garfinkel breaching experiment examples

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Social Mettle

A List of Quirky Ideas for Social Norm Breaching Experiments

Suppose there is a game in which you are not allowed to say 'yes' or 'no', and have to answer only with another question. Using up the entire range of 'wh-questions', you can think of how entertaining this game can get. Social norm breaching is nothing different than this.

Suppose there is a game in which you are not allowed to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and have to answer only with another question. Using up the entire range of ‘wh-questions’, you can think of how entertaining this game can get. Social norm breaching is nothing different than this.

No Suggestions Implied! While a Superman costume flaunting an underwear is taken well, someone wearing undergarments over normal clothes (that too at a fancy dress party) becomes an act of breach! Unfair, isn’t it!

Eating with your hands while dining at a fancy restaurant, wearing your bathrobe to college one day, sending a reply via email when someone had called you on your cell phone, or talking to a stranger by getting very close to him/her, and such similar deeds are ones that a normal human being would usually avoid doing.

If you have tried any of these, you can be called a researcher who was engaged in studying social norm breaching experiments. Such kind acts of nonsense, which you may call bizarre, are not solely meant for entertainment purposes. This testing of socially accepted rules are mainly a part of the fields of sociology and social psychology. Yes, academics can get very interesting at times!

What are Breaching Experiments in Sociology?

Breaching experiments try to study the reactions of people when a social norm is broken or violated.

There are some unwritten rules that all of us follow in our day-to-day conduct. How one would (rather should) behave in a given situation is predefined and based on a lot of assumptions. These experiments try to break these ‘taken for granted’ social norms. Reactions of others to such tricks are also fun to look at. This concept is associated with the ethnomethodology theory of sociology , put forth by Harold Garfinkel.

An unexpected behavior or comment leaves the respondent completely puzzled, making the experiment successful. The approach behind such experiments highlights that, people continue to make a number of such rules everyday, and do not even realize it.

Experiment Ideas

Clearly, a breaching experiment is like asking for trouble. When the action is troublesome, it makes it visible that practices leading to social stability are so much ingrained into our minds. Breaching of norms has to be a deliberate act though; it is not an issue of conflicting opinions leading to disobedience of a given norm. You can try troubling others with the following ideas.

– To a casual question like ‘what’s up?’, you can say ‘the sky’. ‘How’s it going?’ can be replied to in an exhilarating manner, like ‘I didn’t see any ‘it’ going’. When people are not really interested in knowing about you, and they still ask those questions, you may actually stop them and really explain to them some random event going on in your life. (Be very sure about who you want to experiment with this though!)

– Some tests that college students were asked to take, involved behaving like a stranger or renter in one’s home. Talking only when asked about something, or being very polite, are some things their parents reacted to quite strongly.

– In the tic-tac-toe game, ask a person to play first. When he/she places an ‘X’ in a square, you place an ‘O’ on a line forming the matrix, and not in any square space. That person might get confused, or would exclaim, “Have you gone crazy?” Behaving according to the established practices of following given rules is so important here, even if it is a game. This exemplifies an established social order.

– At a decently crowded public place, get one of your friends to stand opposite you. You act like both of you are talking about something important. Then, act as if the both of you are holding a very thin and delicate cotton string in your fingertips, each one of you holding one end of it. Now, start to move away, very slowly, so that people feel that you are holding something very precious. Shout out words like, ‘easy’, ‘be careful’, or ‘watch out’. You may find a few people actually believing you and ducking while they pass through. Someone might even go around you, so as to not break that string. You would notice, it is very easy to create social norms.

Experiment Examples

Here are some examples of interpersonal conversations, mentioned in ethnomethodology literature as case studies of experimentation given by Garfinkel. These have been sourced from books like ‘Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology’ by John Heritage, and ‘Sociology in Perspective’ by Mark Kirby.

– The subject was telling the experimenter―a member of the subject’s car pool―about having had a flat tire while going to work the previous day.

