Analyzing Sociological Group Experiment - Essay Example

1.0 Experiment Details and Results The group was assigned to conduct an experiment of our design to be able to fully appreciate the social phenomenonof expectations and the assumption that there is a common understanding between people. Our plan was to determine the reactions people would have if we did something 'unusual' or something that was unexpected. The experiment was done at a local bar we'll call Club X. Together with 3 colleagues of mine, I proceeded in getting to the dance floor while approximately 10 other couples were dancing. We proceeded to sit in the middle of the dance floor while a song was playing and drank and talked until the song was over. Immediately almost everyone's attention was turned to us, the pace at which people danced slowed down. Some people looked directly at us and others stared at us through the corner of their eye. 2 couples left the dance floor and the rest continued looking at us either directly or indirectly and were obviously talking about what we were trying to do or our reason for doing this. When the song ended we left the dance floor and nobody approached us later to ask what we were doing. Our basic assumption was that those in the dance floor would expect us to be dancing to the tune of the song being played. Perhaps, they thought, they would have other party goers which they can grind with and show their dance moves. Maybe we were even interested in becoming acquaintances. We assumed that talking and drinking in the dance floor would have the impression of unusualness that would reveal their expectations regarding our assumed behavior. 2.0 Analysis The theoretical and academic framework underlying the breaching experiment is the sociological field of ethnomethodology. It is the study of the way in which people maintain the present social order. It is a contrast to the belief that human behavior is caused by external causal factors or internalized motivations. According to Brinkerhoff, White, Ortega and Weitz (2006), Ethnomethodology stresses that active reason and knowledgeable character of human conduct are the forces that control our social behavior. Harold Garfinkel of the well known musical duo Simon and Garfunkel established a school of ethnomethodology in the 1960, at a time when the structuralism/functionalism was the dominant theory in the field. Garfinkel conducted experiments to prove that the crucial thing governing social exchange were common sense understandings that were unstable and are recreated every day in each social interaction (Bremmer, 2006) . What Garfinkel did was to perform a series of breaching experiments which broke the accepted rules of a social situation. For example, he planned that some students in a group would cheat at tic-tac-toe. According to the structuralists, social order would have broken down, however, the students incorporated the cheating into the rules and continued playing showing that understandings are recreated every day (Bremmer, 2006). It is the intent of this student to perform a breaching experiment on his peers in an attempt to observe this phenomenon. This experiment shows that if behavior is not what would be expected and if that behavior would likely impede that goal, friction will arise as was the case in this experiment. In the case of the activity that we conducted, the people dancing in the dance floor seemed not to have a care in the world and were only concerned with the way they and their partners were dancing. My colleagues and I assumed that even though they displayed this unconcerned behavior towards people they don't know or they don't want to get intimate with, they were indeed very sensitive to what is happening around them. We also assumed that these people expected us to be going in the dance floor to dance as if there was an unwritten agreement or contract that everybody understood and complied with. It was common sense to be dancing in the dance floor. According to Bremmer (2006), breaking common sense barriers often lead to bewilderment gradually developing into frustration, anger and resentment. As my colleagues and I observed secretly observed while we were pretending to be drinking and talking to each other, there were glances that were basically asking us on what we were doing. Later, those glances were replaced with expressions of frustration which translated into the following question: "What the hell were we doing Were we trying to prove something". Further in the experiment, we got the impression that these people were on the verge of shouting at us for ruining their night. Interestingly, we did not hear any single word from them just facial gestures and the way they ostracized us. The social phenomenon of common sense seems to be the result of group consensus. As we have observed, we may think of the people as a group and we were going to join them. To be part of the group, we have to conform to the rules. These unwritten rules come in the form of common sense understanding of the group. Whenpeopleassemblein groups, profound changes often take place in their behavior. Perhaps the most basic question in social psychology is "How does the presence of other people affect an individual's behavior" Seeking to answer this question, researchers have discovered that the presence of others facilitates an individual's performance on simple, well-learned tasks but impairs performance on new or complex tasks. For example, people asked to solve simple multiplication problems solve them faster with others around than by themselves, but they perform worse on more complex math problems. Researchhasshownthat people often "loaf" (exert less effort than they could) when they participate in cooperative joint activities such as a tug-of-war. Studies also show that decision-making groups often fall victim to groupthink, a phenomenon in which group members excessively seek group concurrence, suppress dissent to maintain group harmony, and blindly convince themselves that the group's position is correct. Groupthink is a process that can lead groups to make hasty, often bad decisions. De (Janasz, S.C., Dowd, K. O. & Schneider, B.Z., 2006) The group at the dance floor wanted to influence our actions thru their common sense understandings. We tend to conform to the way groups think and nonconformity would lead to castigation. This was certainly observable in our case. I have also come to appreciate the social nature of man. Althoughbornhelpless, infants are equipped at birth with reflexes that orient them toward people. They are responsive to faces, turn their head toward voices, and mimic certain facial gestures on cue. It seems that human beings are inherently social animals. All over the world, people experience joy when they form new social attachments and react with loneliness and despair when these bonds are broken-as when separated from a loved one by distance, divorce, or death. Research shows that people who have a network of family and friends are happier and healthier and live longer than those who are more isolated. People need people, which is why social situations can have such a profound effect on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. There was certainly despair on the part of the people in the dance floor when we broke our attachment to the social norms that they expect of us. Nonetheless, we also felt frustration and despair as we saw ourselves making a bad impression on the people with whom we share our society. We all registered a feeling of withdrawing from the activity as a whole due to our guilt in breaking social norms. This study only showed that people often adjust their own behavior to conform with that of the group. People are more likely to give in to conformity pressures in this way when the group is unanimous, when the judgment to be made is difficult, and in cultures that value interdependence and social harmony over individual goals. While we felt guilty, we also felt a feeling of aggressive behaviour towards the dance floor group because of the way they avoided us. Overtheyears,manyresearchers have studied the interpersonal problem of human aggression. There are research which focuses on the ways in which aggression is programmed into human nature by instincts, genes, hormones, and other biological factors. For example, crime statistics all over the world reveal that men commit more violent crimes than women do. One possible basis for this difference is that aggression is linked to the male sex hormone testosterone. There are also studies on aggression emphasize the roles of family, culture, peers, and other environmental factors. In particular, these researchers have found that aggression can be triggered by frustration, noise, hot weather, physical pain, and other unpleasant states. Other situational factors that may trigger aggression include the sight of weapons, feelings of anonymity in a large faceless crowd, and the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. The feeling of anonymity is certainly the cause of our aggressive tendencies. The breaching activity shows that there are indeed informal agreement on the meanings of words and actions among members of the society. One salient type of this is the common sense wherein everybody is supposed to know what should be done. When these agreements are broken, there is the tendency for people to develop aggressive behaviour against the 'nonconformist'. As the nonconformists, we were also able to determine that we were inclined to feel guilty and angry on the other party for their limited understanding. According to Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, ho described the movement's basic tenets in these words: "If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without being able to give a reason for them-these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd." Our actions were certainly absurd based from the reactions of other people who are so confident in their sense of common sense. References Beemer, J.K, (2006). Breaching the Theoretical Divide: Reassessing the Ordinary and Everyday in Habermas and Garfinkel. Sociological Theory 24(1), 81-104. Brinkerhoss, D.B., White, L.K., Ortega, S.T. &Weitx, R. (2005). Essentials of Sociology. New York: Thomson. De Janasz, S.C., Dowd, K. O. & Schneider, B.Z. (2006). Interpersonal Skills in Organizations, Second Edition. New York: McGraw Hill. Read More