In the Sociology Book Written by Thomas J. Sullivan
can be found in human-made material objects. They define this as a separate term called material culture.” In the Sociology book written by Thomas J. Sullivan it says the components of culture are beliefs and values, norms, and language. Social norms are a component of culture in the way that a norm is the socially expected way of behaving, speaking or acting when interacting with others in the same society. Running Head: Reactions to Breaking Social Norms
Components of Culture:
According to the Dictionary of Social Sciences culture is defined as “The shared knowledge, beliefs and values of members of society. While culture is made up of ideas, some sociologists also argue that it is not exclusively ideational but
Social Norms are different from language, beliefs, values, knowledge and material objects. Language is defined as “a written set of written or verbal symbols that people use in an agreed-upon way to communicate with one another” (Miller, 1963; Strauss, Denzin, & Lindesmith, 1999). “Beliefs are the conceptions people have about what is true in the world and values are peoples ideas about what is good or bad, right or wrong” (Sullivan, 2009). Norms are different from the other components in the way that they can change more easily than the others. Beliefs and values are usually deep-set into a person from childhood. Family, school and other institutions instill them into children throughout their lives and language is also taught to children when they are growing up. Since both are taught in childhood they are very hard to change or adapt later in life. Norms are not necessarily taught they are mostly observed and the the person changes to conform to what is thought to be normal, therefore norms could change Running Head: Reactions to Breaking Norms
easily if the person went to a different country, they might have to adapt their behavior to fit in with other people. Beliefs and values are also more personal than norms, since norms
are widely held written and unwritten social rules while beliefs and values can change from person to person. Norms are very large component of culture in society. There are different types of norms, such as mores, laws and folkways. Mores are norms that are associated with strong feelings of right and wrong, the violation of which usually results in sanctions. Laws are norms that have been formally codified by political authority, and a folkway is “a norm that is customary, popular, and widely performed, but not required.” (Sumner, 1906)
Our Norm Breaking:
The social norm we chose to break was the norm of not taking other peoples items when you are shopping. This is a pretty normal behavior in the United States and in other countries. Our group decided that we would select three individuals to be