S : I had a flat tire. E : What do you mean, you had a flat tire? She appeared momentarily stunned. Then she answered in a hostile way: ‘What do you mean? What do you mean? A flat tire is a flat tire. That is what I a meant. Nothing special. What a crazy question!’

– By asking ‘What do you mean?’, as a response to every statement, students were asked to continue the conversation.

S : Hi, Ray. How is your girlfriend feeling? E : What do you mean ‘How is she feeling?’. Do you mean physically or mentally? S : I mean how is she feeling? What’s the matter with you? (He looked peeved.) E : Nothing. Just explain a little clearer as to what you mean. S : Skip it. How are your Med School applications coming? E : What do you mean ‘How are they going?’ S : You know what I mean. E : I really don’t. S : What’s the matter with you? Are you sick?

– On Friday night, my husband and I were watching television. He remarked that he was tired. I asked, ‘How are you tired? Physically, mentally, or just bored?’

S : I don’t know, I guess physically, mainly. E : You mean that your muscles ache, or your bones? S : I guess so. Don’t be so technical. (After more watching) S : All these old movies have the same kind of old iron bedstead in them. E : What do you mean? Do you mean all old movies, or some of them, or just the ones you have seen? S : What’s the matter with you? You know what I mean. E : I wish you would be more specific. S : You know what I mean! Drop dead!

– The victim waived his hand cheerily.

S : How are you? E : How am I in regard to what? My health, my finance, my school work, my peace of mind, my … S : (Red in the face and suddenly out of control.) Look! I was just trying to be polite! Frankly, I don’t give a damn how you are.

The results from these cases proved that the experimenters could successfully break the norms. It was possible because of the fact that, any given conversation (or communication) takes place smoothly, ‘assuming the background knowledge’, which helps two people make sense of what the other means.

Well, if you’ve got the point now, you can be real ‘innovative and original’ with this act of breaching. Oh, but just be sure that you don’t mess with the wrong people at the wrong time.

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Breaching Experiments

Ethnomethodology Theory: Definition & Examples

Ayesh Perera

B.A, MTS, Harvard University

Ayesh Perera, a Harvard graduate, has worked as a researcher in psychology and neuroscience under Dr. Kevin Majeres at Harvard Medical School.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

On This Page:

Ethnomethodology theory is a sociological approach that seeks to understand the social order and rules that structure everyday life through analyzing the common sense methods people use to make sense of and function in their daily lives. Rather than studying what “should” happen, it examines how people construct social reality and the tacit procedures they follow to create and interpret meaning in social interactions.

Key Takeaways

• Originally developed by Harold Garfinkel, ethnomethodology is a sociological approach that studies how the process of social interactions produces social order (Garfinkel, 1974).
• In order to analyze how individuals account for their conduct, ethnomethodologists may intentionally unsettle communal norms to evaluate how such individuals respond and strive to restore order to the community (Crossman, 2020).
• Ethnomethodology examines resources, practices and procedures via which a society’s members interpret their daily lives, and the mutual recognition of which within certain contexts engenders orderliness (Nickerson, 2021)(Williams, 2001).

The ethnomethodological approach focuses on the capacities of people as members of a collective rather than their individuating traits as distinct persons. It is primarily not a theory seeking to analyze social life (Nickerson, 2021).

On the contrary, ethnomethodology frames inquiries and observations into communal interactions, underscoring various individuals’ understanding of their worlds, rather than any theoretical frameworks utilized by social scientists.

Furthermore, according to ethnomethodology human interactions are enabled by, and occur within a consensus which comprises various norms for conduct (Crossman, 2020). These values accompany the members of a society and facilitate its cohesion.

Ethnomethodology assumes that those norms are both uniform and shared, and that violations thereof can unveil for analysis dynamics of a community as well as the manner of its members’ reactions to such transgressions.

Additionally, ethnomethodologists hold that their particular discipline strives to unveil a society’s behavioral norms which its members may otherwise remain unconscious of, and incapable of articulating.

A simple conversation among acquaintances can be construed as a social interaction governed by certain implicit standards of decorum (Crossman, 2020). The partakers in the discussion may nod their heads to communicate agreement, look at each other, and raise and answer questions.

