I'm breached as bro

So this week we looked at the idea of breaching social norms, and ethnomethodology, which was also the topic that I presented on with Laura and Danni, here’s the link to our presentation. You should definitely watch the male bathroom etiquette video because while it is hilarious, it does show why we need social norms (even though it is heavily exaggerated).

SOC250 Group Presentation on Prezi

One of the key researchers in this area was Garfinkel, who carried out many experiments which came to be known as the ‘breaching experiments’. Basically, his students or researchers would go out into their normal lives, but would do something that would be considered out of the ordinary (Heritage, 1984). An example of one of these was individuals not following the general conventions of the game noughts and crosses (Heritage, 1984). However, other examples could include normal, able-bodied people asking for someone to give up their seat on a train for no good reason.

The main lesson learned from these experiments, I believe, is that people trust each other to maintain the ‘reciprocity of perspectives’ (Heritage, 1984, p. 82; Scannell, 2007). That is, that we trust those that we interact with to know and follow the unwritten social rules that define how we interact with one another. Further, it could be said that these rules enable humans to coexist with one another, and interact in such a way that our existence continues. For example, if we know someone who commonly breaches these rules or has no knowledge of them (they would probably be a sociopath), we would probably not interact with them. If we took it to the extreme end of the spectrum , where it got to the stage where this person could not even interact or behave properly in a public place, they would be detained by the police and segregated from society. This then demonstrates that the basic rules of coexistence are written into law and are strictly enforced by those holding authority.

While this is only beginning to scratch the surface of the idea of social norms and rules, as well as their exploration of ethnomethodology, it forms my basic understanding of what they are and why they are important to study. I’ll conclude with some basic student breaching experiments that I found on YouTube:

 

References

Heritage, J. 1984, ‘The Morality of Cognition’, in Garfinkel and ethnomethodology, Polity Press, Cambridge, pp 75-102

Scannell, P, 2007, ‘Communication as Interaction’, Media and Communication, Sage, London, UK, pp 145-168

 

"I think, therefore I am"

Once again sociology is doing my head in, kind of reminding me of that episode of South Park where Kyle reads a book about existence and then doesn’t exist because he doesn’t think he does, and then crazy stuff happens. Anyway, so this week we looked at the idea of Dramaturgy and what Goffman had to say about it. From the reading, Goffman suggests that we ‘act’ out our interactions as performances. Further, in every interaction that we have, we perform to the expectations which are governed by the social norms/ideals to that particular situation.

Essentially, Goffman suggests that if we look at our interactions as some sort of theatrical performance. Further, the ideas of the 'front stage' and 'back stage' emerge, and detail that we act who we want to be seen as in the 'front' and act like our 'normal' selves in the 'back'. Possibly the most helpful article ever to do with sociology comes from Adler et al, who liken this idea to that of all productions: that it is believable and the audience sees one as how they want to be seen.

An example given in the reading is how women studying at university tended to appear less intelligent than they actually were around men whom they were trying to attract. I can apply this to many aspects of my life, for example, in tutorials I try to perform as an intelligent student with something to say. Another, more comical, example comes from when I was out with my friends a few weeks ago and a girl approached me acting stupid and asked ‘do I know you?’ to which I replied, ‘No, I don’t think so’. She then said ‘we should change that’. At that point I walked away to my friends. In this situation, the girl was attempting (and horribly failing) at trying to talk to me and seem interested, however, she was just trying to get someone to buy her a drink.

So there we have it. I have rambled about my idea about dramaturgy and even understand it now!

References

Adler, P.A, Adler, P & Fontana, A, 1987 ‘Everyday Life Sociology’, Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 13, pp. 217-235

Goffman, E, 1971, ‘Performances’, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 28-82