Today we have an excerpt from a paper that I wrote for social psych on norm violation.

As another proof of the power of norms, and particularly other's reaction toward a norm violator, I performed a norm violation experiment. It is typically accepted that when working at a job, most people dress in appropriate attire. After some consideration, I decided that an interesting way to violate this norm would be to wear my pajamas to work. I work Tuesday nights from 8pm to 3am in Wolfe Hall as a security worker. Sitting at the security desk, I typically interact with a large number of freshmen, visitors, CAs, and fellow security workers. By wearing pajamas to work, I would be able to observe the reaction of a large and varied group of people. Most college students typically wear boxers, flannel pants, and a t-shirt as their pajamas, which they also wear as regular clothing in a dorm environment. In order to stand out as violating the norm, I had to wear pajamas that could not double as regular clothing. Fortunately, I have a set of green satin pajamas from Victoria's Secret that obviously violated the norm. On Tuesday, September 14, I sat for seven hours at the Wolfe security desk recording the reactions of residents, visitors, and coworkers.

As I walked across campus in my pajamas on my way to work, I noticed that the people walking in the opposite direction were staring at me, and I thought to myself, "I have to suffer with this for seven hours." Upon arriving at work, my coworkers were quick to question my attire, and I was equally quick in my response explaining that it was for a psychology project. Not long after my arrival, a large group of freshmen were leaving the dorm when one girl whispered to her friends, "She's wearing pajamas. Do you think she knows?" To this one of her friends loudly replied, "Well, yeah, I think she knows now." I just laughed and tried to prepare myself for more of the same. I quickly began to notice a pattern in the reactions that I was receiving and the way I was responding to the reactions. Although many people gave me odd looks and kept on walking, I still received a lot of comments, and what I found interesting was that all of the direct comments I received (with the exception of those from my coworkers) were from males. Very few females commented on my violation and when they did it was usually in a low voice to a friend. The men, however, had no problem walking right up to me and giving me a variety of interesting comments. The two most frequent comments were variations on "you look comfy" and "hey, cool pajamas." In response to such comments, I typically smiled and said thanks. It was to the more unusual comments that I found myself engaged in conversation, sometimes explaining the project, and other times allowing the person to just believe that I simply wanted to wear my pajamas to work. Listed are some examples of conversations I had:

• Nick, a resident who I had meet the previous week, saw me and said, "So, are you sleeping here tonight?" I replied, "No." He looked at me and said, "You're wearing your pajamas. They're cute." "Thanks, I know." At this point his friend turned around and said, "Stop hitting on the security workers."


• A visitor to the building was waiting to be signed in and commented, "I like your shirt." I said, "Thanks, it's actually pajamas." "Oh, really?" "Yeah, it's for a psychology project. A norm violation." "Uh, oh...norms, cool." (I am not sure that he understood what I was talking about.)


• A resident standing by the elevators said, "Psst, psssssst. Are you in your pajamas?" "Yeah, it is for a psychology project." "Yeah, right!"


• Another resident told me I had a cool shirt, and when I told him it was pajamas, he told me that if I were to wear the top with black pants, I could go out somewhere nice.


• When I tried to explain the project to a visitor, he did not appear to understand what I was talking about and informed me that he is currently taking Psych 101.


• A New Jersey police officer who was in the building said, "So, you are in your pajamas. They are from Victoria's Secret?" I replied yes and explained that it was for a norm violation project. The officer than told me that if I am going to violate the norm, I should really violate it, adding that Victoria's Secret had better things that I could wear, like fuzzy slippers...

Like Milgram and Sabini's students, I realized the power of social norms and how much they effect our day-to-day behaviors. Especially in the beginning, I found myself to be very quick to justify myself to the people making comments, but as the night wore on, I explained myself to fewer people (who were typically friends, my boss, and the police officer). As stated before, social norms help to keep society running smoothly and efficiently. I got first-hand proof of this fact. Being a norm violator, it was more difficult to do my job effectively. I found that I was at times more concerned about what others were thinking about me and spent more time explaining my actions than focusing on my job. Although when I next work, I will be conforming to the norm, I will still have to deal with the repercussions of the violation; I am positive that I will have at least several questions as to why I am no longer wearing my pajamas to work.

Social norms have a specific place in society and they serve a specific function. Not all social norms are necessarily good norms, there are social norms that are irrelevant or objectionable to today's society, but through the actions of norm violators, these norms are eventually changed or removed. From my norm violating experience, I would be inclined to suggest that conforming to social norms is a good idea. Obviously, if there is a norm that someone cannot internalize because he feels the norm is fundamentally wrong, then conforming would not be an option. There are two ways of avoiding conformity--nonconformity which involves simply not following the norm and anti-conformity which involves acting in opposition to norm. The difference between nonconformists and anti-conformists is very slight, but can be easily remembered that nonconformists simply do not believe in the norm and therefore do not follow it; anti-conformists, on the other hand, recognize the norm and are influenced by it to take the opposite action: nonconformists are not affected by the norm, anti-conformists are directly affected by the norm.