SA21 L: Breaching Experiment: Violation of Personal Space & Dating Process

Violation of Personal Space & Dating Process

Giuseppe Lat Joanna Chong Brandon Singson CJ Villaester Troy Devera Eunice Cheng Angela de la Rama

1. What norm did you violate?    

The norm we violated in this breaching experiment is the concept of “hiya” and personal space. People do not usually talk to strangers except for needed circumstances such as asking for directions or buying something. Moreover a stranger does not come into close contact, like centimeters away from a person. However, in our experiment, we straight out talked to the person, came at a close distance and began flirting with them. Aside from this, we violated the norms of the steps in the dating cycle. One does not just walk to a stranger, flirt, and say I love you to them. They usually go through the cycle first of getting to know someone, flirting, courting, etc. which could take a long period of time before they reach that certain stage of bond, so it was quite interesting to witness the reactions when we skipped the whole process.

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

In this breaching experiment, a member of the group will approach a random stranger who is sitting alone. Then he/she will initiate a conversation by flirting with them. Examples of mentioned flirting are pick-up lines and giving the respondents compliments. After complimenting them, the member will then say “I love you” or ask for their phone numbers. This activity was done in multiple places. These are at Gateway food court and Starbucks, at Mall of Asia, and at the Ateneo de Manila University.

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?

From the 13 strangers that we have spoken to, these are the summarized reactions that we have gotten:

Male to Female ( Age 16-20)

Female respondents of this age group smiled, looked away, or asked if any event is happening to why the breaching experiment occurred. There was also an instance wherein the respondent thought it was a dare.They were more kind and accepting compared to other respondents.

Male to Female ( Age 30)

The female respondent of this age group looked mad and had a face of contempt. She felt offended after our member said his pick-up line.  

Female to Male (  Age 20-30)

Male respondents of this age group reacted by staring blankly, becoming doubtful and hesitant and asking us to repeat our statements. They had shocked face to their faces and thought it was weird for students our age to be telling them such statements.  

Male to Male ( Age 18-20)

The male respondent reacted by getting angry and looking away. Our member has said that he felt a sense of resentment and that the respondent might have wanted to punch him.

Female to Female ( Age 16-25)

Female respondents of this age group reacted by being considerate, smiling, and just going with the flow of the conversation. One has said that she thought we were advertising something.

We expected people to be surprised or confused because approaching someone and saying “I love you” or other words of affection seem out of the bue and out of context when you’re in a mall. You wouldn’t really observe people approaching other people and telling them these kinds of stuff

Why the test subjects acted this way may have already been caused by sociological factors such as age, gender, social class in such a way that the subjects' reactions appeared to have been consistent with their social group. These reactions all but not reaffirm already existing norms such as how for a Catholic country such as the Philippines, could have it's citizens, Filipinos, react .

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.). [You could design the experiment based on these sociological themes. For example, you could compare reactions according to gender, social class, etc. That would more interesting--and might obtain a better grade! :)]

According to Social Context (Perception of Space in which the Experiment was done):

The researchers observed the difference of conducting the experiment in a crowded and loud place like the Food Court and a private and quiet place like Starbucks. We can say that the perceptions of our subjects about the area and what we should do in such areas affected our results. For example, we got an abrupt but confused reaction from a Food Court subject’s face as the subject is also making sense of what we are doing, with the perception that the Food Court is a place for eating and not for flirting. This resulted to confused and annoyed reactions. Moreover, when our female researchers flirted with our female subjects asking if they can be together romantically, the subjects unintentionally got the wrong meaning and thought that the female researchers were asking to share the table and be seatmates instead. On the other hand for our Starbuck’s subjects, since Starbucks is a quiet cafe to do personal matters (mostly reading, working and studying), we were able to get slower but clearer reactions from them. Since our subject’s perception of a cafe is very intimate and private, upon doing the experiment our subjects were more shocked and surprised. There were less distractions and the subject was able to fully experience the effect of saying “I love you” from the opposite sex, even asking to repeat the words and clarify what we just said.

According to Gender & Age (Treatment towards Male and Female Researchers)

The researchers observed that there was a variation or degree of politeness between our male and female researchers from our respondents depending on their age and gender. For our male researchers towards older female subjects & female researchers towards older male subjects, the respondents already knew not to take the experiment seriously. The subjects were well aware of their position of being older that is why they were able to directly ask if the experiment was a dare or joke, get pissed off or be ideally polite towards one’s juniors. However for our male researchers towards younger female subjects, the respondents were more polite and shy even using ‘po’ and ‘opo.’

However, when asking the same gender, we have gotten various reactions. Male researches were treated badly and scolded by the respondent. One case was when one of our male researchers asked an older man. Being older and following the norms of heterosexuality, he got angry. Our researcher has even said that he felt the vibes that the respondent wanted to punch him. Our females, however, were treated kindly by the same gender. They were polite and just went with the flow of events. All 3 respondents had done the same reaction and just went with the flow.    

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?

When doing the experiment, our group was very embarrassed because we were scared of what people might think. We kept on saying, “I’m never going here ever again” or “I’m starting to regret this.” We thought that this breaching experiment will be ingrained into the minds of the respondents we will be doing it to and we will be thought of as “weird” or “abnormal”. It felt like we were losing our connection to the norms that we have followed since we were born, like we were going out into a completely new world. ( In SA, it might be going to another system. )However, after doing the activity, we laughed together from the various reactions of the respondents because though we expected some of their reactions, we never expected the other reactions.

When deviating from the norms, we felt a little nervous because we thought that we were not going with the flow of the system, making us more noticeable and making people stare at us weirdly since what we were doing something not perceived as normal by society. It was hard to do at first because we have been used to following certain norms and deviating from it feels like not being ourselves, because it’s kind of like a part of who we are. However, after going through the experiment multiple times, it made us feel somewhat satisfied and fulfilled because we found out that there are some patterns to the reactions we have gotten depending on several factors/themes.    

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

The reactions of the strangers will depend largely on several factors. From our breaching statement, there are about 3-4 factors. These are Gender, Age, Social Context, and perhaps even we researchers ourselves. Our facial expressions and possibly the researchers’ physical appearance may have affected the reactions of the respondents by making them think if we were serious or not.  Other people also may have noticed a pattern with what we were doing if we have been there for a very long time (e.g., going around the place, approaching people who were alone).

            

           The breaching experiments being conducted in several locations allowed the varying reactions among test subjects to become more obvious as a slight trend in the reactions among social classes was noticed. Most test subjects seemed to have had a hostile reaction towards the researches conducting the observation and some subjects having been skeptical, predicted  that it was an experiment or dare all along thus making the subject compromised.