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breaching_experiment [2014/08/08 23:21] – [The myth of Goffman's elevator] Ryan Schram (admin)breaching_experiment [2021/06/29 02:31] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 Also, we can see a difference between the Asch experiments parodied in Candid Camera and Garfinkel's breaching experiments. Instead of the group pressuring the aberrant individual, for Goffman and Garfinkel, many social situations involve a delicate dance in which everyone carefully interacts in ways that do not touch upon the sense that other people have of fitting in. They all avoid personal space, eye contact, and even asking for clarification or evidence for another person's personal truth. When these are violated, intentionally or not, people become anxious and worried that the other person will lose face, and that they will appear insensitive, too.  Also, we can see a difference between the Asch experiments parodied in Candid Camera and Garfinkel's breaching experiments. Instead of the group pressuring the aberrant individual, for Goffman and Garfinkel, many social situations involve a delicate dance in which everyone carefully interacts in ways that do not touch upon the sense that other people have of fitting in. They all avoid personal space, eye contact, and even asking for clarification or evidence for another person's personal truth. When these are violated, intentionally or not, people become anxious and worried that the other person will lose face, and that they will appear insensitive, too. 
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 +## Breaching experiments as class assignments
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 +Psych may teach students about conformity, but anthropologists and sociologists both know that social life is a world of symbols, and if you go "off script" then you are bound to get a reaction! Here's a YouTube video from a sociology student's class project from 2011 (at what appears to be one of the last remaining suburban shopping malls in the United States). 
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 +https://youtu.be/nre8T_kBFao?t=76
  
 ===== References ===== ===== References =====
  
 Goffman, Erving. 2009 [1971]. Relations in Public. New York: Transaction Publishers. Goffman, Erving. 2009 [1971]. Relations in Public. New York: Transaction Publishers.
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 +Rawls, Anne. 2002. Editor's Introduction. In Ethnomethodology’s Program: Working Out Durkheim’s Aphorism, by Harold Garfinkel with Anne Rawls. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.
  
 Weber, Bruce. 2011. “Harold Garfinkel, a Common-Sense Sociologist, Dies at 93.” The New York Times, May 3, sec. U.S. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/04garfinkel.html. Weber, Bruce. 2011. “Harold Garfinkel, a Common-Sense Sociologist, Dies at 93.” The New York Times, May 3, sec. U.S. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/04garfinkel.html.
  
breaching_experiment.1407565302.txt.gz · Last modified: 2014/08/08 23:21 by Ryan Schram (admin)