#SelfieEveryday

Cortez | Hsieh | Nalupta | Peren | Soliman

SA 21 - P

In this experiment, we decided to break the social norm of respecting a person’s personal space. Personal space is defined as the region or area around the person that he or she feels is psychologically theirs. It is an invisible barrier that separates a person from other members of society which is to say that there is an avoidance of social interaction in that particular area. An abrupt breach of this space may be cause of a person’s anxiety, discomfort, anger, etc., depending on the person. With the differentiation of reactions in mind, we wanted to see the kinds of reactions that will come about from people.

To do this, we took “selfies” with different people in certain parts of the campus. A selfie is the act of taking one’s picture with the use of one’s cellphone by his or her self. It is usually done alone but for the purposes of the experiment, we did it in groups and in pairs as no breaching would come about if our subject was to do a selfie voluntarily and by themselves. The selfie would be our way to invade the individual’s personal space and from there capture their reaction not only by first hand observation but in a picture as well. Our subjects would comprise of students, faculty members, and maintenance staff for a wider possibility of reaction. The experiment was done in different parts of the school like the library, the library elevator, the cafeteria, and the walkways.

For the experiment, one reaction that is common among all of the people we did the experiment on is the initial shock. Each one showed this differently with different expressions, may it be “whoa”, “uy”, “what the” and so on, and various facial expressions, but all of them point toward manifestations of shock or surprise. This can primarily be attributed to the breaching of the norm of personal space, where one does not expect any form of contact especially in that way which was very abrupt, unexpected, and done without warning. Moreover, the way with which the personal space was violated also comes into play. A selfie is something one normally does with friends and is commonly announced with a request, may it be just a simple, “Picture tayo!” Therefore, for a person to declare a selfie with you out of nowhere, especially if the person is a complete stranger, would indeed probably cause the person to experience a state of shock.

Another interesting part of their reactions was how they responded after that initial sense of surprise where they were caught off guard. For our experiment, the people we did the experiment on can be divided according to their roles in the school, namely students, maintenance and staff, and people with authority; with each one having a unique follow up reaction.

         The most obvious choice for this breaching experiment is the students. The student population is the most in terms of number in campus, which is why they can be easily found anywhere. We decided to conduct the experiment in two areas – the 5th floor of the new Rizal library and along the corridor of Sec A.

          In the library, we approached two students who were seated in front of each other. We approached them from behind while they were talking and took the picture. At first they were both shocked but they reacted differently after realizing what was happening. The guy immediately bowed his head while the girl giggled and smiled at the camera.  After the picture was taken, the guy explained to us that he thought we were friends with the girl which is why he immediately shied away from the camera when we said “Selfie!”.

         The girl we met along the corridor of Sec A was equally as shocked when we took the picture. Upon hearing us say “Selfie!” and seeing the camera, the girl said “Ay! Nagulat naman ako!”. She initially stepped away from the camera but she somehow returned back, showing her willingness to be a part of the picture.

       Knowing that the people who were asking them to be a part of the selfies were also students, the participants were not as hesitant to join. There is an equal footing in role, so there is no division as to who is of higher position than the other. Although there is a common initial shock upon seeing the camera, the students were not so surprised with the request for the selfie. It is not uncommon in our generation to take selfies and this explains the students’ reactions. However, despite the selfies being a common occurrence nowadays, there is a norm that these selfies are taken only with people you are close with or people you at least know. This justifies the reaction of the guy in the library who immediately ducked upon realizing that it was a selfie. He assumed that we knew the girl he was with, which is why we wanted to take the selfie with her.

         Our second group of people can be classified under the role of maintenance and staff, men and women who more commonly work unnoticed in the campus, going by their duties with minimal to no contact with the students. More specifically, we were able to perform the experiment with a landscape maintenance man and a group of cafeteria personnel, both of which interestingly reacted quite similarly. First, they’d look up to see what was going. Then, upon realizing that we were trying to take a picture with them, both started laughing but at the same time looked away from the camera again and to an extent, tried to get out of the shot; a reaction quite unique from the other groups.

