[SA 21 L] Breaching Experiment: Awkward Elevator Rides by The Flower Rangers

Clarrie Cruz
Pauline Fong
Camille Garrido
Zoe Hukom
Kaela Leyretana
Lissa Salapantan

Video:

1. What norm did you violate?

• Personal space
• Not talking to strangers
• Remaining silent in elevators

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

Our experiment involved observing how people would react when strangers try to make small talk with them inside an elevator. The elevator we rode was in SM City Marikina, which we chose because of lower chances of people suspecting a social experiment, and in order to be able to interact with people of different age groups and socio-economic classes.

The first step was to ask for the consent of the elevator lady to stay on the elevator and take numerous rides. We did this by making friends with her. After this, we would first greet select elevator passengers in order to grab their attention, and then we ask them a conversation starter question based on what they seemed to be doing in the mall. Examples of conversation starters used are the following:

• “Ilang taon na po ang baby niyo?”
• “Nag grocery po kayo?”
• “You’re watching a movie?”
• “Magddinner po ba kayo?”
• “Pauwi na po kayo?”
• “Kakatapos lang po ba ng shift niyo?”

After starting the conversations, we just rode on with it by asking related follow up questions until the elevator riders got off.

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 reaffirm/ reinforce the existing norms based on these reactions?

Majority of the elevator riders at first seemed confused as to whom we were addressing with our greetings. This was often marked by them looking around them, and then looking at us with questioning faces. How their reactions differed was manifested after the often awkward starts.

• THE WHY’S MEN

These people answer our conversation starter questions with the question “why?” They are doubtful towards our intentions for asking them questions about their mall activity. Some of these people also questioned whether or not we needed any help. Some even assumed that there was an emergency or issue which caused us to ask questions to strangers.

A reason behind this reaction could be that people feel suspicious when strangers talk to them, and they think there must be some ulterior motive, or that there must be something wrong. The norm that we’re not supposed to talk to strangers, unless we need something from them, has already been internalized, which is why the violation of this norm usually results in the respondents being doubtful.

• THE SHY LONG BAOS

These people choose to look away or at the floor after realizing that we are trying to have conversation with them. These people also usually just nod their heads at attempts of conversations and are not responsive. This could probably mean that they’re not willing to give information about themselves to strangers, or maybe they simply didn’t know how to respond to a stranger suddenly making conversation with them, because it’s “unusual”.

• THE REFERRALS

The referrals are a subcategory of people under shy long baos. These people usually pass on the “responsibility” of responding to our conversation starters to whomever they were with. This behavior shows that they are interested in continuing the conversation, but they, themselves, are too shy to continue it themselves. This submissive behavior reflects how weaker people in society turn to people whom they deem as stronger for what they would do if only they felt more able.

• THE RIDE-Y TO MINGLES

These people ride on with the conversation and often seem happy to be engaged in the conversation.

Perhaps these people reacted this way because they were happy to witness unusual friendliness in people. These may also be the more confident and social people. We noticed that usually English-speaking passengers were the ones who were more comfortable with conversing with us. Despite speaking Filipino to others, they did not engage in conversation as smoothly as us. This may be related to the felt inferiority to higher socio-economic classes since most of us were dressed in “sosyal going out” clothes.

There are some groups or couples whom we conversed with, which were comprised of people from the different mentioned categories. For instance, for couples it was usually the male who carried on the conversations, or if the male would be shy, the female would be friendly enough to make up for the silence.

Other notable reactions include an old couple who kept on asking why. We rode with them from the top floor to the bottom floor of the parking, and ended up having to admit we were conducting a social experiment. Another would be this 5-year old male child who kept on asking his mom  who we were. On the way out the elevator, he even asked “are they your friends?” Such a reaction from a child  reinforces that the norm is to speak only with people whom you know personally.

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, social class, values/ beliefs of the institution?

We feel that a lot of factors are at play in this situation - gender and values more than the others - and each respondent may have different reasons for reacting the way they did. Males generally find it unusual and uncomfortable to do small talk compared to females, and the prospect of speaking about random things to younger people would be something categorized as “nonsense” for males. Females would entertain small talk more openly and were less awkward, but of course there were some exceptions like funny uncle figures and the like. In general, the belief that there should be ample personal space between strangers plays an important role in these interactions. Most parents tell their children not to talk to strangers because it may be innate in our norms and culture that anyone who does not reach a person’s level of familiarity is marked as potential danger. In this case, the outcome of our interaction would be based on how much “trusting” a person is to others, even with potentially shady people. People’s reactions may also be attributed to the group members’ overall appearance and disposition (i.e. clothing, language, temperament, etc.); if people deem the group members to look like strangers who are trustworthy and not “sketchy”, then their reaction to our random conversations would not be too skeptical and reserved.

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?

Norms are unsaid rules and patterns that are expected of a certain group of people. And so, when we thought of talking to strangers in elevators, we were very hesitant to do it at first but also excited at the same time. We were hesitant because talking to strangers is not something people would “normally” do, and it even took us a handful of failed attempts to even say anything in the elevators ourselves because of the fear of what people would think and how we would continue the conversation. However, we were also excited because we wanted to see how people would react to others violating these unsaid rules. After our first few successful attempts, it became easier to converse with the rest. After conducting the experiment, we were on happier moods because of all the small talks, and even felt friendlier.

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

Deviances may be uplifting, refreshing and liberating, but they are deviances for a reason. While it was an overall “happy” experience to be able to converse with an array of strangers in the elevator, it is also important to note that if this was a norm it could also be dangerous. Our small talk questions are questions which stalkers and other people with malicious intent may use to their advantage. While conversing in the elevator could be a medium to brighten up days and introduce openness to people of other walks of life, people generally choose not to go with this, because of the norm.

Thinking of it closely, the likeliness of people conversing for malicious intent is not as great as the uplifting opportunity of conversing with people we are stuck with in the elevator. However, because not conversing in the elevator is a norm, we follow it without even wondering why we do not, and we do not even wonder why we follow it, because we are not familiar with the good we can get out of breaking it. Perhaps it would be healthy for humanity to weigh to pros and cons of existing norms, and daring to break them for the better that may come out of it.