Week 3, Post 2: Group Norms

2). What are the functions of norms in groups? Can you give a personal example not already discussed this week? Have you ever experienced a violation of a norm? Explain.

I'll start off by discussing my own violation of a group norm, when I was with my former employer. I worked at a grocery store for about seven months, and one of the norms there was for all employees to sign up for the union and to pay a fee for it. I was unaware that this norm was a requirement, and after telling my friends about the fee costing $350 they advised me to just not sign up. Well fast-forward seven months and my manager calls me into his office, informing me that a union representative called him and gave him a list of employees who weren't union members yet.

Harris mentions in the book, "When group norms are violated, the group will usually impose some type of social sanction or punishment" (p. 49).

My "punishment"? He laid me off on the spot.

The fuctions of norms in groups are to set allowed behaviors, rules etc in place, and to give group members a typical place where they usually meet or hang out. Most of the time, friends have a favorite place where they go to hang out and this place becomes the accepted designated destination. It could be a partilucar friend's house, a coffee shop, etc. It's usually based on the common interests of said group. If the group in question is, say, a book club then their accepted place might be Barnes and Noble Café. If it's a business group, it might be a particular place for lunch, or meeting in the conference room every Friday with the manager.

Group norms also say what is acceptable behavior within the group and what is not. Group norms usually get made after hanging out with each other for an extended period of time.

A personal example of a functional group norm would be with my group of friends and we all accepting that certain topics are not to be brought up with us due to disagreements in the past on said topics. A specific example would be regarding my best friend's ex-wife; due to everyone having different opinions on her and it causing arguments in the past, it's become a group norm of ours to not bring up the subject. "In every group, certain actions are approved of and others are frowned on" (Harris, 46). It's funny because after this norm became accepted whenever my best friend would mention her in anyway or just get off the phone with her, etc everyone would be silent and then one of us would change the topic.