This can possibly be a reaction brought about by the norm set by their everyday duties and settings in the school. For the maintenance man, it can be said that interaction with students is not a common part of his everyday experience in his job, if at all. Despite being surrounded by students in Zen Garden, his focus was just on his work and the nearby students had no part in his own little world. As for the cafeteria personnel, if ever they do have any interaction with students, it must be quite minimal; just a transaction or a few words needed to accomplish their duties. Additionally,  they were having their lunch break at the time of the experiment meaning all the more they definitely weren’t expecting any interaction with students.

Their reaction to the sudden request for a selfie is quite indicative of this norm set on them. The fact that it was to be done with students possibly led them to being evasive as it’s not something they’re used to. I’m sure that if it were done with their peers, their reaction would have been very different and much more accommodating. But since there is a divide in roles between the maintenance and students, interaction between the two without prior warning is not easy to achieve. Given this, it can be said that their reaction reinforces the existing norms of personal space, and avoiding contact with members of the society that you have no business with. 

The last victim of the breaching experiment was a woman who is in her late 50s to early 60s, around 5’1” in height and wearing casual clothing (striped sleeveless shirt and khaki pants). While the victim was reading a newsletter and leaning against the bulletin boards near the cashier of the Ateneo, two of the group members approached her suddenly to take a selfie with her while saying, “Selfie!” In a puzzled and shocked voice, the woman asked, “Hey, what is this for?” A group member answered back and debriefed the victim that the group was conducting a breaching experiment for their sociology and anthropology class. Upon knowing this, the woman changed her tone of voice and sneeringly said, “Do you know who I am?” A group member answered back and said, “No.” The woman just walked away and mockingly repeated what the group member said which is, “No.”

This woman showed the most distinct reaction among all the victims of the breaching experiment. Instead of just smiling/laughing like most of the victims, this woman gave a negative reaction by condescendingly asking the group “Do you know who I am?” Due to the nature of this experiment, which is breaking norms, probably the woman became offended and considered it rude to take a picture with her without asking permission. Her negative reaction can also be attributed to the group disturbing her as she was reading something in the bulletin boards.

Her statement “Do you know who I am?” suggests the impression of how highly she thinks of herself, which is also a possibility of why she reacted this way. The group assumes that she has a high position in Ateneo that is why she was able to say this. She might have expected that no one will do this breaching experiment to her and when the group did, this caused her to react negatively. Hence, one can see that aside from norms, social positions can also affect how a person acts.

This woman is also the oldest of all the victims in the experiment and her age bracket can also be a factor in how she reacted. For the older generations, taking a selfie is not a normal conduct to do as compared to the younger generations today. Therefore, this possible expectation was violated in the experiment and may have cause the woman to react disapprovingly.

The woman’s negative reaction reinforces the norm of personal space as she found it disrespectful to take a selfie with her. Through breaching the norm of personal space or privacy by suddenly taking a picture with a person, indeed, certain norms are reaffirmed and are at play in our society.

Prior to conducting the experiments, we were excited but at the same time very hesitant and shy to start because we are not used to taking photos with random people in a public place but we wanted to find out how people would react to this deviance. It was not a comfortable thing to do since we were all shy in nature. We usually take selfies with our friends, blockmates, org mates, family members--- the people we’re close to, but not with random people we see in school. Also, the possibility of seeing these people again, probably be judged and react in a negative way, pushed us to be more hesitant in conducting the experiment. Before approaching the people, we would look at one another to see if someone would go ahead and approach the person or group of people. We made sure first that we had a plan of action before doing our selfie attacks on people. Such as who was staying at this side, who’s going to take the picture, etc. In this way, more or less we were able to take selfies with random people despite our hesitance and shyness.

The reactions of people are unpredictable. You may think that one would react in a certain way, but he or she can actually react in a totally different way than what you expected. It should be kept in mind that the reactions will most likely depend on the knowledge and understanding of your “victims.” In our experiment, the reactions of the students were always game and willing to take selfies with us because they more or less knew about taking selfies. The maintenance were shy but were still game and willing to take selfies. After a streak of consistent positive reactions, it was broken by the last victim which is an elderly woman who probably had no idea at all of what a selfie is.

Basing from this, in the younger generation and the lower class which is the maintenance, a deviance from the norm of having personal space is somewhat acceptable up to a certain extent. In the older generations where technology was not widely used for such behavior, the disruption of personal space is unacceptable and considered highly disrespectful. As a group, we learned that it is important to always be prepared with the various reactions from the different people. Some reactions may be favorable, while some may not be, but keep in mind that everything is for learning purposes and will contribute to the greater knowledge of Society.

