this sexual behavior deviance as it spread from one section to the other, "the more their friends hold deviant attitude and engage in deviant behavior, the more likely they are to follow suit" (Erikson, 1966, p. 69). In a study conducted by Beauvais (1992), on drug use among the native Indians revealed that the youth who went to boarding schools from the reservations experienced weaker family ties due to long separation. Their families could not monitor them, therefore learning drug use from their friends and bringing it back to their peer in the reservations so the closeness to each other enables the behavior to be transmitted rapily from one place to another. Nonetheless, Heimer (1996) agrees that close ties can lead to deviance or nodeviance by asserting that juvenile delinquency in boys rates higher than in girls because girls are closely supervised than boys. The girls are closely attached to the family a reason for non-conformity to deviant behaviors.

Reference

Alder, P., & Alder, P. (2012). Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction (7th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

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Erikson, K.T. (1966). Wayward Puritans: A study in the Sociology of Deviance. Pearson Education.

Gauthier, D.K., & Forsyth, C.J. (1999). Bareback Sex, Bug Chasers, and the Gift of Death.

Deviant Behavior, 85-100.

Gelles, R.J. (1975). The Social Construction of Child Abuse. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 363 -- 371.

Heimer, K. (1996). Gender, Interaction, and Delinquency: Testing a Theory of Differential

Social Control. Social Psychology Quarterly, 39-61.

Loseke, D.R., & Cahill, S. (1984). The Social Construction of Deviance: Experts on Battered

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Sutherland, E., & Cressey, D. ((1978)). Differential Association Theory: Sociological Theories

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