An ethnomethodologist may strive to uncover the norms ruling this interaction by disrupting the conversation [e.g., interrupting the speaker]. Such an intrusion would likely breakdown the previous interaction and replace it with another social situation.

Another example stems of a well-known set of ethnomethodological experiments (Crossman, 2020). Herein, college students were directed to act like guests in their homes without informing their families that this dissimulation was part of an experiment.

The students were to be impersonal and polite. They would employ terms of formal address and talk only after being talked to. Following the experiment, the students reported that the reactions of their families had ranged from humor and bewilderment to shock and anger.

Meanwhile, the students themselves had been accused of being mean, inconsiderate and impolite. However, the students were able to see via the experiment how even informal norms, such as those governing homes, could remain structured, and if broken, could become evident.

Pros and Cons

Ethnomethodology functions as an effective descriptive tool at a micro level. It can unveil group dynamics and communal norms which exert a potent influence on society while simultaneously escaping notice.

In fact, when individuals encounter difficulty in identifying the very communal norms they themselves live by, the unconventional approach of departing from decorum, inspired by ethnomethodology, can be immensely enlightening (Crossman, 2020).

However, at the same time, ethnomethodology is not a sound explanatory tool capable of accounting for phenomena at a macro level. It avoids normative judgments and has been criticized for wanting a tenable epistemological foundation (Lynch, 2001).

Further Information

What is Ethnomethodology?

Attewell, P. (1974). Ethnomethodology since Garfinkel. Theory and society, 1(2), 179-210.

Heritage, J. (1987). Ethnomethodology. Social theory today, 224-272.

Linstead, S. (2006). Ethnomethodology and sociology: an introduction. The Sociological Review, 54(3), 399-404.

Crossman, Ashley. (2020). Using Ethnomethodology to Understand Social Order. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-ethnomethodology-3026553

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Ethnomethodology . Englewood Cliffs.

Garfinkel, H. (1974) “The origins of the term ethnomethodology”, in R.Turner (Ed.) Ethnomethodology, Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp 15–18.

Lynch, M. (2001). Science and Technology Studies: Ethnomethodology. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 13644-13647). Oxford: Pergamon.

Nickerson, C. (2021). Using Ethnomethodology to Understand Social Order. Simply Psychology. www.simplypsychology.org/what-is-ethnomethodology.html

Williams, J. (2001). Phenomenology in Sociology. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 11361-11363). Oxford: Pergamon.

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• > The Anthem Companion to Harold Garfinkel
• > Introduction: Rediscovering Garfinkel's “Experiments,” Renewing Ethnomethodological Inquiry

Book contents

• Frontmatter
• List of Illustrations
• Introduction: Rediscovering Garfinkel's “Experiments,” Renewing Ethnomethodological Inquiry
• Part I Exegesis
• Part II ‘Experiments’
• Part III Implications
• Postface: “Experiments”—What are we Talking About? A Plea for Conceptual Investigations
• Notes on Contributors
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Introduction

In 1967, the publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology by Harold Garfinkel (1917–2011) broke new ground in sociology. Garfinkel's Studies not only challenged sociology's paradigmatic foundations and routine working methods, but also produced heuristic anomalies and instigated new ways of probing social order and its recognizable production in situ. Among these new ways of working figured the now widely known, if not regularly practiced “breaching experiments,” experiments for which Garfinkel invited his students to engage in odd conduct in everyday situations (for example, by conducting oneself like a stranger at home). Taken out of context, these experiments sometimes came to be seen as being “odd” themselves, where in the first place they were devised as heuristic enterprises (making investigable the routine production of social order in everyday life) and critical probes (challenging “social theory” for its epistemological, ontological or other abstractions of social reality).