We So Close

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzDOv_A1Q6w&feature=youtu.be

We So Close

#INeedMyPersonalSpace #epal #deviance #walanghiya #breachingexperiment

Even in crowded places, an individual has their own implied personal space and it is expected that the people around respect this. An example for this would be in the cafeteria or food court, when all of the tables are occupied and there is one table not fully occupied, one would ask permission before sitting on the vacant seats. A deviant act to this norm would be when one just sits without asking permission. This would be an act of violating the personal space of the one who first occupied the place, and is what we will be looking at in this deviance experiment. Furthermore, we will be analyzing similarities and differences in the reactions we will be observing so that we could try to determine which sociological themes are influential in this particular activity.

Breaching Experiment

Our breaching experiment as invading personal space was done through sitting or standing beside people in the mall without asking for permission. The breaching experiment was done in different levels in terms of gender, age and size of group. The first attempt at breaching was done by standing immediately beside an alone person. Next, by sitting down  right beside a person on the benches in a department store even if there is still a wide space that was empty. These methods were considered to be only breaching the norms slightly because the locations where these were done are communal places unlike if a person is at the food court sitting in front of a single table, which is the next level of breaching done.

The food court is a communal place but when a person or group of people sit in front of a table, that table is considered to be “owned” by that person or group temporarily, demarcating that certain table from the rest of the food court. The breaching done was to sit in an occupied table beside or in front of the occupant(s). The experiment was done with people from different genders (male and female)and ages (young adult, adult and senior citizens). The size of the group also varied from a single individual, to a couple or pair  and, lastly, to a group.

The activity was done in the mall (Gateway, SM Sta. Mesa, and Robinsons Magnolia) -- in the foodcourt and in places where people often rested. The activity was done in the mall because it is a setting for many activities such as hangouts, family bonding, shopping, eating, and the like. Also, the mall is a place for leisure, and so most people did not rush. These circumstances helped in our activity because there were people of different age gaps, which allowed us to see the differences in reactions; and because there were many people, this allowed a good number of experiments. Also, since most of the people were not rushing, we had the opportunity to ask them about their reactions and debrief them about what happened.

Since we intended to get the reactions of the people, we took a video of the experiment discreetly but for some instances, we were not able to do so.

List of Reactions

In SM Sta. Mesa:

1st: In the communal eating area at the foodcourt, a group member sat beside a girl. Her expression did not change and we did not get the chance to talk to her because she already left.

(By this time, the security guards talked to us and told us that we can not stay in the foodcourt if we do not buy anything; and we also noticed that there were a lot of people who did not buy anything yet stayed there. We thought that they got suspicious of us because we kept transferring tables.)

2nd: In the cyberzone, there was a man who was standing beside the railings close to the escalators. One group member stood beside him. In this setting, there was plenty of space around the railings. There was no reaction, or the man’s expression did not change. We just noticed that he kept on looking away and took out his phone. After the debriefing, the man said that it was okay with him that someone stood beside him there.

3rd: In the shoe section of the department store, a group member sat directly beside a kid fitting shoes. The kid had no other reaction than moving a bit away from the group member to give enough space for sitting.

4th: In the same section of the department store, a group member sat on a bench beside two children accompanied by their mom. With the presence of the group member, the mom immediately reprimanded her children who were behaving badly at that time. The mom continued browsing the shoes afterwards.

In Robinsons Magnolia:

1st: In the food court, a man was sitting alone at a table for four (two tables side by side). A group member took the chair directly opposite him and sat on it in a way that the two ended up diagonally opposite each other. The group member ignored the man and whiled the time reading or checking her phone. The man, in turn, looked away and seemed to use his phone more frequently. Upon debriefing, the man says that he thought the group member “friendly” because she was willing to share tables.  2nd: In the food court, a girl was sitting alone at a table for two. A group member sat on the chair opposite her. The first reaction observed was that the girl peeked at the group member and smiled, almost about to laugh. Then, she continued with what she was doing, which at the moment was texting; and she kept on looking away. She did not have any reaction when the group member left. After debriefing, she mentioned that it was okay with her but if it were other people, they might say “hindi man lang nagpaalam”(she did not even ask for permission). After this, she said her observations they about our group member and they exchanged names.

