Amy Benck
SOC 385
Blog 6: Breaking Social Norms
Though I was finally able to come up with a breaching experiment that I was comfortable conducting by myself it took me a few trial runs to get there. The first mini breaching experiment I ‘accidentally’ conducted was on Sunday morning. I decided to go to the UIC Daley library to try to use my Sunday as productively as possible. I had forgotten, however, that there is a small farmers market that takes place on Sundays in the Lincoln Park High School parking lot, which I walk past in order to get to my bus stop. Walking to the bus, Sunday morning, I had on my backpack and I was carrying my lunch bag; my self-perception was of a young child going to school early in the morning. As soon as I realized this about myself I began to observe others reactions to my abnormal appearance for a Sunday morning. After not getting many reactions, I decided that, since that was not my intended breaching experiment I would try something else.
I then came up with the idea that I should randomly start sucking my thumb, as a toddler would, in public. I found that I was so self conscious of my act that I could not even look others in the face as I was sucking my thumb. This was interesting for me to note, because I think it says a lot about someone, and how much and what kind of face work they do in order to manage their presentation to others. I found that even though I personally do not want to be exactly like everyone else in how I comport myself, I apparently want to maintain this ‘face’ more than I realized because I was so uncomfortable with the idea of people noticing me and very likely judging my actions (i.e. sucking my thumb). With this, and the fact that I actually legitimately forgot to suck my thumb periodically throughout that day (Tuesday), I decided that this would not be my breaching experiment, as I had only done it once for a very short period of time due to my discomfort and fear of embarrassment.
Finally, I decided that to conduct my breaching experiment I would wear my shirt and jacket backwards, tags sticking out and all. I went into a stall in the women’s restroom in the Student Services Building and turned my shirt around and put my jacket back on backwards. I noticed that there was another woman in the restroom and decided to take my time so that I would get her reaction to my clothing. While I walked out of the restroom, I glanced in her direction and noticed that she was indeed looking at me, almost like she had not gotten a good enough look at me when she first came out of her stall and needed to verify that I was actually wearing my shirt and jacket backwards. I noticed other glances in my direction, but other than that, I did not notice any overt reactions to my clothing being on backwards.
As a result, I would classify my breaching experiment as a ‘faux pas’ because, like Bradley explained in class, it was similar to someone in an elevator passing gas; I am sure that people who observed me noticed that my clothing was on backwards, but they probably saw no reason to question it or overtly react to it, because my face work said “I am just going about my day, there is nothing abnormal going on here.” Consequently, others seemed to follow my lead and not question me. I was actually a bit disappointed, as I had hoped that someone would have asked me “do you realize your jacket is on backwards?” or similarly about my t-shirt, or something along the lines of “why are you wearing your clothing backwards?” In fact, the only person who actually asked me this last question was my roommate upon my coming home, which she quickly followed up with “oh, is this part of your project for class?” because I had told her about it and had brainstormed ideas with her, and so of course I verified that it was.
SOC 385
Blog 6: Breaking Social Norms
Though I was finally able to come up with a breaching experiment that I was comfortable conducting by myself it took me a few trial runs to get there. The first mini breaching experiment I ‘accidentally’ conducted was on Sunday morning. I decided to go to the UIC Daley library to try to use my Sunday as productively as possible. I had forgotten, however, that there is a small farmers market that takes place on Sundays in the Lincoln Park High School parking lot, which I walk past in order to get to my bus stop. Walking to the bus, Sunday morning, I had on my backpack and I was carrying my lunch bag; my self-perception was of a young child going to school early in the morning. As soon as I realized this about myself I began to observe others reactions to my abnormal appearance for a Sunday morning. After not getting many reactions, I decided that, since that was not my intended breaching experiment I would try something else.
I then came up with the idea that I should randomly start sucking my thumb, as a toddler would, in public. I found that I was so self conscious of my act that I could not even look others in the face as I was sucking my thumb. This was interesting for me to note, because I think it says a lot about someone, and how much and what kind of face work they do in order to manage their presentation to others. I found that even though I personally do not want to be exactly like everyone else in how I comport myself, I apparently want to maintain this ‘face’ more than I realized because I was so uncomfortable with the idea of people noticing me and very likely judging my actions (i.e. sucking my thumb). With this, and the fact that I actually legitimately forgot to suck my thumb periodically throughout that day (Tuesday), I decided that this would not be my breaching experiment, as I had only done it once for a very short period of time due to my discomfort and fear of embarrassment.
Finally, I decided that to conduct my breaching experiment I would wear my shirt and jacket backwards, tags sticking out and all. I went into a stall in the women’s restroom in the Student Services Building and turned my shirt around and put my jacket back on backwards. I noticed that there was another woman in the restroom and decided to take my time so that I would get her reaction to my clothing. While I walked out of the restroom, I glanced in her direction and noticed that she was indeed looking at me, almost like she had not gotten a good enough look at me when she first came out of her stall and needed to verify that I was actually wearing my shirt and jacket backwards. I noticed other glances in my direction, but other than that, I did not notice any overt reactions to my clothing being on backwards.
As a result, I would classify my breaching experiment as a ‘faux pas’ because, like Bradley explained in class, it was similar to someone in an elevator passing gas; I am sure that people who observed me noticed that my clothing was on backwards, but they probably saw no reason to question it or overtly react to it, because my face work said “I am just going about my day, there is nothing abnormal going on here.” Consequently, others seemed to follow my lead and not question me. I was actually a bit disappointed, as I had hoped that someone would have asked me “do you realize your jacket is on backwards?” or similarly about my t-shirt, or something along the lines of “why are you wearing your clothing backwards?” In fact, the only person who actually asked me this last question was my roommate upon my coming home, which she quickly followed up with “oh, is this part of your project for class?” because I had told her about it and had brainstormed ideas with her, and so of course I verified that it was.