This introduction to The Anthem Companion to Harold Garfinkel concentrates on the experimental outlook of Garfinkel's ethnomethodology (EM) (i.e., his “study of people's methods”). First, we shall outline EM's research rationale, as that rationale was articulated in Garfinkel's Studies (1967a), as an empirical and critical endeavor. Not only did his seminal book probe “social order” as a locally investigable phenomenon, instead of reproducing it as theoretical problem ex cathedra, but the book also challenged sociological theorization in so doing—a challenge leveraged by “breaching experiments,” yet sometimes missed in their introductory exposition. Second, we shall tease out the common ground of subsequent developments in EM, as that ground happens to be articulated and rearticulated through changes in successive program and position statements, spanning contrasting strands of conversational, practical, and conceptual analysis. Against this multifaceted backdrop, the most distinctive figure(s) of ethnomethodological experimentation will be located as a topic and resource, sometimes both. Finally, the heuristic tension between analytic detachment and practical involvement—a recurring tension in ethnomethodological research—will allow us to present this Companion and its contributions, in and for the renewal of ethnomethodological inquiry.

Cui bono? The question “to whose benefit” EM was, is or remains to be developed has, since Garfinkel's passing in 2011, been taken up under various guises, both “fundamental” and “applied.” There certainly has been no lack of voices, approaches and suggestions on how to make EM “useful,” “critical” or “reflexive,” including our own—“again,” we might add.

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• By Philippe Sormani , Dirk vom Lehn
• Edited by Philippe Sormani , Université de Lausanne, Switzerland , Dirk vom Lehn , King's College London
• Book: The Anthem Companion to Harold Garfinkel
• Online publication: 28 February 2024

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The Social Experiment: Soc. 362: Contemporary Theory

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Table of Contents

Biographical Background: Harold Garfinkel

Harold Garfinkel, a prominent sociologist known for his groundbreaking work in ethnomethodology, made significant contributions to the fields of sociology, social psychology, and symbolic interactionism. Born on October 29, 1917, in Newark, New Jersey, Garfinkel’s ideas have had a profound impact on our understanding of social order, meaning-making, and everyday social interaction. 

Harold Garfinkel grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Newark, where he initially studied accounting before switching to sociology. He later pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, where he worked with renowned sociologists such as Talcott Parsons and George C. Homans. Garfinkel’s early research focused on socialization and social order, but he became increasingly interested in the micro-level processes of social interaction. In the 1950s, he began developing his ideas about ethnomethodology, which would become the hallmark of his work.

Key Concepts and Contributions:

1. ethnomethodology:.

Harold Garfinkel is best known for developing the theory and methodology of ethnomethodology, which seeks to uncover the taken-for-granted methods and practices through which individuals construct social reality. Ethnomethodology challenges traditional sociological approaches by focusing on the “ordinary” or “everyday” aspects of social life that are often overlooked or taken for granted. Garfinkel argued that individuals actively engage in sense-making activities to maintain social order and coordination in their interactions.

2. Breaching Experiments:

A central methodological tool in ethnomethodology is the breaching experiment, in which researchers intentionally violate social norms or expectations to reveal the underlying rules and assumptions guiding social behavior. Garfinkel conducted numerous breaching experiments to demonstrate how seemingly mundane interactions are structured by implicit rules and expectations. For example, he instructed his students to engage in “unusual” behaviors, such as speaking in nonsensical sentences or staring at strangers, to observe the reactions of others and the resulting disruptions to social order.

3. Indexicality and Reflexivity:

Ethnomethodology emphasizes the indexical nature of social meaning, highlighting how meanings are contextually situated and contingent upon specific social contexts. Garfinkel argued that individuals use “indexical expressions,” such as gestures, tones of voice, and contextual cues, to make sense of their interactions and coordinate their actions with others. Ethnomethodology also emphasizes reflexivity, or the process of individuals reflecting on and making sense of their own social actions and the actions of others.

4. Accounts and Accountability:

Another key concept in ethnomethodology is the idea of “accounts” and “accountability,” which refers to the ways in which individuals provide explanations or justifications for their actions in social interactions. Garfinkel argued that individuals use “accounts” to make sense of their behavior and maintain social order, even in the face of disruptions or breaches. Ethnomethodologists analyze how individuals navigate social situations by providing “accounts” that are intelligible and acceptable within the given context.

