Introduction:
A deviant behavior is an act or behavior that’s contrary to the expectations and norms of the society you live in. Deviant individuals are the ones that are considered rebellious and have conflicting views than that of the every-day man in their society. Deviant individuals don’t usually view themselves as deviant, they just acknowledge that they’re a bit different than the typical individual in the society they live in. Deviancy can be interpreted in numerous point of views, they may seem offensive and distasteful for a group of people, while others can perceive it as funny and unique. The public want a certain level of normalcy, where any breaching of the normalcy will be considered a deviant act, and each person throughout the community will take notice and have a certain reaction toward the person committing the act of deviancy.
In general, people around the world take notice when other individuals don’t conform with their expectation of normalcy and they tend to pay close attention to the act if it doesn’t seem customary, and usually react either negatively or positively toward the act of deviancy committed.
In order to walk in the shoes of those deviant individuals, I decided to test and view people’s reaction toward a deviant act by sitting down in different elevator atmospheres with one being a very crowded elevator and another being an elevator that is not that crowded and eat my lunch or a snack while waiting for the elevator’s door to open up in the floor I selected. I chose this act of deviancy because of its unusual and rare occurrence. I wanted to view how and in what way do people respond to this particular behavior and concluded if my idea or theory is proven to be right or false.
The “elevator” act is a deviant act that I never encountered before in my life, however, I always thought to myself why don’t people sit in the elevator floor if they’re tired or if they selected a faraway floor in which the elevator would take a worthy amount of time to reach. Along with that people incline to be more aware of their surrounding in a small, compact places, and to grab their attention even more, I considered the idea of eating while sitting down to get a stronger reaction while committing the act of deviancy. I believe in the US and most of the world, there are certain etiquettes people need to follow and conform with in certain places, such as the elevator. In an elevator, people tend to have certain rules and criteria that they expect themselves and others to follow, and one of those rules is standing up in an elevator and minding your personal space, therefore, I wanted to sit down and eat my snack then invite them to eat with me whatever food item I have to offer.
I thought when planning this deviant act, that people might find it amusing and funny when they see a man sitting down in the elevator, then when I’ll try to offer them a snack, I believe they will react negatively as they perceive me as a deviant individual, and I believe different societal groups and different genders will react significantly different than one another towards the deviant acts.
Theory/Lit. Review:
I believe that that an intermediate deviant act such as sitting down in an elevator and offering food to people, might cause people to label the individual committing the deviant act and express their sincere reaction toward the deviant act itself. My belief is derived from the Labeling Theory which is a symbolic interaction in which people develop deviancy from other’s labels, reactions, and actions and the theory indicates that the act is considered deviant only when society considers it to be deviant and not when they are uncommon or surprising. I believe that this deviant act might get different points of views in various reaction and various elevator atmospheres, where people in a high-income mall will react in a different way than those that are in a low-income mall or in Arizona State University campus or in a residential complex.
This kind of deviancy does not seem to be an extreme deviant act and I thought and believed that I needed to interact with my audience to get an obvious interaction, and that is why I included the part of offering food to the fellow individuals inside the elevator, I thought ultimately this act/doing will get me a strong reaction from the individuals. Consequently, my objective in this experiment is to get a durable and solid reaction from the individuals or the audience, and eventually record the reaction of the people from different communities throughout the phoenix valley including low and high income malls and residential complexes, as well as, reporting reactions from college students from Arizona State University campus. Furthermore, this deviancy experiment might adhere and test the conflict theory which states, that deviancy is derived from the social and political discriminations in the society you live in, along with material inequality in the society too.
