Violating Social Norm Creative

Violating Social Norm

People like to keep to themselves whenever they can, especially when they are in a situation where they have the option of being to themselves, by themselves. This implicit social norm applies when one goes onto an empty bus. If there are other seats available, one goes to the empty seat; one does not go and sit next to someone who is already there sitting down. It is just an unspoken implicit norm that one knows, and one knows this affects people by their reaction when one breaks this social norm and does the unthinkable: sit next to someone on the bus when every other seat around them is empty. This is exactly what I did as a way to violate this norm. For an entire day, on different bus lines, at various times of the day, and to an array of individuals, I sat next to them knowing that there were plenty of other seats available around them.

The first social norm violation, that is, sitting next to someone on the bus when there were clearly available seats around them, was on the morning rush. Although it was the same social norm violation that was being done, the fact that it was done throughout different times of the day, and to different kinds of people, made each experience unique. I do however recognize my limitation in this violation because of the limited applicability this has to someone of a higher social status, as taking a bus in itself signifies that no other form of transportation is attainable, or a car cannot be afforded. But with this in mind, I made sure to sit next to a huge variety of people, twelve different people to be exact, riding from one end of the bus line to the other. The first person that I sat next to was an elderly woman; the second and third people were middle-aged men; fourth, seventh, ninth, and tenth, were teenagers (male and female); fifth, sixth, and twelfth were middle-aged women; and finally the eighth and eleventh people that I sat next to were young women. I did not mention race, as I did not find that to be a factor in the results. The location of the people's seats, as well as the time of day seemed to have the most affect on people's reactions.

No reaction was too extreme to be honest. Although I expected looks from people, which I definitely did receive, only one person got up from the seat next to me and went to another seat, and that was actually my seventh person, a teenage female. The middle-aged people (third, fifth, and sixth to be exact) all engaged in conversation with me. Simple talk about how the weather was, mostly, but it did not seem to bother them too much that I sat next to them on an almost empty bus. They might have interpreted it as me wanting someone to talk to since I did have other options of where to sit. Teenagers were the roughest of all. They ignored my sitting next to them, but not after looking at me with a "why don't you go to another seat" type of look (fourth, ninth, and tenth), with the exception of the seventh female, who got up and went to another seat. The remainder of the people were pretty indifferent to my surprise, but this also depended on the time of the day. The people whom I got most reactions from were in the middle of the day, while those that seemed unbothered and not as uncomfortable were during the morning or afternoon rush times.

At first, I felt a little uncomfortable doing this project as it is a social norm violation that was going to occur. I did not think that it would be a big deal to just go and sit next to someone, but realizing that people might think I was weird or something for doing this, made me a little apprehensive at first. The first person that I chose, I chose purposely, as there were other options, but I chose an elderly lady that first time because it was not too outside of my comfort zone. I felt that an elderly person would be more receptive to a stranger sitting next to them than maybe a teenager would. To my luck, or to my comfort, better said, this was actually the case, which made my experience a bit less threatening. The second time that I sat next to someone on an almost empty bus, it was also not as bad as I expected. This however, I believe was due to the time of day that I got on the bus. It was during the morning rush, and the bus was bound to get completely full during the next couple of stops, so even though I did get a look from the person sitting next to me, it would not be as bad as the ones that would come up during the times where the bus was almost empty for most of the commute. I made this association when I realized that the same thing occurred during the afternoon rush time. I got on the bus at the beginning of the bus route and sat next to another person who also got on at the same time. Again, although I got a look which I am sure was the other person thinking, "there are other seats available," it was not as uncomfortable as the ones prior to that.