The Effects of Social Norms on Society

Dr. Kenneth Hoffman Sociology 200-302 2 January 2013 The Effects of Social Norms on Society In a world where routine is dominant and convert is difficult to mystify by, social averages have become major assets for a smoothly public presentation day. With the try out of breaking normative appearance I wanted to do something subtle yet startling. Sometimes the smallest changes in behavior receive the toughest adjustments. outset impressions have a strong influence on a souls relationship with some 1 else. With that being said, I unconquerable to change the way I went about salute mass.The opening recognise of shakiness hands and smiling has become so coarse it has lost appraise and become routine. The subtle change I made to my greeting was that I decided to only say my piddle in a mo nonone voice and shake hands with the wrong hand, leading to responses of surprise, unease, and sometimes anger. With virtually tribe being right handed, I have made the supposal that th is could be why the common greeting is to shake with ones right hand. The normal greeting is to smile, say hello, and shake with your right hand. population have taken what use to be excitement to seeing separately other to going through common motions repeated multiple times.This greeting is a sign that one may have come from a proper upbringing and family, possibly middle to upper class. It is also taken as a common sign of acceptance to strangers meeting for the prototypical time. My sample size of quite a little ranged from people of all ages and relationships to me. I decided I would greet with a plain face and state my name and reach out with my left hand with all introductions. People who did not know me well believed I was unpleasant and felt awkward. My new greeting was taken with surprise, as people who know me well believed I was in a bad mood or having a bad day.If I dont do the norm Im considered agitate and negative. From the experiment I learned that people comm only receive me as joyful and energetic. In a way my own personal norm has evolved into me being upbeat whether my day has been good or bad. All people react to different stimuli in their own way. With that being said, I was move to find that out of the 20+ people I greeted against the norm, only one gave my greeting a normal response without interruption. The lone person was a 12 year old boy I see on a regular basis and he just continued what he was doing without a hint of awkwardness.The aged people would teach and try to correct what they took as my ignorance toward a common greeting. A few of these older experimentees actually refused to shake my hand unless it was a right handed shake. People around the same age as me were awkward with a sarcastic manner, laughed, or just went ahead and move my left hand after a moment of hesitation. With all the flying responses having large variance, the most correlated response was that people thought in that respect was something wrong with my well-being and tried to cheer me up.The overall response to the experiment ended up being quite humorous. It also opened my look to how much the people in my life care about me. composition I expected the awkward moments, I expected more people to just go along with it and not be startled. Even the slightest changes in ones actions can affect the response and mood of how people interact with one another. In this case, it was subtle yet changed the entire tinge of the exchanges between the people I intercepted. With responses ranging from laughter to confusion, the smallest changes in normative behavior can have most astonishing results.