Running Head: Being Deviant for a Day (The Norms Breaching Exercise) 1

Being Deviant for a Day (The Norms Breaching Exercise)

Name:

Institution:
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Being Deviant for a Day (The Norms Breaching Exercise)

In this project, I recorded the deviant act that I performed, for instance the outcome of my

actions, the location of the act and the effect of that location, and also the reaction of the

recipient. I decided to be over talkative and continued my conversations for several minutes

beyond what the recipient may have expected the conversation to last, in a sense that every time

someone spoke to me and asked me how I have been, what was new in my life or how I was

doing. I would go beyond and above what they probably expected me to do, so by giving a

detailed answer to questions put forward to me. So for me having to deviant in this manner

made perfect sense since I normally don’t converse much concerning myself, and I am more of a

listener than a talkative character. I commenced everything out by having to go about my normal

errands, day and also going to classes in college. So I went to Wal-Mart among many other

places and just five minutes doing my shopping; I ran into two longtime friends of mine that I

had seen for a long time. Of course, they started by saying, “How are you! How have you been?

What’s new in your life?” I responded by going into the deviance setting and chose to start my

conversation, “Well lets see, I have been going a fulltime college students…My girlfriend is now

6 months pregnant and the tummy is growing every minute…etc…” I talked for what seemed

approximately a solid fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes later I came face to face with an old

classmate from my former high school, and I then went into the same talk once more. Given that,

in all the time that I was speaking concerned everything, the non verbal responses displayed by

my recipients honestly shocked me. They never tried to back away, but, actually leaned towards

me as if they sought to hear further about what was going on. The recipients never even crossed

their arms to show me I was boring them past their belief, the emotion that they showed in their

eyes mainly caught my attention. I had never seen in their eyes such concern and sincerity
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before, that of being honest. Their reaction made me have a thought on all the times that I had

listened to them, was I reacting the same manner to them? Did I demonstrate the same sincerity

and concern in my eyes, or did I give a cold impression to them while they talked?

Later that afternoon when leaving for home, I decided to say hello to each person I met,

and when they responded politely, I struck a conversation by having to ask them how they were

doing and in time ending up telling them about my experiences and personal life, what don’t hate

and what I hate and also disturbed them with my issues on the whole day. As I sought to harass

my recipients’’ ears with my experiences and personal issues, I chose the train and bus (public

transit) where numerous people would react to my norm bleaching. It was a well cool, calm and

collected surrounding of people from all over the world and that comprised of both sexes. The

plan was to observe how many people would certainly react and respond to my attention. I

sought to see various facial expressions that would communicate to me on whether they disliked

or liked what I was doing.

Before I had decided to bleach the norm, I had the knowledge that numerous people

would give me a bad response, such as moving from my sight to another area or ignoring my

talk. In as much as I had my own expectations, I had also thought that other people would

respond to me and find it amusing talking to me by showing a little bit of respect and courtesy.

In reality, the majority of my recipients left, without talking to me and without

participating since they thought I was retarded or insane. I discovered that others thought I was

wasting their time and left without talking to me. A good number of my recipients would stare at

me in a funny manner, and others would ask me whether I was okay. Other individuals shook off

their heads and showed some facial expressions that signaled to me that they might have asked,

“Is he alright?” I even heard one person say to his colleague, “I think this guy has a problem”.
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There were a few people who never even bother to reply when I said hi to them. This may be

because, the majority of this people had the notion that public transit may be for transportation

purposes and not a platform to thrash out personal problems or family matters to the world. I

remember a lady that I confronted and tried to sell my whole day experience, she excused

herself, left the train to wait for the next one. She lamented “excuse me sir, I am not ready to pay

attention to your day stories or experiences, I will have to step down at the next stop and wait for

the next train”.

In contrast, later that night I checked my e-mail and received a few emails from some of

my friends that I met and spoke to earlier in that day and their reactions were fascinating. I had

one that stated “I’m so delighted that you finally spoke up about your life...” All these responses

that I received from my recipients showed me that, I may not just meet strangers on public transit

or some other place and start sharing life experiences, or how the day was with them. Although,

you can share your life experiences or how the day was, the accepted and natural way of sharing

your information with others may be to first establish a strong relationship and secured feeling

with them. We are social beings, and individuals should learn when and where it may be

appropriate to discuss certain topics, to utter certain things, to open up to a stranger or even to

make use of certain words. Thus, acquaintance to cultural norms may be necessary for

impression management, which may be the regulation of an individual's non verbal behavior. A

person also comes to know in the course of experience what sorts of people she or he ought to or

ought not to discuss certain topics with and when to discuss her or his personal life information.

In general, this knowledge may be derived from experience; that is to say that social norms may

be learned through social interaction and may be voluntary or not (Henslin, 2006, p.41).
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In conclusion, social norms may be established rules, and may continue in force since

people prefer to conform to the given rules and expect highly of others to do the same by

conforming to even in a simple ordinary every day activity since people comply with the norms

of fairness and by performing this act made me to be deviant. Although I had some positive

reactions, I bleached society’s norms by doing things that were not expected from me. All and all

I learned so much from the fascinating reactions I got, however, the eye opener was also

sometimes disgusting. I am excited in learning more on what actually makes a person deviant

and about deviant behavior. Moreover, I have knowledge on reasons why a person may choose

to be seen as abnormal or to be an outcast especially when they know the consequences may be

so horrible or drastic.

References

Henslin, J. (2006). Essentials of Sociology and Life in Society: A Down-to-Earth Approach. (6th

ed) Pearson Education, Inc.