Breaking Social Norms: An Analysis Of Cultural Differences

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Culture is the gestures, language, values, behaviors and material objects that make up people's way of life. Culture is a learned behavior, a gesture can be five fingers (palm) facing another person that can mean that an individual has a question, saying stop, waving hello/ bye or in other countries it can have a totally different meaning. We assume gestures mean the same to everyone, but in reality, it be misunderstood by others. Norms are rules and expectations of a society that guides people's behavior, it ensures predictable actions. For example, if someone comes into class wearing a chicken suit they are breaking social norms because it is not usual. Folkways relatively minor rules, that if violated are not a severely punished. A situation …show more content…
Since I know these individuals quite well, I expected to already have an idea of what their reaction would be. In this scenario my friend, Mia asked if there is something wrong because I was stared at her for a couple of minutes. I broke the same folkway to my roommate, Sarah and she gave me a dirty look and got mad because she doesn't like it when people look at her. The last person that I tried to stare at was my cousin, Tristan. He is a jokester himself, so his reaction was to have a staring contest when I stared at him.
The next folkway that I broke is talking very loudly on the phone. My friend Mia reacted by saying I was loud and need to be quiet. My roommate took her belongings and moved to the next room, so that she can finish her homework without hearing me. Tristian and I were walking together when I was on the phone, so he was curious and asked who was on the phone and what happened?
The last folkway that I broke was dressing formally because normally I do not dress up fancy for school. Mia, complemented me by saying I looked nice, because my hair and makeup was done and I was wearing a cute dress. Sarah reacted positively and asked where I got my dress from because it was in trend with our age group (18-year old's). Tristian, asked why I got dressed up for? And he was interested to know what the occasion