Through this experiment, I would test the different reactions and responses from different communities with different social and political background throughout the phoenix metropolitan area due to their income level, different race, different ethnicity, different age groups, and different genders. In my own theory, I believe a high-income community might be more closed-minded and strict toward any deviant and unusual act that might happen near them because of their perspective of society and what they did and did not see in their lifetime, and I believe it’s vice versa for low-income communities where they are more open-minded to change and experienced more unusual and different perspective in their life. Similarly, I believe college students are more open-minded and abnormal as they are considered to be deviant as we discussed it in a given lecture in Sociology 340, and I believe the students in campus are more accepting of a deviant and rebellious behavior than the regular person or the every-day man in the society we live in.
Reading and recognizing past studies is helpful for any researcher trying to conduct an experiment as it gives you something to compare your results to as well as think about your deviant act from a different light.
After searching Jstor website for a deviant act that relates to my deviant experiment, I found an article conducted by Angela Lewellyn Jones from North Carolina University, published by American Sociological Association” called “Random Acts of Kindness: A Teaching Tool for Positive Deviance.” This article was written by a professor from North Carolina University as she told her students that they have to do 12 different deviant acts of kindness and report their findings, which is similar to my situation in Sociology 340. In her class, she assigned the 12 different acts of kindness to her 78 students and asked them all to do 12 different deviant acts of deviance and report them weekly in a journal then discuss their finding in class. The methodology in the assignment from this article was to do 12 different deviant acts of kindness to strangers throughout the campus and in their respective communities and report their findings. Then they should compare their findings from with other students findings and discuss the reaction and response to their acts of kindness and try to explain why people will act this way. The students had to change their audience and perform the deviant act and report how the people react to their caring act. The people vary from different ethnicity, gender, and social background, then they compared and tried to explain why did the specific social group react the way that they did and use theories to explain it.
This methodology relate closely to my experiment, as I needed to test my social experiment throughout the phoenix area and report my findings in this essay, and explain why I think the different social group, socioeconomic group, and gender reacted the way that they did.
In their results, the class found out that as women experimenters acted towards men they received a huge amount of compliments and the men were gracious and held conversations for extended periods of time. For example, some college girls went to the parking meters and added quarters to the cars that had their parking meter about to expire, and when men saw these girls trying to help out they were welcoming and gracious. Also, women were kind-hearted towards the fellow female students and welcomed their acts, as the article stated that maybe it was because of the traditional femininity of the females that they are helpful and kind hearted. On the other hand, some men did the same thing toward other men, but they were asked why and didn’t have the same amount of graciousness as the females received, the article suggested that it was probably because of its misinterpretation and fear that it may be an act of homosexuality.
Those findings were amusing and informative, along with relating my acts of deviance. My act of deviance was similar because I offered food and received different reaction between male and female recipients and it was remarkable to compare my results to this article. It was interesting to see how they perceived the result and explained their finding, which gave me a new perspective to think about.
The second article was also found from Jstor website and it is called “Informal Reactions to Deviance in Simulated Work Organizations: A Laboratory Experiment” by Rodolfo Alvarez and published by American Sociological Association. In this research experiment, the assignment was made up by a group of workers in different hierarchal position and in different companies and jobs. This article related to my experiment in different ways including; explaining certain people’s reactions, it explained why people reacted the way they did because of their perception of me, and explained how deviancy was perceived from different hierarchal and social class groups.
This deviant assignment written by Ricardo Alvarez was built up by a group of workers and tested it in different environments to see the reaction toward their deviant acts in reference to the deviant individual’s hierarchal status in the company. I can relate this to my article because I’m an international college student that is perceived to be in a certain deviant group in society and people place me in a certain class in society and that may have contributed to the reaction of the audience toward my deviant act.
In this deviant assignment, the findings were outstanding and educational. The group of workers found out that a low-hierarchal worker didn’t get much of a reaction from fellow coworkers because he wasn’t perceived as a high-esteemed individual and ineffectual in the company, while the middle-hierarchal status coworker had the strongest reaction because they think he has the most to lose and perceive him as one of their own. Finally the upper-status hierarchal worker has a very low reaction toward him by his subordinates and fellow coworker because of his highly-esteemed position. This finding was amusing because people reacted to the same act of deviance in the same environment differently due to the deviant individual’s status in the company.
