The first part is a description (the who, what, where, when) of the breach you conducted. I don’t want this
part to be overly analytical of other people’s behaviors or your own. I want you to describe the breach in
as much hard-boiled detail as you can. In other words, I want you to describe your techniques for creating
trouble in a familiar scene of life.
The second part of this write up is analytical. I want you to (1) identify the social norm you breached, (2)
discuss how other people responded to your breach, and analyze the “repair work” of other people in
order to bring the situation you breached back to “normal.”
The first and second parts must be between 500-600 words each. Total length of this assignment: 1000-
1200 words.
Breaching Experiments
Breaching experiments concept relates to the work of Harold Garfinkel and aims at
examining the way people react to violations of social norms or rules commonly accepted by the
society (Rafalovic 156). Different people react to situations they do not anticipate in different
ways. This paper therefore deliberates on the techniques for creating trouble in a familiar scene
in life and identifies the social norm breached, how people responded to the breach and repair
work that helps to bring the situation to normal.
In our day-to-day lives, we breach these social rules and norms even without ourselves
noticing. The reactions of people close to us in most cases indicates that one has done something
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or reacted in a manner that is not socially accepted or anticipated. Sometimes people may as well
create trouble in familiar scenes of life full aware of what they are doing. As an individual, I
have find myself acting and behaving contrary to the social norms and rules. This has happened
at various occasions at home, school and even at my workplace. Most of the times, this has
happened with my full awareness but some instances have happened without my understanding
and awareness. For instance, when I was at school, I could find myself asking for clarifications
during conversation with my friends on various topics. At the time, I could not understand what
exactly I was doing. The technique I can say that I use to cause trouble in situations that I am
familiar such as home is the use of background expectancies. This technique enabled me to
interpret and decide on how I should behave or act in specific social situation. I do understand
that situations and circumstances do vary and the expectation of the people around you as well
may vary based on their socialization and other factors such as level of education and so forth. I
would make these background expectancies visible by becoming a stranger to the life implying
that I produce disorganized interactions n as a way of exemplifying how the structures of
activities people engage in on daily basis are created and maintained. For instance, in our
culture, it is expected that people of young age show respect to their elders. As a sign of showing
respect, the younger is expected to give a seat to an elderly. Doing contrary to this in a society is
viewed as going contrary to the social norms and even will lead to ridicule from the members of
society. Therefore, in such scenarios, my technique for creating trouble is based on first
analyzing the situation and the expectations of the society. The technique I use in such cases is to
ignore that I am not aware of what is going on. These behaviors therefore shield me from the
public ridicule. Therefore, it becomes very important to understand how to act in these situations
to salvage oneself from the wrath of the society who my perceive that you have gone astray.
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Such behaviors as well contribute to trouble as it elicits criticisms from the members of the
society.
Part 2
In our day-to-day interactions, we breach many social norms and rules, some of the norm
that people breach are consciously breached while others are not. One of the social norms I
breached is failing to respect the queue until my turn to receive service comes. This situation
occurred when I visited a bank to deposit my cheque. The queue was long and I was in a hurry. I
was tempted to breach the rules and pass a number of people that were already in front of me. It
is social norm for people in my culture to follow queues as a sign of respect when waiting for
services. The social norms that they use are based on the premise of first come first served.
Therefore, coming late and passing those already on the queue is an offense to people especially
those that came before you.
When I walked to the counter, people on the queue reacted differently. The bottom line of
their reactions was anger and feeling of disrespect. I remember one of them shouting at me and
telling me to stop disrespecting them. He was so furious and shouted to an extend that he caught
the attention of the people around the bank seeking other bank services. Another person,
rebuked me and insulted me, ‘these young people are manner less”. Another person summoned
the security officer at the entrance and told him to prevent behaviors of people that are not
patient enough on queue threatening that he would also jump the queue if the situation was not
contained. I remember one young man who came and tried to grab me and through me out of the
queue claiming that, I was not acting in a civilized manner. Their facial expressions and body
movements annoyed many of the people. The faces of people I have jumped were pale and full
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of creases, some begun murmuring and throwing their hands in the air as a way of expressing
their annoyance. They exemplified these behaviors in a glimpse of time I decided to breach the
norms and jump the queue.
Bringing the situation back to normalcy took some considerable time. The people that
had been angered by my actions would not let this habit go on. They had to do what is known as’
repair work’ to contain the situation and curb such incidence of people passing the queue. They
vowed in unison to gang against any person that would not follow the queue. They resolved that
no individual should allow any person not formerly on the queue to jump them. They as well had
to report the matter to the security officer so that he ensures that all the people that need services
follows the queue and no one should pass others. I had also to ask for their forgiveness. I had to
talk to them and inform them what drove me to behave in this manner and requested for their
forgiveness. Many of them even though could not accept my apologies; it however helped to
bring their tempers down. The only mistake I did is that I did not inform them or sought the
intervention of the person in charge to request me jump over the queue.
In conclusion, as human beings were are expected to act and behave consistent with the
social rules and norms. However, we found ourselves acting and behaving contrary to these
expectations. It therefore, important to remain sensitive about our behaviors and circumstances
we found ourselves to avoid breaching some of the social norms and rules.
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Work cited
Rafalovich, Adam. “Making sociology relevant: The assignment and application of breaching
experiments”. Teaching sociology 34.2 (2006): 156–163. Print.
