IndexIntroductionThree experiments to break a social normConclusionThe norm I will violate for this article will be invading people's personal space. This norm acts as a social control mechanism because the accepted behavior in our society is to give people their own personal “bubble” when they are around others. Violation of this norm creates embarrassment for other people and also goes against the regulation of behavior by rules in our society. To carry out my experiment, I will first take a situation that I am already part of and invade someone's personal space, i.e. if I am talking to a friend I will take a step closer to him to get closer even when we are already at a very close distance. To take it a step further, when I'm in a social setting such as waiting in line for dinner at Glar, I will stand very close to the person in front of me. Also, upon entering class, I will try to find people walking towards the same building and I will walk right next to them invading their space bubble. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay IntroductionThere are so many different reactions possible in situations like these due to the fact that all "invasions" will be indifferent settings with different people. Reactions I might have are funny looks, comments to other people I'm with, people walking away, people asking me to step back, people pushing me away, and people ignoring the situation. I think the most popular reaction will be people turning away from me because it's a natural reaction when you're in an uncomfortable situation. You usually want to remove yourself from the situation or distance yourself so you can act as if you're not involved. Setting up my violation of social norms happened in a few different places. As previously noted, I tried it yesterday while standing in line at Glar, on the way to class, and also while talking to other students in my Italian class. In the first line for Glar, there are about 30 people in line (mostly students), walking to class, students are sparse due to the cold, and in my Italian class there are six other students and our professor. Three Experiments Breaking a Social Norm The first incident I will describe in this essay occurred when I was in line for dinner. Last weekend I went to Glar without my friends so I could approach as many people in line. I got in line and immediately got very close to the person in front of me. I think I got too close too fast because I touched the person too soon. Granted that this is still a form of invasion of personal space, I didn't mean to go so dramatically. The person turned and looked at me and my natural reflex was to apologize, so I did. I got out of the queue, went to the back of the queue and tried again. This time I slowly approached the person in front of me and my presence must have alerted them because they turned and saw how close I was to them. The subject stared at me and waited for me to leave his space. I repeated the operation with three other subjects and obtained similar results. The next incident for this essay was when I was walking to English class last night. It was very cold outside and there weren't many students out, but I saw a group of three girls that I walked towards. They were walking in the same direction as me but they were going quite slowly, so that was enough.