Correspondingly, this article concluded that the loss of esteem from all deviant individuals were the same regardless of the hierarchal status they were on, even though the people’s reaction differed. This made me think what if a different ethnic person, did the same act that I did, what will the reaction of the audience be toward him and how might that effect his self-esteem compared to mine. I realized that different deviant individual may have different result with the same deviant act primarily because how the audience perceives the person to be and what do they “label” the deviant person.
Methods:
In this research experiment, I wanted to gather as much information needed to write an informative research paper and discuss my finding. I picked this particular deviant act for my experiment because I always thought about sitting in an elevator and how would people react and perceive my act if they saw me in that condition in the elevator.
In this experiment, I wanted to sit down in an elevator and eat a snack, along with offering people the snack item to stimulate a reaction and help trigger a response by them. This deviant act was supposed to be light-hearted, amusing, educational, and informative for myself and the reader of this essay. I constructed this experiment to take place in 4 locations with different target audience and different environments or surrounding in these places. First of all, I wanted a high-income target audience ,therefore, I went to Fashion Square in Scottsdale, where people are assumed to have a high-income level, and performed the deviant act in a semi-crowded elevator. Then, I wanted to compare the different reaction between high-income and low-income classes, so I went to Arizona Mills Mall where its considered to have people that were perceived to be low-income people and recorded my finding there. There were different ethnic background group’s reactions from the two malls because of location and other matter.
After the malls, I wanted to have a different group of people, and therefore, I went to Arizona State University Campus, and entered one of the parking structures that had an elevator. Couple of students entered and I offered them snacks while sitting down in an elevator and recorded their reactions, and the targeted audience here were students. Students are perceived to be deviant individuals as well and therefore I wanted to have a different point of view than the public, where deviant individuals reacted and responded to my deviant act in campus.
Lastly, I performed my deviant act in my friend’s high-quality residential building, where a certain socio-economic group are perceived to be, but this time it was in a residential building in Tempe and not in a mall in Scottsdale. I asked security If I could do the deviant act for school purposes and he was nothing less than welcoming to this idea.
I Performed my act in different kinds of elevators with different crowd level and target audiences in different environments all throughout the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. I had my friend help me take pictures and record the people’s reaction. It was very difficult to record someone in an elevator without them knowing, so we just took pictures prior and after the act was performed and reported the reactions people had toward this act through my own view point and my friend’s view point as well, as he saw their reaction after they left the elevator.
Analysis:
This experiment provided countless and strong reactions that made me think about social norms and deviancy in a deep contemplating fashion. I was fortunate enough to get different reactions toward my deviant act that provided me with informative and enlightening experience and helped me realize that different parts of society really do react contrarily than one another.
First of all, when I went to the Fashion Square mall with a bag of chips and a sandwich, I entered with two women in their 30s that are considered white in the United States. I sat down at the end of the elevator and pressed the 2nds floor from the garage, as I sat down they started staring at me and I don’t think they found it funny at all. They were surprised and didn’t want anything to do with me. Then, I offered them a bag of chips and they were quick to decline my offer, after that, they stepped out of the elevator and started walking away while talking presumably about me. These presumably white women were considered to be high-income individuals that I thought will be more closed-minded and intolerant to a deviant act than other societal groups. That was the case in this experience.
Later, I went to Arizona Mills mall elevator to experience different reactions than the ones in Fashion Square. I entered the elevator with 3 people, 2 were teenagers presumable from Hispanic origins and the third person was a middle-aged lady from white background. Those people were presumable low-income individual due to the location of this mall with different ethnic backgrounds. When I sat down, the 2 teenagers started giggling and giving me eye contact, while the lady stared at first then quickly looked the other way with no facial reaction. I thought that people might find it amusing when they see a man break a social norm in the elevator and sit down, but I was wrong to generalize people’s reaction as people form different societal groups reacted differently in this experiment. Then when I offered the snack, it stimulated a bigger reaction from the teenagers and one of them actually grabbed a couple of chips and both started snickering. While the women, still ignored me and rejected my offer without eye-contact, which suggest she is unhappy or uncomfortable with my deviant act.
