Violating a Social Norm - Essay Example

Comparing this experiment with Asch’s experiment (Asch, 68), there is not much difference with regards to people’s willingness to conform. In this experiment, a majority of the participants would conform to a social norm or any norm such as in the control experiment. Participants were so irritated especially in the second condition in which they faced a violation of a social norm. they felt like their privacy was being violated when the social was violated with someone standing too close, especially people of the same gender. They emotionally felt so angry and disgusted when asked to violate the norm-standing too close when talking to someone. It is worth noting that, it was especially different for people who somehow knew each other, they tend to enjoy the violation.

In the case of condition 1, there were emotional reactions displayed when participants were asked to confirm. Not all the participants were comfortable doing norm violation especially for the second condition; but in condition one, the participants asked to violate the norm had no problems. As far as condition one is concerned, the thing was very clear, the participant's willingness to go along with social pressures was much stronger than their beliefs to stand up for what their individually know or believe as true. On the other hand, participants in the second condition believed in going along with social norms and were not prepared to go against them.

For the first condition, it is apparent that people were willing, not willing to violate the social norm because they did not want to feel different from the rest; they were more concerned with what the others might think and believed that, the majority rules. However, in the second condition, people did not want to violate the social norm because they felt it was not the right thing too since it was violating people’s privacy or making the conversion difficult. It was very easy to approach males than it was to approach ladies who felt enthusiastic to participate. Most men felt it was a waste of their time if they participated in the experiment.

According to this experiment, there is great power in conformity since many people like to identify with the majority. Additionally, people do not like to violate social norms because they are worried about what people will think of them or what society will think; they are afraid of being ridiculed. They also believe, as seen in condition one, the majority are more informed than they are (McLeod par. 8). Read More