Conclusion:

Harold Garfinkel’s ideas have had a lasting impact on the fields of sociology, social psychology, and communication studies. His development of ethnomethodology challenged conventional sociological paradigms and paved the way for new approaches to understanding social interaction. Garfinkel’s emphasis on the practical and situated nature of social order has inspired scholars to reexamine taken-for-granted assumptions about social reality and to explore the complexities of everyday life.

Harold Garfinkel’s contributions to sociology and social theory have reshaped our understanding of social order, meaning-making, and the dynamics of everyday interaction. His development of ethnomethodology has provided researchers with a powerful framework for studying the social construction of reality and the methods through which individuals navigate their social worlds. Garfinkel’s legacy as a pioneering thinker underscores the importance of attending to the ordinary and the mundane in our efforts to understand the complexities of human social life.

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Sociological Theorists: Harold Garfinkel

I recall in particular here two sessions of the British Sociological Association, I think in the mid-1970s. The first was at Surrey University and involved a group of ethnomethodologists from Goldsmiths College in London who had pre-circulated the text of a book on ethnomethodology they’d just written and, when presenting to an audience of 100+, refused to discuss its contents. The audience had presumably been expected to read it beforehand. Senior figures like Goldthorpe and Rex, genuinely curious, were unimpressed. Maybe it was a ‘breaching experiment’? The second occasion involved keynote addresses by Giddens and Turner on ‘Whither Sociology?’ While the former attempted to plot the likely future of the discipline, the latter asked why we were asking this particular question at this particular time (to a mixture of confusion and groans). What binds these two recollections is speakers’ interest in the – then – novel studies of Harold Garfinkel (see his Studies in Ethnomethodology , published in 1967), the subject of this brief introductory blog.

Ethnomethodology, Ritzer tells us in his Contemporary Sociological Theory and its Classical Roots , ‘is the study of ordinary members of society in the everyday situations in which they find themselves and the ways in which they use commonsense knowledge, procedures, and considerations to gain an understanding of, navigate in, and act on those situations.’ Following in the footsteps of Schutz, ethnomethodologists reject the notion that members of society are ‘judgemental dopes’, but they acknowledge that action is typically routine and relatively unreflexive. Ethnomethodologists, it might be said, are interested in the ‘artful practices’ that produce people’s sense of macro- and micro-structures. They therefore offered, and offer, a novel way of tackling objective structures.

Garfinkel focused on ‘accounts’, or the ways in which people describe, come to terms with and explain specific situations. It is through the process of ‘accounting’ – offering accounts – that people make sense of the world. Ethnomethodologists accordingly concentrate on and analyse conversations (qua ‘accounting practices’).

Sociologists, like everyone else, offer accounts (hence Turner’s theme recalled earlier). In this sense it is part of the ethnomethodological project to study, and demystify, sociologists’ accounts.

Accounts can be seen as reflexive in the sense that ‘they enter into the constitution of the state of affairs they make observable and are intended to deal with’ (Ritzer). It follows that sociologists, in studying and reporting on social life, are changing what they are studying (ie people’s behaviour changes as a result of ‘being studied’).

The notion of ‘breaching experiments’ was mentioned at the outset. This refers to violating of the social order in order to shed light on how people construct social reality. The point of the breaching experiment, then, is to disrupt normal procedures so that the process by which the everyday world is constructed or reconstructed can be observed and studies.

In one of Garfinkel’s more notorious breaching experiments he asked his students to act like lodgers for between 15 minutes and an hour each day in their own homes. This involved them being especially polite, cautious, impersonal, formal and so on. Unsurprisingly, family members were confused, shocked and outraged by this behaviour. The students reported (gave accounts of) family reactions (they were seen as rude, nasty, impolite etc). These reactions indicated to Garfinkel (and presumably his students) just how important it is that people act in accordance with the commonsense assumptions about how they are supposed to behave. Garfinkel was particularly interested in how family members responded. They typically demanded – and looked for – explanations; for example, were the students ill, ‘not themselves’, or just rebelling? Sometimes deep emotions were aroused and students were told to ‘shape up’ or move out. When the study was explained to family members harmony was generally, but not always, restored. Doubts about the ethics of this project have often been expressed!

