Social Insight Paper One

Kelly Andersen

Sociology 1010

MW 10:00 A.M. – 11:15 A.M.

In society, there are behavioral and cultural “norms” that are commonly seen and accepted.

These opinions can differ from each society. For instance, in Islamic culture, it is the standard norm for women to cover their heads because of religious and cultural symbolism/influence. That is normal for them, but for American culture, that is viewed as abnormal and not common. Social norms are broken all the time, drawing attention to anyone opposed to what happened. You can tell a lot about a person and their perspective from their reactions to something that they think is abnormal or just flat out crazy.

This assignment was an excellent opportunity to get out of the norm and experiment with social behavior and reactions. It really interests me because I won’t hesitate to test people’s opinion of social norms and compare them to my own. It is quite entertaining and you can learn so much from people’s reactions, including: the kind of person they are, what values they have, and how they react depending on how you break the norm. I’m going to talk about breaking the norms between homosexual and heterosexual couples and their public display of affection. Personally, I don’t find it abnormal when two women are holding hands vs. a straight couple holding hands, or in the case of my experience, even an inter-racial couple displaying affection. I know some people definitely find it out of the ordinary, and my experiment revealed the reactions of people who found this to be against the social norm.

My friends Erica, Cameron and myself were downtown walking around the city one day. We decided it would be really interesting to see what people would think and do if they saw a lesbian couple vs an interracial couple. What one would get more attention and why? Would people even do anything? This is an excellent experiment for this assignment. Erica and Cameron were also interested to see reactions regardless of the assignment. So we started walking throughout downtown, traveling to the Gate Way Mall and around Temple Square. Erica and I started holding hands and acting like a

“normal” couple. We received a few odd looks, especially when we sat down close holding hands and watched about one fifth of the people give us “the look.” This older woman said, “Oh my word,” when

Erica kissed me on the cheek. It was not a passionate kiss on the lips, but just a tiny peck, and even then it provoked a shocked reaction. When we were around Temple Square, it seemed like we received the most attention from around the area and from missionaries. This is an example of people’s perspective of social norms being influenced by their religious beliefs and values. It can also be considered a cultural norm specific to Salt Lake City because religion is a strong influence and shapes people’s views.

However, people noticed regardless of their religious preference. We did not go in Temple Square because we didn’t want to violate any regulations, and make it seem like we were protesting for gay rights or anything of the sort.

For the next part of our experiment, Cameron and I held hands and walked around the same areas. We blended right in because almost no one gave us a second look. An interesting element to the experiment was Cameron being an African American. There are a good number of inter-racial couples today, but there are still a few people who that would pay attention and give a second look. Compared to a homosexual couple, we were practically invisible. An ironic twist to the experiment was that

Cameron himself is a homosexual. Normally, he would draw the same type of attention as me and Erica because his personality is openly homosexual, but he becomes part of the social norm when he is holding hands with a female. Most people weren’t openly shocked or offended, but it was easy to pick up on their subtle movements which indicated their beliefs and opinions on homosexuality.

I was very surprised by the results of the experiment. I knew that there would definitely be more of a reaction to Erica and I holding hands over holding hands with Cameron; I just didn’t expect people to openly express their discomfort in front of us. I thought that when Cameron and I held hands we would get some attention for being interracial, but it was nowhere near the attention I received with

Erica. I think it has to do with religious influence of Salt Lake City, even though the gay community is often recognized. Gay rights are not just issues for Salt Lake, but the nation is still adjusting to homosexuality, which can be seen in the political debates for Gay Marriage. However, compared to previous decades, homosexuality is becoming more accepted as a social norm. I found this experiment to be very informing about social norms and the reactions to breaking them.