step 1: Design a breaching experiment Your first task is to identify a folkway that you think is important to people in a public place. Think carefully about (1) how strongly people count on this folkway, (2) how seriously they take violations of it, and (3) why this folkway exists in the first place – what purpose it serves. It is sometimes not as easy as it would seem to figure out the purpose of a given folkway since its “function” may be more latent than manifest. The most interesting folkways to use in breaching experiments are those that people feel strongly about, but whose purpose is hard to pin down or agree upon. For example, spitting on a crowded sidewalk may strike people as inappropriate, but the reason for it is hard to articulate. Does spitting constitute a public health or safety risk or is there something more symbolic about spitting in public that offends our cultural sensibilities about bodily fluids? Perhaps spitting is negatively sanctioned because it is viewed as a violation of personal space? Having decided on a folkway that people take seriously in a public setting your next task is to design a breaching experiment in which you (and perhaps some research confederates if necessary) publicly break this social norm in some way. You will need to decide on the best way to breach the folkway so that other people notice your deviant behavior and perceive it as a violation of the folkway you have chosen to study. Remember that your experiment requires people to react to your folkway breach in an observable way – your “subjects” in the experiment need to provide you with empirical data. Step 2: Obtain instructor approval to conduct experiment Check Course Schedule for due date To make sure that you have designed an appropriate and viable breaching experiment please submit a one-paragraph summary of the folkway you plan to breach and how you plan to do so to your instructor. This is also the time to ask questions of your instructor about this assignment since heading to Step 3 without a clear understanding of what you are doing and why will not bode well for your breaching experiment or your grade on this assignment. Proceed to Step 3 ONLY once your instructor has approved your Breaching Experiment. Step 3: Conduct the breaching experiment You should plan to conduct your breaching experiment multiple times with different subjects. Depending on your design it may also make sense to try your experiment in different public places. Some breaching experiments are quicker and easier to conduct than others so the number of times an experiment is “run” will vary. However, your goal is to collect sufficient observational data on people’s reactions to be able to draw reasonable conclusions about how strongly and uniformly people abide by the folkway. In carrying out your breaching experiment you MUST abide by the following requirements: a. DO NO HARM DO NOT VIOLATE ANY PERSON’S PRIVACY, SAFETY, OR SECURITY OR CAUSE THEM SERIOUS DISTRESS OR TRAUMA! Obviously, conducting a breaching experiment in which you break a law (or appeared to) is unacceptable for the purpose of this assignment. Even though your are breaking a folkway, you must make every effort to avoid involving other people in a breaching experiment that makes them feel threatened, afraid or otherwise traumatized by your behavior. Not only are such experiments unethical they are also not well designed if they elicit such responses in others. Put another way, breaching experiments are designed to break folkways, NOT mores or taboos. If there is any sign that your instructor-approved breaching experiment is causing another person undue distress it is your ethical obligation to call off the experiment at once and debrief your subject immediately. b. Allow Sufficient Response Time You need to keep the experiment going long enough to observe people’s full range of responses to your folkway breach. You may find it quite uncomfortable to maintain the breach in your chosen folkway in the face of negative responses from others, but try hard not to give in to social pressure too soon. This may require you to act as though you are unaware that you’ve done anything wrong or unusual – play dumb long enough so that people can fully express their discomfort with your behavior. Pay close attention to the ways that people try to “repair” the social rupture your folkway violation has caused. People may respond by giving you disapproving looks, laughing at you, or lecturing you. You may also find that a common response (especially on a University campus) to folkway violations is to “act” as if nothing at all is wrong – this would be the “whatever – I’ve seen it all before” blasé response that is often a cover for their discomfort with your behavior. c. Debrief your Subjects Because we all count heavily on adherence to folkways in our daily lives it is important to make every effort to explain yourself to your subjects once the experiment is finished and give them an opportunity to ask questions or talk further about it. If they have any further questions about the assignment please provide them with your instructor’s contact information. Step 4: Write-Up Check Course Schedule for due date Compared to running your breaching experiment this last step is pretty straight forward and should be quite easy if you’ve put the necessary thought and time into designing and conducting your breaching experiment. Please write a three- paragraph summary of the highlights of your breaching experiment. Be sure to include the following in your write-up: Paragraph 1 A brief description of your chosen folkway and how you broke it. The summary you submitted for instructor approval should provide a useful basis for this. Paragraph 2 Describe how, where, and when you conducted your breaching experiment and how people reacted to it. Paragraph 3 Thinking like a sociologists please discuss what you make of the outcome of your breaching experiment – what would a sociologist have to say about the results based on the folkway you broke and the way people responded? Assessment
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