Breaking Social Norms

Words: 758
Pages: 4

Social Abnorms
Social norms play a vital role in how society interacts and functions. They are an unspoken set rules of how to act and live your everyday life. They include behavior, language, and even laws. I found an article in the peer reviewed section on EBSCO, conducted by the University of Lisboa, that investigated the acceptability of smoking in public places. It claimed that ever since smoking became prohibited by public policy in restaurants, and later most public places, that it strengthened the social norm to not smoke in public areas (Luis & Palma-Oliveira, 2015). To me, smoking in public spaces has always been a taboo so it seemed like the most fun norm that I could break without causing too much commotion. Aaron Bellovich and I sought to break this social norm as a group.
Personally, I don’t smoke cigarettes, so I did the next best thing and borrowed my friend Cole’s electronic cigarette. My plan was to just walk down the strip blowing obnoxiously large vape clouds and see how people reacted. To prepare, I even went to the vape store and bought zero nicotine juice, so I could keep vaping the whole time. I waited until last Friday, when the strip is at its busiest of the week and started walking from one end to the other vaping all the way.
My first go
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People that were smoking cigarettes tended to do it kind of secretively. This included people that were vaping too, they would take a hit, put it in their pocket and blow it straight down, attempting to go unnoticed. Likewise, people smoking cigarettes went away from the crowds to partake. This displayed how social norms as simple as not smoking in public areas can hold strict unspoken rules. People like Aaron and I, who broke this social norm experienced consequences for it. While the consequences were nothing more than a bit of unwanted attention, the same can’t be said for all social norms such as