SA 21 B Breaching Experiment : Cross-shopping by BS Sigh

Gero Bautista
Gracielle Cruz
Emman Del Rosario

Macy Juat
Gabriel Mercado
Moniq Reyes

Cross-shopping  by BS Sigh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV9Gp5FpU7g

                     Breaching Experiment Discussion

1.    What norm did you violate?

●     We violated the norm that states that certain consumer goods are only supposed to be purchased by a specific gender.

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

●     In this breaching experiment, each member of the group had to try to buy things that were for the opposite sex (clothes and makeup) to test and see the reactions of the salespeople attending to us and the other people nearby. For some, the deviant was accompanied by another group member to discreetly take a video of the conversation and also help in replying. We all did the experiment once and, in different stores like Under Armour, The Face Shop and Bench so as to see the different reactions each would have depending on gender and store.  We conducted it last July 8, 2016 (Friday) in UP Town Center.

3.    What were the possible reactions of 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?

·         From the experiment, we observed two types of reactions. The first one was the acceptance of the deviant behavior wherein the people who the deviant was interacting with or people who were witnessing the “odd behavior” would accommodate them, albeit with laughter and inquiries on the purpose and actually consider that the individual in front of them was going to purchase clothing that was meant for the opposite gender. Another was the dismissal of the deviant and the avoidance of the deviant behavior. We believe that for the former group, they acted this way because they were either curious to see such an odd occurrence or they might have been exposed to this deviant behavior before or maybe because it was part of their duties as employees to accommodate any and all potential customers including deviants. As for the latter, we believe that these people acted this way because they found the odd behavior appalling and actively tried to avoid any interaction with the people involved or maybe because they were conditioned to ignore any oddities out of the fear that they would be associated with them. We believe that all of these reactions are the result of the different social environment every individual is brought up in and is exposed to daily. An interesting to note is that some of the salespeople who accommodated the deviant behavior said that they have been exposed to similar experiments before, meaning they may find this behavior as semi-normal or in a sense less odd which is why they decided to go along with it. Based on the reactions the deviant act reaffirmed the norm that males are only supposed to purchase male oriented items and females are only supposed to purchase female oriented items.

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), or social class (norms of the rich & poor)?

·         Age Disparity

The salesperson (aged 30’s) in the men’s underwear section in the SM store questioned the girls as to why they were buying men’s underwear despite reiterating that it was for themselves. Her question was like “Miss, brief po ba talaga?” Meanwhile, at Under Armour store, we tried buying the same type of apparel for ourselves but the guy (aged 20’s) was more “accepting” of our request. As for the salesperson in Cotton On, he was is his early 20’s and was very open to another male inquiring about dresses, we also asked  a mother and daughter about their thoughts on a male buying a mid-riff showing shirt but they quickly denied our request and walked away. 

·         Gender

From the experiment, we also noticed that people were more accepting of women who buy from the men’s section, since now it’s become quite normal for them to buy shirts and jeans there. Because of this, our group had to pretend to buy more gender-specific clothing, such as underwear, in order to get a bigger reaction. Men, on the other hand, are slightly given more judgment because it’s still unlikely for them to buy dresses and makeup for themselves.

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?

·         At first, we felt hesitant to do the activity. None of us wanted to go first because we were afraid of what might happen and how the salespeople would react. We were also a bit shy and embarrassed for ourselves, especially since there are other people nearby as well as our groupmates taking videos of us. However, after one of us did it, it got easier for us to keep a straight face and shamelessly do the experiment.

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

·         The perception of items based off gender varied from person to person. Some were more accepting of men buying women’s clothes and vice versa while some were a little bit more traditional; suggesting that the buyer buy clothes for his/her own gender.