The third location was Arizona State University campus where I targeted students to be my upcoming audience for this experiment. I went to a multi-story parking structure at dusk. I entered the elevator with 2 student, one was a presumable white male and the other was an Asian female. I sat down and they both ignored my deviant act, so I offered them a snack (chips), the male student smiled and grabbed one of the chips and the female student ignored and just smiled. Students in the society we live in are considered deviant themselves, so a deviant individuals that sits in the elevator does not stimulate a strong reaction from other deviant individuals I suppose.
Lastly, I went to my friend’s high-class apartment and waited till someone else entered the elevator waiting room. I entered with a white male presumably in his 40’s, and sat down in the middle of the elevator and he looked at me in shock then didn’t want anything to do with me. Then, I offered him a snack (potato chips), he quickly declined while smiling and asked me why are you sitting down. I answered that I was tired and felt like sitting, then he had a unique facial expression that headlined awkwardness and that I was weird for doing this act. His reaction was the strongest reaction possibly due to the location of the experiment (a residential building) and possibly because this male comes from a specific societal group that follows and conforms with the societal norms. This act was a folkway that triggered different responses and stimulated interaction with the people in the elevator with me. I believe this was considered a breaking of the folkways in sociological sense. This breach of normalness in today’s society triggered quick and strong reactions from different kinds of people that made me question why does a simple breach in folkways generate certain types of reactions that reflect that person’s perception of myself and any deviant act doer.
Conclusions:
This social experiment or breach of social folkways experiment helped me
Identify and try to explain why people react the way that they do. This experiment, first of all, allowed me to view the world in another perspective through a deviant individual’s perspective. I am considered a deviant person, as a student Arab living in the city of Tempe, however, I don’t experience these strong reactions from anyone in my every day life. However, a breach of social norms does trigger reactions from everyone and lead people to label you as a deviant individual.
In this experiment, I believe that my findings or the reporting of people’s reactions were informative and enlightening, as people from different background reacted differently and a break in the normalcy in a high-income community differs greatly than the low-income communities. Also, I found out women tend to be more ignoring and stimulate less of a reaction than men do, may be because I am a man and it’s easier for a man to talk and interact with me than a woman. I also found out that other male students as well as male individuals from a minority group in the US had a more positive and encouraging reaction than those that aren’t considered from deviant societal groups. The male student probably thought I was tired and that I wanted to sit and didn’t make a big deal out of the act and he accepted my deviant act when he ate a couple of my chips. Also, the location of this deviant act stimulated different reactions due to the community and norms expected in that location, a residential building has a different etiquette in the elevator than a mall’ elevator or an elevator in campus.
I feel that the result of my experiment supported some of the claims made in my hypothesis and rejected other claims. Firstly, not everyone found my deviant act to be funny and amusing as I thought they would. Secondly, a higher percentage of my audience reacted negatively or ignored my offering of food with a few exceptions. This supported my claim in my hypothesis, where I thought wen people view me as a deviant individual they would not accept the food offering by me or want to interact with me. I stated that “different societal groups and different genders will react significantly different than one another towards the deviant acts” in my hypothesis, which was true in some cases and the reactions of different individuals form different societal background or gender did indeed react significantly different than one another toward my deviant act.
From this experiment, I learned more about the society we live in and studied the different responses from different groups of people which helps me view the world from a different perspective after this experiment. This educational experience helped me realize that the reactions people do towards other’s deviant acts can shape the deviant person’s personality and effect their self-esteem and perspective of the world. I will try to react positively for any deviant acts in the future because you never know why are they acting differently and how a simple reaction might effect their perspective toward you and your social group.