Incidentally, my single published paper on the pandemic – so far at least – draws loosely on this notion to suggest that COVID might usefully be seen as a naturally occurring breaching experiment (see Health Sociology Review 2020 vol 29 140-148).

Garfinkel’s comments on ‘accomplishing gender’ remain salient, perhaps the more so in the context of current ‘post-binary’ analyses. While sexiness, Garfinkel argues, is often seen as ‘accomplished’, gender rarely is. He considers the case of Agnes, who appeared to have all the characteristics of a woman, but was she? What Garfinkel learned was that Agnes was at the time trying to convince physicians that she needed surgery to remove her male genitalia and create a vagina. Agnes, in other words, was defined as a male at birth, and was ‘by all accounts’ a boy until she was 16, at which point she ran away from home and began to dress, act, and pass as a girl. Over time she learned the ‘accepted practices’ and in consequence ‘came to be defined, and to define herself, as a woman’ (Ritzer). Only in learning these practices, Garfinkel maintained, do we come to be – in a sociological sense – a man or woman. Thus (even) a category like gender, often considered an ascribed status, might be viewed as an accomplishment of a set of situated practices. It is easy to see this analysis as prescient. Whatever one’s reading of current – often vigorous, sometimes intemperate and even binary (ie you are either with us or against us) – debates about post-binary perspectives on sex and gender, Garfinkel’s ethnomethodological excursions have a significant input and bearing.

So the core message from Garfinkel’s endeavours is that it is the sociological task to reveal social order as a dynamic, ‘indexical’ (indexical = the meaning of words, gestures etc depend on context), practical accomplishment resting on the organized ‘artful’ ways that ordinary people engage in the practices of everyday life and reflexively render them accountable and meaningful. A bit of a mouthful, but an apt summation.

In the writings of some of Garfinkel’s successors it seems that only when there exists an accumulation of investigations of micro-phenomena, like the beginnings of telephone conversations, will it be possible to move on to macro-phenomena like class divisions and conflict. This has been much critiqued. What ethnomethodologists have undoubtedly achieved is a greater reflexivity on the part of sociologists around their own intrusion and impact on the social worlds they enter and study. Cicourel’s classic critique of conventional approaches to surveys is a prime example (see his Method and Measurement in Sociology ).

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Social Media Collective

The Oversharer (and Other Social Media Experiments)

What new norms are we evolving via the use of social media?

Way back in 1967 sociologist Harold Garfinkel proposed that the social world was filled with hidden rules for behavior that were so taken for granted it could be very difficult to notice them even if you tried to.  To make this point he famously sent his college students home for spring break with an assignment: He asked them to “spend from fifteen minutes to an hour in their homes imagining that they were boarders and acting out this assumption” ( p. 38 ). In short, they were to be polite to their families and note what happened.

It turns out that people aren’t polite to family .

As family norms were broken the result was often pandemonium.  Unsuspecting family members quickly diagnosed their children as ill… or even insane. Speaking politely to your parents is so unusual that most families took it as cruel mockery, or as a kind of elaborate, unsuccessful joke.  Students found the experience unaccountably stressful, given the apparently innocuous instructions. Garfinkel’s experiment is now widely known as “the lodger” or “the boarder.”  He advocated this technique of de-familiarizing everyday life by challenging some unstated assumption as a way to discover the existence of hidden norms.  He called it “breaching.”

What would Garfinkel’s breaching experiment look like if we designed it to investigate emerging norms in social media?  In the class that I teach at the University of Illinois called  Communication Technology and Society we set out to figure this out.  Here is a sampling of some of the breaching experiments we designed and conducted.  (Siddhartha Raja, Matthew Yapchaian, Dawn Nafus, and Ken Anderson contributed to this list.)

