Breaking a Social Norm

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Jocelyne Gutierrez in Features

Jocelyne Gutierrez
Chronicle Reporter
Social norms are meant to be follwed, but not in Mr. Lee’s psychology classes.
Last week there were many students acting a little more strange than usual. And although many questions were asked, students kept it a secret from their peers.
The “Break a Social-Norm Project”, as Mr. Lee called it, had students come up with ideas on what type of social norm to break. They had to make sure  it was okay with Mr. Lee first however, because he wanted to make sure they were not breaking any rules.
The Psychology students came up with many different ideas to break. One group came to school with a tub of mayonnaise, and ate it throughout the day without anybody knowing it was actually vanilla pudding. Another group sat in their teachers’ seats, but of course the teacher’s were in on the acts.
The objective of the project was to see what the reactions of their peers and teachers were going to be. And while some were positive and others negative, the students tied what they learned, to social psychology.
To find out about more of the social norms broken by students go here.