3rd: In the same setting, albeit a little ways off, two somewhat middle-aged women were engaged in enthusiastic conversation at a table for four (two tables pushed together). When a group member approached their table and sat at the far side, the conversation did not stop, but one of the women immediately reached out a hand to pull their bags, which were scattered on top of both tables, closer to them. No further reaction was observed, but when the group member left, they looked at her retreating figure. Upon debriefing, the women revealed that they were aware of her the whole time, even though they were rapt in conversing with each other. They also commented that she looked like a student, so they reasoned out that there was less danger in the proximity of a stranger. However, their first instinct really was to keep a closer hold on to their belongings.

4th: In the same food court, a couple in their 20’s was sitting on the same side in a table for four. When a group member sat across them on the same table, the conversation didn’t stop but both of them looked at the group member. The couple looked away still conversing but at some points, they again look at the group member. During debriefing, the guy told the group member that it was actually okay and it was just a bit weird, but the girl kept saying otherwise--that the guy was really weirded out by the experiment.

In Gateway:

1st: In the food court, a woman was sitting alone at a table for two. A group member sat on the seat available. She did not have any reaction, and just continued scrolling through her phone. After debriefing, she said it was okay, and didn’t care.

2nd: Also in the food court, a group of three people (2 women and 1 man in their 20s) sat on a table for four. They were engaged in conversation. A group member sat on the vacant seat and just stared ahead. The first reaction observed was that one girl looked at him but after, continued texting and talking with the other people. After debriefing, they said that they did not mind this because they thought that that group mate was Korean and so, thought that it was okay in “their” country to do so. But they also mentioned that if he was Pinoy, they would not be pleased.

Insights

At first, we felt scared to approach and sit beside random people because it was against the norm. We were afraid of what the stranger would say and, how he/she would act. We were hesitant to do the activity, but at the same time excited. Hesitant because we’re going to stray away from the norm and people might not like it. On the other hand, excited because we wanted to see how people would react in situations uncomfortable to them. Then, when we actually sat beside people, it felt awkward because some of them didn’t know what to do. They were confused on why a stranger sat beside them, so they didn’t know whether or not to leave, or just continue with what they were doing.

Most of the reactions we heard from the people involved was that it was okay and that they did not mind. However, their words are contradicted by the shift in their actions once the deviance had taken place (read: looking away, using the phone more frequently, etc.). We cannot tell if they themselves are aware of it. Also, we observed that some people were trying to make a logical explanation of the act of deviance. For example, one man said she thought the group mate was just friendly because she shared the table. Another example is when a girl thought that the group mate was Korean and thought that there was a different norm in their country, and so adhered to this also. Instead of asking him to adhere to the Philippines’ norms, she did not mind the group mate practicing his here. We believe that the people reacted this way because they didn’t expect that some stranger would sit beside them since the table was already occupied. They were probably caught off guard because no one would just sit beside a group without even asking for permission. Because they were not expecting the deviance act, they made up for it by making excuses or rationalizing the act done and this affirms that the norm of personal space is present in society.

During our execution of the experiment in SM Sta. Mesa, security guards reprimanded us by saying that if we don’t buy food, we cannot stay in the food court. Even after we bought food, the security guard still stayed behind us until we left. The security guard’s reason could have been valid but we observed that there were other people who were staying in the food court without buying anything from the vendors. We thought that the security guards reacted this way only towards us because we were moving from one table to another which maybe made us look suspicious, and they were only imposing their role as security guards who keep the peacefulness of the atmosphere and keep away the violators. The security guard’s reaction is also a reiteration that norms can have greater weight over rules. Although not what we were trying to deviate from, the group’s violation of the norm of staying in one place while eating resulted to a reprimanded and  being guarded over while the other people violating the rule of not being able to stay without buying from the vendors weren’t.

In comparing and contrasting the set of reactions we have received from the different parties involved in our little breaching experiment, we have noticed two things: 1.) reaction and consequent revelation of thoughts became more defined as the group size grew and 2.) the quality of reaction may be classified within certain age groups, yet we choose to focus on just one.