I’ll list the experiments here but not the results.  Note that a few of them produced results we did not expect.  Dear Internet: Can you think of any other social media norms to investigate with norm breaching experiments? This is like making your own  failbook  for the sake of science. All new Garfinkels welcomed.

Social Media Norm Breaching Experiments

• CHATTY FLICKR MARKUP : Sign up for an account and find users on Flickr ( http://www.flickr.com/ ) that you do not know. Try to start a conversation with them using the “add note” tool and the “add your comment” box to mark an image that they have uploaded. Try varying the kind of image you comment on from those that are very personal (wedding, kids birthdays, etc.) to those that are very impersonal (buildings, landscapes) and see how the reactions vary. Note that you may have to post a lot of notes and comments to get any reaction. You may have to try different and creative strategies to get people to respond to you. Describe the reactions.
• GCHAT STRANGER . If you have a gmail account already, use gchat to begin chat conversations with people that you don’t know (or don’t know very well). Vary the kinds of things you say to see if you can get them to start a chat conversation with you. Describe what kind of chat message will successfully get a stranger to chat with you on gchat. Remember to be polite and respectful at all times. Note: You may have to try to gchat A LOT before you get someone to respond to you. Do not keep trying the same people if they do not respond.
• WAY OFF TOPIC.  On Facebook or a similar site that has threaded conversation (e.g., status updates with replies), over a period of three days leave a large number of comments that are all completely and obviously off-topic and not relevant to the thread. For this to work, there can be no relation between the reply and the topic at all; just start talking about something else. If you like, address some of them to the wrong person as well. Describe the results.
• FACEBOOK WALL INQUISITOR.  On Facebook, friend five strangers — people you don’t know (maybe friends of friends). Once they accept your friend request, post a public comment to their wall introducing yourself and asking them about themselves. In your posts, do not refer to any friends that you have in common; just talk about yourself and ask them about themselves. Try to get information from them about themselves. (You must start this assignment before Monday for it to work!). Describe the responses.
• ONLY ONE MEDIUM.  Choose one popular communication technology. Only use that technology for 3 days. (e.g. Use Facebook direct messages for ALL communication even when it is obviously inappropriate or impractical.) Describe the reactions.
• ALWAYS MIX MEDIA.  For 3 days, always “mix” media–always respond to a communication using a different medium of communication than the one that was used to contact you. (example: if you get a phone call, let it go to voicemail then SMS them. If you get an email, send a picture to their phone, etc. Respond to your twitter @’s in person.) Describe the reactions.
• THE OVERSHARER.  Pick either an acquaintance you don’t know that well or a parent. In a 24 hour period dramatically increase the amount of information you send this person using a text-based mobile communication technology that you know they can receive (likeIM on your phone, text/SMS, or e-mail on your phone/PDA). For example, you could communicate with them every time you do anything (“hi I am getting on the bus”, “arrived in class,” “class is boring,” “having lunch,” “talking with friend.”) Describe the reactions.
• LAPTOP ALTRUISM.  In a public place, ask to borrow a stranger’s laptop “for a second” to check something and then spend an excessive amount of time using it to do things on Facebook. If you get no reaction or the overall experiment is very short, repeat the experiment with another person.

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10 thoughts on “ the oversharer (and other social media experiments) ”.

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New sociology student here - interested in uncommon social norms for a breaching experiment

Hey all- first time Reddit user here. I recently began taking sociology courses and one of the first sections we deal with is obviously as stated, a social norms breaching experiment. I found students consistently use the same norms in their experiments i.e. saying “hello” in place of “goodbye”, speaking with strangers in the elevator, wearing pajamas in public etc. If anyone has any interesting ideas on social norms or examples of breaching social norm experiments would be greatly appreciated. Not looking to “steal” the idea or use someone else’s work, genuinely just intrigued by other peoples perspectives in terms of social norms and what comes with it when disrupted/different. Thanks so much- hope this post doesn’t flop, please remember first time Reddit user and early Soc student!