Deviant Behavior Course Project

Option Four: Mini Research Paper
Breaking Folkways

For this assignment I chose this particular research option because I am very interested in people’s reactions to experiencing things they are not used to, I also do not embarrass easily. My research involved intentionally violating common folkways in the presence of family, co-workers and strangers. After breaking common norms I than analyzed the results and recorded them below.

Day One – Hugging co-workers rather than saying hello
In our culture, when in the workplace, it is appropriate to greet fellow employees with a “hello”, “hi” or handshake. For the purpose of this assignment I decided to greet my coworkers with hugs, rather than saying hello and shaking their hand. Clearly the norm which I violated here were keeping the greeting casual and possibly invading my co-workers personal space. Americans are usually very adamant about not getting too close to others while in public and vice versa, so this one was fun for me. Throughout my work day, whenever I encountered a fellow employee I gave them a semi-long hug with a pat on the back, this included both male and female co-workers. I really enjoyed this one. The reactions from the people whom I greeted with a hug, rather than a simple “hello” or hand shake ranged by the particular individual and were usually along the lines of what I expected. All of the females I hugged responded with a return hug, meaning my hug turned into a mutual hug. It was a fun research experiment because most of the woman I hugged continued to greet me with a hug throughout the rest of the day, which lead me to believe they enjoyed the hug style greeting. The men reacted a little differently. Some of the men somehow anticipated the hug coming and were able to dodge my hug greeting. Others gave me a goofy face after I hugged them, and the rest went along with it and hugged me back. This was an interesting folkway to break because hugs are generally reserved for greeting a girlfriend or boyfriend, parent or loved one, and in some cases a very close friend, I hugged everyone. I took note of any informal social control while conducting the research. Several people avoided my hug greeting, either by moving away from me during my approach, putting their arms out in front of them as to block me, or making comments such as “dude what are you doing?”, “are you gay?”, and “never do that again”. I interpreted these forms of informal social control as ways to get me to not hug them again, and therefore conform to the norm, or folkway of a hello or handshake greeting.

Day Two - Try to hold a conversation with someone at a urinal in a men's bathroom
It is generally uncommon for men to use a stall right next to another man. In fact, it is so uncommon that men will actually wait for a urinal to open rather than stand next to another man in the restroom. If there are other stalls available, men stand as far away from each other as the stall configuration will allow. It is extraordinarily uncommon for men to hold a conversation while standing at a urinal in a public bathroom. With that said; it is even rare for people to strike conversations with strangers while shopping in the mall. For the purpose of this assignment, I periodically walked into the men’s room at the mall, stood directly next to any other man who was using the urinal, and began a conversation. I said things like “what’s up bro”, “did you watch the ravens play last night”, “dude I love fall, it’s such a cool season” and “hey man do you have the time, my watch just fell in the stall”…among other conversation starters.
Many norms were violated during my bathroom conversation experiment. The norm is for men to remain silent while standing at a urinal in a public men’s bathroom, and to stand as far away from other men as possible. It has become an unwritten rule to not bother another man while he is using a public bathroom. People like to have their space and privacy, especially while using the bathroom. I’d say that I absolutely violated all these norms. The only man who actually talked to me was when I asked the guy next to me for the time, he responded but said nothing else. A couple of the men responded with one or two word answers however the majority of the men either ignored me or pretended not to hear me, solidifying the norm that men do not speak to other men while using public restrooms. One particular guy that I tried talking to actually looked at me, looked away, and then sidestepped to another urinal while continuing to relive himself. If I had to identify a form of informal social control, that would be it. I either looked straight ahead or straight down while conducting this experiment, just to make it clear.

Day Three – Wear a “onesie” to a family dinner
A onesie is a full pajama body suit with a zipper. They are commonly worn to bed by young children. I was able to find a onesie large enough to fit me and wore it to the dinner table during a family dinner which included my sister and brother-in-law, as well as their two year old daughter. When my family saw what I was wearing they immediately told me to change into “normal clothes”. This tells me that wearing pajamas to the dinner table is not normal; however it may be normal to others, or me. The norm I violated within my family was wearing pajamas rather than khakis and a nice shirt. The informal social controls used by my entire family were; telling me I looked ridiculous and pestering me to take off the pajamas. I stood my ground and let the pajamas on, however they relentlessly badgered me in an attempt to deter me from doing the same thing in the future. Informal social controls were used by all three groups I studied, which tells me that our culture has many social norms and only a small percentage of individuals remain unbothered if these norms are violated in their presence. This research of folkways strongly supports the notion that many people live by informal social rules which allow us to live our everyday lives.