In the first observation, we have noticed how minimal the reactions were among individuals. Most of them would just devote more attention to their phone/gadget or look away. The emphasis seems to be in avoidance of acknowledgment. It is as if instead of confronting the violator of personal space, the individual would try to make his/her ‘territory’ smaller by drawing his attention to something specific (phone) or looking away. This can also be seen as a sign of retreating. This avoidance is apparent in the reported actions of the people who were sitting/standing when a group member stood/sat near. However, once there are not one, but two people, the reaction changes. There were two instances in the experiment where this happened. In the first, when a group member sat at a table occupied by a young couple who were conversing about marriage, there were confused looks for a bit, but there was no halt in the conversation. In the second, after a similar violation of personal space, the two middle-aged women continued speaking to each other, as well, after making that initial movement of drawing the bags closer. In both cases, instead of making their ‘territory’ smaller, the two people are establishing it by continuing their conversation despite a minor reaction. They still are not confronting the violator, but they’re not retreating, either. (The action of drawing the bags closer seemed more like a protective instinct than a territorial one) In instances where the number of people is three, the reactions differ again; the reaction is more defined. There are two examples of this in the experiment: the woman and her children in the shoe section of the department store and the three people who were seated at a table for four in the food court. The presence of the intruding group member caused an obvious change in the people’s actions. The mom immediately reprimanded her children for misbehaving while the three people seated on the table stopped talking for a while. This type of reaction, though not a direct confrontation, makes the intruder aware that his/her presence is inadvertently causing something. In the mom’s case, her actions of trying to make her children more presentable is a positive effect, while in the group’s case, their halt in conversation indicates that something is wrong and unacceptable; therefore, it is a negative effect. All in all, because individuals tend to retreat, couples tend to hold their ground, and groups tend to react obviously, it seems that the number of people in a party is directly proportional to the magnitude—the quality of being more pronounced--of the subsequent reaction.  

Aside from feeling successful after completing the experiment, we felt a kind of relief after deviating from the norm of preserving personal space. This is because no one resulted into doing violent and disrespectful things to us even though we violated their personal space. We realized that the respect that people have for others is far more important than their own concept of personal space.

"Will You Be My Valentine?"

Belmonte | Em | Guevara | Logarta | Minoza | Rosales 

In our breaching experiment, we violated the norms of ‘social adequacy’. The act of proposing and asking certain people to be their Valentine is usually done with people who are familiar with one another and have spent a certain amount of time together. Proposing to complete strangers in public isn’t normally done and in fact is rarely done outside experimental purposes. In relation, gender roles were violated as well as the breaching experiment that was done involved both opposite genders (boys asking girls & and girls asking boys) and same genders (girl asking girl) initiating and asking each other as well. Lastly, the subject of ‘occasion’ was also violated, as this experiment was done outside the month of February where Valentines is present.

The breaching activity composed of our group mates setting out to different locations within the campus (namely The New Library’s Entrance, De la Costa Building, MVP, FAURA Forest, Sec B and the LS Bookstore) asking different, random people to be their Valentine. The actual activity commenced firstly with our team experimenting with different camera angles, trying to find places where the shot would be clear enough to videotape but well hidden enough so that the actual subjects won’t notice somebody taping them. The experiment was done usually by twos, one filming the activity and the other asking the subjects to be their Valentine. The experiment would usually start out with the experimenter saying romantic phrases and pick-up lines to their subject of choice followed by kneeling (optional but done for the full effect) and the giving of roses to the subject at hand. After the entire scene where the subject accepts the rose, the experimenter then proceeds to orient the subject regarding the experiment, giving information like why it was done, what it was for, and that it was actually okay for them to receive and keep the gifts they were presented with.  

In general, several of the reactions that we received were that of suspicion. A lot of the subjects were suspicious of the nature of our experiment and a lot were actually trying to look for the cameras. If they were unable to spot the camera, most would ask what this was for and such. What we noticed though was that the reactions differed per gender. Generally, the females were more responsive and enthusiastic about the experiment. Though there was the occasional suspicions, most of the women readily accepted the gifts and the invitations. The men, on the other hand, were more on the defensive side. Most would hesitate to accept the gifts that were given and some would actually redirect the invitation to a different person (i.e if the guy was walking with a girl he would say ‘maybe you should give it to her, she would like to be your valentine).

A lot of the subjects would also give out a neutral response like saying thank you, not rejecting nor rejecting the invitation, simply thanking. The reason why we received these reactions was probably due to the fact that none of the subjects wanted to offend us in any way. So in return, a thank you is given.

