Norm Violation

Norm Violation Assignment

The experiment I chose in this assignment was watching someone watch television for ten minutes. The person I interacted was my kennel master; he was watching wrestling after he just got back from a long day at the office. I was able to complete the experiment and keep going past ten minutes. It felt kind of awkward and strange watching someone for ten minutes, seeing their facial expression and body movement. I found the experiment hard because I had to be discreet on what I was doing and it was probably the longest ten minutes ever. I had to try it on three other people before I could get past ten minutes without them noticing I was watching them. The three people I was staring at only lasted 3 minutes and they walked away, calling me weird. The person that I finally got to watch for ten minutes was my kennel master. Ten minutes gone by and after the show went on commercial he looked left and said, “Why are you looking at me”. I can feel the awkwardness between him and me as he continued watching his show. By then some people came back in the room and sat down to watch TV. When the show came back on it was past ten minutes, I stood up grab the remote control and turn the TV off, then walked away. I can hear everyone start yelling at me, told me I was disrespected everyone and it was rude, especially my kennel master, he was pissed the most. My kennel master came up to me and asked, “What was my problem?”, “you never acted this way before”. It was getting ugly a few minutes when everyone came up to me and started yelling at me. I had to tell them I was breaking a social norm for an experiment. They finally calmed down and laughed about it because they knew I wouldn’t be rude like that. What surprised me the most about this experiment was not other people’s reactions, but my own fears and reactions to breaking a social norm. I was really nervous before thinking about the experiment. There were moments were I did not want to go through...