experment

Running head: BREACHING EXPERIMENTS 0

BREACHING EXPERIMENTS

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Breaching Experiments

A breaching experiment is meant to observe and examine people’s reaction to behavior that is considered against the social norm. Developed by Harold Garfinkel, the experiments are mostly used for sociology and psychology purposes and the idea is to study accompanying reactions. There exist countless social rules that are unstated. We are not told how to behave at times but it is clear that there are things we are not supposed to do since they are violations of the social rules.

The common assumption on an encounter with a person talking to himself or herself is that he or she is mentally ill or depressed. Eager to see people’s reaction, I started my experiment in school. Walking across the hall, I went about talking to myself. Other students looked at me and moved aside paving the way for me.

Next, I met my classmate and friend. Looking at me, he asked me whether I had gone crazy. Without answering him, I walked on. He followed me and asked me whether I had been dumped. Definitely, that is the first thing that my peers would conclude. They seem to associate my condition to the way most people behave when they are out of a relationship.

Moving on, I met the school guard who is used to our daily chat. Stopping me, I acted as if he was non-existent as I mumbled words to myself. This seemed fun until he called his colleague and I had to run to avoid breaking my breach experiment. I had aroused suspicions in him as I took a lonely path towards home to avoid confrontation.

A group of young girls were moving around homes selling home-made cookies. Having spotted me, they came along trying to urge me to buy their cookies. Completely ignoring them, I pushed one of them aside and continued talking to myself. If I am not mistaken, I heard one of them call me a ‘mad retard’ but that was not my concern at the moment.

I was almost knocked over by a group of boys skating along the path. I pretended not to be bothered and I heard calls for ‘watch out you freak’. All this time, I was beginning to worry that the police could be called anytime to pick up a ‘psychiatric fugitive’ as I had heard the skaters refer to me.

On arrival home, my cousin came to meet me. I brushed her off as I looked at her as if she was a stranger. I knocked my head as if trying to remember something. She was astonished as she called out to my uncle. I ran to my room, locked myself and started talking to myself loudly. My cousin and uncle knocked on my door and threatened to break it if I did not open it. Satisfied with the results of my experiment, I prepared myself to face the consequences of my ‘act’.

In conclusion, social gatherings have a role in the organization of social life. Everyone in any social setting has some concerns on how he or she is expected to behave. This makes up the social rules. It is also a fact that people behave differently and come to different conclusions when they encounter a person going against the social expectations.