Gender was a big factor in why the people reacted the way they did. In cases such as the men reacting strangely to the women and the women readily accepting gifts from fellow females. Both genders showed the (general) reaction one usually sees and expects from a specific gender.

The reactions we received from the women happened, in our opinion, because they interpreted our actions as something in the lines of friendliness with no emotions attached especially if it was a girl experimenter asking the girl experimentee. The reactions we received from the men on the other hand might’ve turned out that way because the men saw other implications such as possible romantic feelings or underlying intentions like a prank and such. Another reason with relation to this, might be because men in general are used to being the ones who would give the gifts and not receive them, especially from somebody of the opposite gender.

The factor of immediate circumstance or situation also played its part in their reactions as several of the subjects tended to reject the offers if they were running late for a class of if they had to rush to do or finish something. Most reacted the way they did because they were conscious of the observers and of the suspicion of the presence of a camera. If they notice a camera filming them, most would generally turn out to be more compliant to the activity and accept the gifts and invitation more.

The case of social class also appeared in the scene where our male group mate asked the lady behind the cashier in the LS bookstore to accept his gift. Because of where she was situated, she didn’t have the option of moving out or escaping the offer. And because she was in a certain social position, being a person who worked behind the cashier, she had to respect our group mate because he was a customer in the bookstore.

The consensus of the group was that there was a certain form of hesitancy involved when we did this experiment. When it started out, it felt strange to deviate from the norms as we aren’t usually used to the idea of stepping out of what is considered ‘normal’.

Hesitancy was present also because of the location where we decided to do the activity. Because we did them in open spaces, the activity was prone to a lot of observers giving both the subject and experimenter a slight sense of discomfort.

Aside from gender, it seemed that time was also a factor in how they react. For one of the people experimented, it was at least five to ten minutes before the first bell rang. The experimentee, a male, despite being approached by a female experimenter, showed obvious signs of disinterest and annoyance towards her, and went as far as to say that he was ‘going to be late for class’, even though the experimenter had acted all romantic just for him. Another example was another male experimentee who was with a group of girls outside of the new Rizal library. Initially, he didn’t want to hear what the experimenter (a female) had to say, and said they were ‘busy’, but after being insisted that it would only take a short while, he agreed, although reluctantly. Those who weren’t really doing anything agreed almost right away without making any excuse, while the two examples stated above, because they had a time constraint, tried to make an excuse so they wouldn’t be bothered.

Another thing we noticed was that the moment we, the experimenters, began executing the experiment, we started treating everyone as targets instead of students.

Roses and chocolates were given to the participants/subjects:

A BREACHING EXPERIMENT THAT HAS US JUST WANTING TO BE LOVED: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7wwXZSaR3s

"Breaching Experiment: Rumble in the mall" SA21-P Benito, De Leon, Garcia, Mendoza

VIDEO TO FOLLOW

#breachingexperiment #deviance 

Reynaldo R. Benito Jr.

Miguel Angelo M. de Leon

David Sebastian D. Garcia

Carlos Diego S. Mendoza

SA 21 – P: Breaching Experiment

“Breaching experiment: Rumble in the Mall”

“Rumble in the mall” is a breaching experiment set out to break the norm of acting appropriately in public. This includes wearing proper attire, as well as not drawing too much attention to one’s self. Set at a high end mall like that of Eastwood city, people are expected to act with an air of dignity about themselves. “Breaching” this said norm yield results such as judgmental looks or remarks, or on the flipside of the spectrum remarks or looks that were amused by the breaching. Aside from breaking this said norm, this breaching experiment plays on the sociological theme of class. It was seen that based on the results of this experiment that different responses were elicited from people of different social classes (judging these people purely on what they were wearing or their demeanor). This also capitalizes on the location of the breaching experiment; though Eastwood city is known as a high end mall, several people from the middle and lower classes traverse the mall’s premises as well.

“Rumble in the mall’s” methodology of the experiment involved play-fighting around the mall as secret agents and/or ninjas. This involved running around, pretend-shooting and fighting among the four members of the group. One of the members would sit out one fight scene as they film and document the scenes along with the reactions of the bystanders. Appropriate clothing for these “rumbles” was worn, such as suits of the secret agents. Extravagant sounds were made during the breaching experiment so as to attract the bystanders. Sound-effects of the firing of pistols and rifles as well as the clang of swords during the ninja-battles were exaggerated and made especially loud during the rumble. To compound on these sound effects, cheesy dialogue appropriate for these rumbles, “You, the warlord who destroyed our clan shall fall this day!” or “Enemy Agent spotted! Requesting back-up immediately!” were used.

