Holding Strangers’ Hands

Rayne Aguilar

Lidel Bajao

Hannah Guinto

Anton Reyes

Christelle Torres

SA 21- Q

Ms. Emily Roque

Holding Strangers’ Hands

Breaching Experiment Report

1) What norm did you violate?

We violated folkways because this type of norm draws the line between what’s right and rude. Folkways are known as customary, normal and habitual ways that happen everyday. In this case, we held strangers’ hands, which is not something that usually happens on a normal basis. Based on our experiment, this violation became that of folkways’ because some people found it improper, confusing, or even rude. We broke the norm for routine or casual interaction and that was proven by the different reactions that we got from people.

2) Describe the breaching experiment in detail. What was the activity? Where did you do it?

The experiment was to be conducted in a public place that would ideally contain people of various backgrounds, social status, age and gender. We conducted this experiment in UP Town, Rustan’s Supermarket and Regis Center, all in Katipunan Avenue. The experiment was to hold a stranger’s hand, initiated in different ways—with a question, “Excuse me, can you hold this for me?” or simply walking next to them and holding their hand—then the conductor must act normally, swing hands even, until the subject of the experiment visibly reacts. The subject is then told afterwards that it is a social experiment to dissuade any suspicion and discomfort.

3) What were the different reactions of the people? List all possible reactions you observed. Why do you think they reacted this way? What caused these reactions? Did the deviant act re-affirm/reinforce the existing norms based on these reactions?

Many of them continued holding hands, smiling awkwardly at the conductor. Our first subject stared blankly, unsure if she knew the conductor holding her hand. One of the subjects sheepishly asked, “Ma’am, ano po ito?” and another one took a step back, drew his hand back in surprise and exclaimed, “Ma’am?!” with a frightened look on his face. Another subject completely ignored the conductor while rolling her eyes. Because they were confused, they did not know what to do in the situation, so they just held on to our hands. There were a couple of people who asked what was going on, to which we did not respond until we burst in laughter and had to let go. Some people thought that our approach was an introduction to ourselves; two subjects kept shaking hands in the experiment. The most interesting reaction we received was from a high school boy, who declared, “This is the most interesting thing that happened to me all day!”

Others were more straightforward with their response to the situation. There was a number of people who either just ignored us and moved on or let go of their hand immediately.

They reacted this way probably because they assumed it was a prank, or they were taken aback at such an intimate gesture by a complete stranger. Such level of friendliness is unheard of in the Philippines. The act did indeed reinforce the existing norms of not initiating anything intimate with random passersby, because none of the subjects were nonchalant about it.

4) Aside from the norms, what sociological themes are at play for people to react in a certain way? Is it a function of gender (gender norms, roles), social class (norms of the rich & the poor), values/beliefs of institutions (religion, family, peer group, etc

There are many social themes that influence peoples’ reactions in our breaching experiment. Subjects who we targeted all had different reactions, and it may all be because of some sociological themes. Values and beliefs of all sorts of institutions and social classes affect the subjects’ reactions in our breaching experiment. We will try to analyze what factors might have affected these reactions.

Growing up, people are always taught to not talk or interact with strangers. Traditionally, females are heavily reinforced with the “don’t talk to strangers” ideal, because it is usually deemed as more applicable to girls because they are seen as vulnerable and susceptible to dangerous situations with strangers who might take advantage of them. For men, there is that notion that they can take care of themselves. This can be considered in analyzing why those respondents that ignored and rebuffed our advances to hold their hands were all female. Also, it may be possible that we only got this reaction from females because the places we went to are typically those that have more female patrons than males: shopping complex and food outlets and a grocery store. Reactions would have probably been different if we had gone to male dominated places like bars or sports themed restaurants.

Also, we must also take into consideration the fact that the locations we did our breaching experiment in were all places where well-off people would usually go to: UP Town Center, Rustan’s Supermarket, and Regis Center. Social class comes into play in the responses of our targeted subjects. There was a number of people who thought we were introducing ourselves. When we reached out to hold their hand they shook it and kept shaking it until we eventually let go. This reflex of shaking hands is a common custom and gesture among well-off people, as opposed to impoverished people who are not used to the custom of shaking hands.

5) How did you feel when you did this experiment? How does it feel to deviate from the norms? Were you hesitant to do the activity?

Looking back at the out-of-the ordinary experience we had as a group these past couple of days, we could say that we actually enjoyed doing this deviance experiment.  This experience helped us tread a different side of society that we never dared to cross.  The mere thought of holding hands with someone completely random just seems odd and uncomfortable and being able to actually do it proved even more so.  When we were doing the experiment, we were hesitant to go up to people because holding a stranger’s hand and not knowing how they were going to react was kind of scary and embarrassing at the same time. Another reason why we were hesitant at some parts is because we knew that if it were the other way around and random stranger held our hands, we’d be pretty bothered and caught off guard as well. There’s also the risk of the unpredictability of a stranger’s response. We were imagining worst-case scenarios such as a subject slapping us or telling us off.

After doing the deviant act of randomly holding hands, the reactions of all the different people made it seem more and more enjoyable, especially if you're the guy behind the camera.  Since holding a stranger’s hand puts us in a really awkward situation, we couldn’t help but laugh in some parts. At first, we were quite hesitant with doing the experiment since the act of holding hands with someone was something we found to be intimate in terms of touching someone else physically.  But after a couple of tries, doing the deviant act felt a bit liberating in a way, and it was quite interesting to see the results firsthand. As we were holding more and more strangers’ hands, we got more confident, and it felt empowering to be able to generate such animated and interesting responses from people we did not know.

6) Other observations and analysis that you may have on the activity and on deviance in general.

Deviance brings out different reactions from people and that is why people are hesitant to violate the social norms. We were raised by our parents to know the difference of right from wrong and besides that, we have external factors such as peers, media, society, etc that mold us into knowing what we should and shouldn't do.

One can say that, technically, this was not deviance, because deviance is violating the norms yourself, it is you yourself deciding that you will not follow the norm. We deviated from the norm because it was for school. Also, we knew in ourselves that we would not be the only group of people to deviate from the norms since every other Sociology and Anthropology class would be doing it. We were assured that our “deviance” would be for school and that other people were also doing the same activity albeit in different ways.