Stephanie Steinhaus
Microsociology is an agency looking at how humans are in social interactions. Goffman’s explanation of microsociology looks people and how they interact in group settings. When an individual’s acts in a norm, they are expecting a desired response; a person wants control over the social action. Yet when an individual is acting in a different manner, we can expect to see different responses. In microsociology there are three main components; one being there is an emphasis on face-to-face interaction. Secondly, there is a focus on the meaning of interactions, and lastly the emphasis is on real lived experiences. There also is phenomenology which is people living in space and time; we can ask how do we know/give things meaning? Individuals experience through sensory such as smell, taste touch.
Equally important there is ethnomethodology, this explains people living their lives every day and coming into contact with new challenges and interactions. This can consist of how people analyze daily occurrences in their lives. Breaching experiences, also known as breaking norms fall under this because they allow testing of whether breaking our structured norms actually affect people and how they perceive a situation or not. Although we see norms being broken at times, it often leads to negative consequences.
In microsociology we learn there are real risk and effects to breaking norms. I wanted to put this to the test and run an experiment of breaking a norm myself, to prove that they have true consequences. With a time crunch and as a full time employee I thought no better place than to do it at my own work. At Giordano’s in Greektown I am a phone clerk, and host. I spend my entire shift speaking to customers, taking their orders, and wishing them a good day, all with a smile on my face. In the service industry, people expect the servers/host to be friendly, and caring towards their customers. In our society it is the social norm when we go to a restaurant to have a peaceful, happy experience. Yesterday I decided to break a simple and gender norm, and simply not smile or say hello to guest, my findings were what I expected. As a woman we are expected to be especially inviting. When I wasn’t, people negatively sanctioned me for not being the usually friendly pizza lady.
Although we have many “regular” customers most customers are new on a day to day basis, when walking into the restaurant I did not smile at anyone or say hello for an hour during our “busy time”. The responses I got back were varied. Some of the customers that I’ve never seen before weren’t sure if they should approach me. They often looked around for another employees help, gave me a confused look, or muttered a soft hello? My actions didn’t affect some customers of course, and they barged in and requested their food in a normal manner. The most overwhelming negative response was those who have seen me working prior; they know I am usually friendly and helpful. When I didn’t smile or greet them I got different responses. For example I had two women ask me if I was having a rough day, or if I was ok. I had multiple men telling me to SMILE. Most seemed to bounce off my negative energy and just frowned at me. I even had a woman who had to wait for her food, whisper sarcastically “really great service” to her husband. Not only did it make my guest feel uncomfortable but I found that it made me feel extremely awkward and like I wasn’t doing my job.
By breaching a small norm of not smiling or greeting a guest, it created a sense of chaos, and left my customers confused. Basically meaning there is simply no page in the social script that dictates behavior in this scenario. Although my experiment was small, with very minimal results it really reflects breaking social norms more broadly. Simply meaning, when humans break norms, the rest of us do not know the proper way to response or act. In our society it is obvious that we heavily rely upon the social script, and we want people to act in an orderly fashion so we don’t have to step outside our comfort zone. In Microsociology we learn it’s about the interactions that people have that create the meaning and order that we have in society, by breaking norms we disrupt this idea.
Microsociology is an agency looking at how humans are in social interactions. Goffman’s explanation of microsociology looks people and how they interact in group settings. When an individual’s acts in a norm, they are expecting a desired response; a person wants control over the social action. Yet when an individual is acting in a different manner, we can expect to see different responses. In microsociology there are three main components; one being there is an emphasis on face-to-face interaction. Secondly, there is a focus on the meaning of interactions, and lastly the emphasis is on real lived experiences. There also is phenomenology which is people living in space and time; we can ask how do we know/give things meaning? Individuals experience through sensory such as smell, taste touch.
Equally important there is ethnomethodology, this explains people living their lives every day and coming into contact with new challenges and interactions. This can consist of how people analyze daily occurrences in their lives. Breaching experiences, also known as breaking norms fall under this because they allow testing of whether breaking our structured norms actually affect people and how they perceive a situation or not. Although we see norms being broken at times, it often leads to negative consequences.
In microsociology we learn there are real risk and effects to breaking norms. I wanted to put this to the test and run an experiment of breaking a norm myself, to prove that they have true consequences. With a time crunch and as a full time employee I thought no better place than to do it at my own work. At Giordano’s in Greektown I am a phone clerk, and host. I spend my entire shift speaking to customers, taking their orders, and wishing them a good day, all with a smile on my face. In the service industry, people expect the servers/host to be friendly, and caring towards their customers. In our society it is the social norm when we go to a restaurant to have a peaceful, happy experience. Yesterday I decided to break a simple and gender norm, and simply not smile or say hello to guest, my findings were what I expected. As a woman we are expected to be especially inviting. When I wasn’t, people negatively sanctioned me for not being the usually friendly pizza lady.
Although we have many “regular” customers most customers are new on a day to day basis, when walking into the restaurant I did not smile at anyone or say hello for an hour during our “busy time”. The responses I got back were varied. Some of the customers that I’ve never seen before weren’t sure if they should approach me. They often looked around for another employees help, gave me a confused look, or muttered a soft hello? My actions didn’t affect some customers of course, and they barged in and requested their food in a normal manner. The most overwhelming negative response was those who have seen me working prior; they know I am usually friendly and helpful. When I didn’t smile or greet them I got different responses. For example I had two women ask me if I was having a rough day, or if I was ok. I had multiple men telling me to SMILE. Most seemed to bounce off my negative energy and just frowned at me. I even had a woman who had to wait for her food, whisper sarcastically “really great service” to her husband. Not only did it make my guest feel uncomfortable but I found that it made me feel extremely awkward and like I wasn’t doing my job.
By breaching a small norm of not smiling or greeting a guest, it created a sense of chaos, and left my customers confused. Basically meaning there is simply no page in the social script that dictates behavior in this scenario. Although my experiment was small, with very minimal results it really reflects breaking social norms more broadly. Simply meaning, when humans break norms, the rest of us do not know the proper way to response or act. In our society it is obvious that we heavily rely upon the social script, and we want people to act in an orderly fashion so we don’t have to step outside our comfort zone. In Microsociology we learn it’s about the interactions that people have that create the meaning and order that we have in society, by breaking norms we disrupt this idea.