There are unwritten laws or norms in all countries and societies. Sometimes it isn’t easy to find the exact time for the formation of social norms. Social norms evolve and change over time. The violation of social norms in different societies is usually due to bad social norms examples prevalent in society.
Many people are trying to eliminate them. Even social norm violation psychology points to the importance of this.
In the following, we will tell the violation of social norms examples.
What are social norms?
To address the issue of social norms violations in this article, we must first provide an appropriate definition of social norms and become familiar with how social norms are.
Social norms, in general, are: The constitutions that exist in a society and help us know more about the behaviors we should have in each situation. Social norms are laws that teach us what to do and what not to do. Doing things against the accepted social norms in a society or group may even exclude people from that society or group.
There are different norms in each society. However, in some cultures, there may be standard norms of need. For example, when people want to express their requests, they use, please. There is a use of the word thank you after answering a request in many communities. This is an essential violation of social norms psychology, and scientists have different views on it. Violating social norms essay can be beneficial to study.
Social norms are rules or principles that group members understand implicitly or explicitly. (Spann et al., 1998).
For this reason, they try to act according to the social norm they know and avoid doing things contrary to the standards. (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014)
This shared understanding of a particular issue is desirable and contributes to the better functioning of social groups. (van Kleef et al., 2011)
Why do some people break the norms?
Research has shown that people who break the norms want to arouse the feelings of others. They do so intending to respond negatively to others and unfavorable social perceptions and negative emotions and to blame and create rumors. (Stamkou et al., 2018)
Research shows that people who seek social norms violations are present in the group as influential and high-ranking individuals and have the power to influence people.
People who seek social norms violations in a group or community seem powerful. They usually influence the audience, and other people in a group or community give in to their power.
Facing this fact is very challenging, and the question of how can we prevent the violation of norms and the influence of unjustified people in groups or communities? (Gutierrez & Giner-Sorolla, 2007)
What are social norms violations, and how?
Abnormalities occur when a person’s behavior does not match what is socially or group acceptable. Any behavior contrary to the knowledge and understanding of specific social norms is social norms violations. The following is an example of compliance with social norms and social norms violations.
It is necessary to maintain order in the store lines or lines where people are waiting in many countries. So queuing is known as a social norm. When you stand in line to take your turn, it is unusual for someone to enter the store, cross the line, and go to the beginning of the line. Their behavior contradicts the norms accepted by people in the queue and waiting. Because of this, people get angry and try to protest against that person who breaks the norm.
But in general, the definition of abnormalities and social norms violations is related to the culture and society in which you live. They will define how to determine social norms‘ right and wrong behavior and its violation.
Even a slight deviation from a norm can sometimes be considered unusual by many people committed to a specific standard.
2 Features of social norms violations
1. Flexibility (proportional to age and position)
There is flexibility in social norms violations. Depending on the situation and age of individuals, individual behavior may not be considered norm-breaking. You will see norm violation examples below.
For example, in any society, some kind of cover is acceptable. You should wear appropriate clothing to buy your daily necessities in the community. But wearing a bikini on the beach is good.
Here is another example that is related to people’s age. It is common for babies to drink milk with a bottle and pacifier. But children and adults must use glasses for drinking milk. So if adults use a bottle of infant milk to drink milk, some social norm violations will occur. This is a bit funny social norms to break in public.
2. Quite clear
Social norms will be apparent to you after living in a specific culture. When you travel, you may not fully understand the accepted standards of a community. But after living in a particular community for a while, you will find out what is acceptable and not good.
Conclusion:
In this article, we introduced you to social norms violations. We gave examples and described their features to better understand social norms violations. At the beginning of the article, we defined social norms so that you can understand them.
We have written many articles on why we should abide by social norms and definitions and examples of social norms. We hope you read them and share them with your friends.
Sources:
- Jetten, J., & Hornsey, M. J. (2014). Deviance and Dissent in Groups. Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 461–485. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115151
- van Kleef, G. A., Homan, A. C., Finkenauer, C., Gündemir, S., & Stamkou, E. (2011). Breaking the Rules to Rise to Power. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(5), 500–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550611398416
- Spann, G., Fiske, S. T., Gilbert, D. T., & Lindzey, G. (1998). The Handbook of Social Psychology: Fourth Edition, Vols. 1 and 2. Contemporary Sociology, 27(6), 607. https://doi.org/10.2307/2654253
- Stamkou, E., van Kleef, G. A., Homan, A. C., Gelfand, M. J., van de Vijver, F. J. R., van Egmond, M. C., Boer, D., Phiri, N., Ayub, N., Kinias, Z., Cantarero, K., Efrat Treister, D., Figueiredo, A., Hashimoto, H., Hofmann, E. B., Lima, R. P., & Lee, I. C. (2018). Cultural Collectivism and Tightness Moderate Responses to Norm Violators: Effects on Power Perception, Moral Emotions, and Leader Support. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45(6), 947–964. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218802832
- Gutierrez, R., & Giner-Sorolla, R. (2007). Anger, disgust, and presumption of harm as reactions to taboo-breaking behaviors. Emotion, 7(4), 853–868. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.7.4.853
