Breaching experiment

In the fields of sociology and social psychology, a breaching experiment is an experiment that shows how people react when commonly accepted social norms or rules are broken. Breaching experiments show that people react in "unexpected" ways when social norms are broken. They allow to observe different kinds of social reactions when norms are broken. These experiments are also about being able to see and describe the social structure that makes these social reactions possible. The idea of studying the violation of social norms and the accompanying reactions is used in both sociology and psychology today.

The approach assumes that people make new "rules" for social interactions every day and that they are not aware of it.Ritzer, George. 1996. “Ethnomethodology.” Pp. 373-399 in Sociological Theory. 4th Ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill|   Erving Goffman published work that allows to study the construction of everyday social meanings and behavioral norms. His method involves breaking unstated but universally accepted rules.  Harold Garfinkel extended this idea. He developed ethnomethodology as a qualitative research method for social scientists. In the 1970s and 80s, famous social psychologist Stanley Milgram developed two experiments to observe and quantify responses to breaches in social norms to empirically analyze reactions to violation of those norms.

 Erving Goffman on social interaction 
Goffman published two articles related to this domain: Behavior in Public Places in 1963 and Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order, published in 1971. Goffman draws on his earlier studies of individuals in mental asylums, as well as other stigmatized social groups. He does this to highlight the often taken-for-granted rules of social interaction, as well as the results when rules are broken. He argues that the most common rule in all social situations is for the individual to "fit in". He defines norms as a kind of guide for action supported by social sanctions or reactions, in that there are penalties for infraction, or breaking norms, while individuals are generally rewarded for compliance. If an individual breaches a social norm, the act is often attributed to some property of the individual, such as that the person is sick or mentally ill. For example, a person who is observed talking to himself in a public place is assumed to be mentally ill by any strangers who may notice.

Goffman states that social gatherings have significant importance for organizing social life. He argues that all people in a social setting have some concern regarding the rules governing behavior. Infractions, or violation of an unstated rule, may be "taken as a sign that the offender cannot be trusted" not to take advantage of the situation "even though the original infraction itself" may actually be harmless.  Individuals come to "feel that rules for participating in gatherings are crucial for society’s well-being" and that these "rules are natural, inviolable, and fundamentally right".

 Related pages 
 Amygdala hijack
 Social experiment

 Notes 

 Bibliography  



Category:Psychology experiments