The breaching experiment was carried out in Eastwood City, Quezon City on August 26, 2013, Monday from 6:30-7:30. Five locations were mapped out for this event, namely, the theater in the new mall, the family lounge area on the third floor, the fountain area right outside the new mall, the plaza outside the old mall, and finally, in the lobby of the old mall’s theater right after a movie had finished. Through these locations, the stark contrast between the higher and lower social classes was also seen. Based on the clothing of people during the events, it was clear that the people present in the new mall, were of higher social class as evidenced by their clothing and the language they were using (English). As such, people in the plaza, as well as the old mall were of lower social class; some of them were wearing employee uniforms, and their language of operation was in Tagalog. As such, the reactions between these two social classes were different.

The locations in the new mall were set mainly outside certain establishments (plaza, ground floor, cinema lounge) in order to  attract the maximum attention and to avoid ejection by security. Reactions for the new mall were as follows:

- Children were generally amused and commented in English (What are they doing?). They would also point fingers at us.

- Their parents in general were smiling and amused as well

- Teenage reactions was divided. Some would point at us while others would look at us judgingly

- People who were alone would look at us judgingly (couth eyes and a smirk) and walk away

- Staller vendors would smile at us and when they saw the camera, pose in return (Naglalaban yung mga kuya oh, oh sa stall pa natin)

- Some families outside the plaza of the new mall consisting of older children would blatantly ignore us and walk away

The locations in the old mall were set mainly outside certain establishments (plaza and cinema lounge) in order to attract the maximum attention and to avoid ejection by security. Reactions for the old mall were as follows:

- Families would comment in tagalog (Wow may laban!)

- Some people alone would ignore us

- Some would points at us and explain (Baka ma-sipa ka ah bata! Yung mga kuya oh, naglalaban anak tignan mo!) these people were mainly employees

- As the “cheesy dialogue” was in English, some lower class people tried to mimic the English language by mocking us with lines like “Teyk him dahn (take him down)”

- In the theater, there was a particularly flamboyant group consisting of mainly homosexuals. They were speaking in pure Tagalog. Several comments arose from them (ayy nako! may laban! huwag ganyan!). At the last parts of the rumble, one of the homosexuals joined and attempted to kick one of the group members. (shown in video)

An analysis of these reactions proves that social class affects, in one way or another, the gravity of this social norm. People from lower social classes seemed to be more open to this kind of deviance behavior and showed positive responses such as the smiles and the points from them. This hypothesis culminated in the fact that one of flamboyant persons decided to join the deviance as well, attempting to kick one of the members. Indeed, using factors like language, occupation, and clothing we were able to pinpoint who was from which social class and make this said assumption.

Another assumption as to why lower social classes seem to be a lot more open to this kind of behavior is because the Structural Functionalist approach for this Social Class is slightly bent towards accepting this form of deviance. Since the lower classes receive their entertainment mostly from noontime shows like Showtime, where this kind of behavior is rampant, then the Structural Function would be slightly changed in effect of the change in culture brought about by these noontime shows. In this sense, the parallelism between noontime shows could have greatly changed the Symbolic Interaction between people from the lower classes and our deviance experiment (and also accounted for the positive responses from these people).

With higher classes however, they stayed rigid to this social norm, having little to no experience from outside cultures such as Showtime. As such the already established SF and SI approaches were no longer changed and participants from these classes stuck to the norm.

Prior to performing we expected some people to like it and to feel awkward and judge us. As humiliating as we looked then, the reactions we saw were as expected. During the first few rumbles, we were hesitant to go “full throttle” and relished in staying in one particular area during the scene. However, as time moved on, we grew more accustomed and were able to shout out our “cheesy” lines without hesitation. For us at least, the breakage of this norm came gradually as we were used to acting properly in a High end establishment such as Eastwood City.

In conclusion, “Rumble in the mall” not only shows the deviance from a certain social norm, but shows how a sociological theme plays into the different reactions of each social class. Deviance itself is very difficult to do as we are all limited to our own social norms, but when it is broken, is able to yield a plethora of responses and insights.