Sociology Norm Essay

For our social norm breaking project, we chose to have one person sit behind a public toilet stall and then the individual proceeded to sing while pretending to use the bathroom. We believed this activity went against the unsaid public restroom etiquette our society has created. It goes without saying that it is most proper to be silent while using a public restroom with strangers. We believed that upon hearing a complete stranger belt out a tune in a restroom, most people would act uncomfortable and awkward. Our hypothesis was that the majority of the strangers would show obvious displays of discomfort upon hearing the singing. Our singing in the restroom was the variable for our project.

To do our project we had one person sit behind a stall and that person would sing while pretending to use the bathroom. Another person would be in the restroom as well, and would record the reactions of any people present in the restroom during the singing. We then repeated the activity until we recorded enough reactions. We then collected and organized the findings.   After that we came to the conclusion that the majority of people did not enjoy hearing a stranger sing in the restroom, many of them would make some type of face and comment to themselves. Our activity showed us that there is some type of learned bathroom etiquette that we all somehow agree upon. Singing in the restroom with strangers is not allowed.

Before we did our project I, , felt very nervous and apprehensive towards the idea of singing around strangers. I am personally uncomfortable singing in front of people to begun with, I do not like my voice, and I cannot sing very well. Knowing all these things, I felt even more uncomfortable singing. However, I agreed and reluctantly did the project because I knew this was just a project, and there will be plenty of other things I won’t want to do in my life, but I still have to. both felt uncomfortable with the public restroom singing, but not to the same...