Breaking Social Norms

Social norms are patterns of behavior that society accepts as normal and expects each individual to follow. 

 

These include rules for how we treat one another and respect  property ownership and personal space. For example, there are norms regarding how far away a person stands when talking face-to-face with someone else or how far away two people should stand when walking next to each other. There are expectations regarding eating one's own food on one's own plate, using one's own clothes, and showing respect in general for another person's property. 

 

There are also rules for how we conduct ourselves in society, to which everyone is expected to conform. For example, as people walk into an elevator or a public bus, they position themselves far away from others until it fills up. Then, there are rules governing how much space you can take up with your body and your belongings and how loud you can be when in such close proximity with other people. I decided to challenge this social norm. 

 

I got onto a C-1 bus in the early evening, sat down, put my headphones in, and proceeded to sing loudly at the top of my lungs. I observed a few things. First, the people closest to me consciously or unconsciously moved away from me either by relocating altogether or just shifting their posture. Next, there was silence on the bus while I was "performing." Everyone was staring at me and didn't seem to know what to say. Some had looks of amusement and confusion on their faces, like the bus driver, while others looked noticeably uncomfortable. When I was done, some people clapped, while others looked at me with disdain. 

 

These reactions make me wonder about how societal norms are encoded into our brains and what physiological and psychological reactions they trigger in response to someone breaking these societal rules. What are the emotions that people experience in a situation like this - surprise or disgust? Also, what are the physiological and psychological responses of someone attempting to break societal norms? I know that I experienced an increase in heart rate, sweaty palms, and a feeling of fear and dread right before hand. I'll be interested to read the literature on this particular topic.

Raging Hormones

Puberty. Teachers in elementary and middle school try to describe the changes that will occur in their students before they become adolescents. Writers describe the teenage angst that goes with developing or not developing in certain ways. Movies tell funny stories of the awkward romantic encounters that happen because of "raging hormones."     

According to the NIH, puberty is the process by which a child's body undergoes several physical changes as he or she matures into an adult capable of sexual reproduction. While these physical changes like growth spurts and the deepening of voices are noticeable, the rush in hormone levels can produce a lot of emotional changes as well. I remember being 12 years old and experiencing my own share of mood swings. However, I think the flux of changes I was experiencing in my own body and in those of students around me was paralleled by the changes being experienced by my teacher going through menopause.

Menopause. According to the NIH, this is a period when a woman undergoes many physical changes such that she is no longer able to become pregnant. Often such a change is accompanied by a rush of hormone levels as well. The most common symptom is the occurrence of hot flushes. I remember when my teacher in middle school would arrive dressed in a t-shirt and shorts in the middle of winter and have three fans blowing in her classroom all day. Students in class always made sure to have their homework done because she exhibited extreme mood swings. And, despite the turmoil of emotions and angst experienced by students, no one ever mentioned how cold it was in the classroom. 

What is an emotion?

Emotions. When I first hear the word, I immediately think of particular feelings that characterize a state of mind like joy, anger, love, hate, disgust, sadness, and surprise. These feelings vary on a spectrum of arousal and valence. Thus, my definition of emotion would be a particular mental state that is accompanied by a pattern of physiological responses. I know that this is an extremely broad definition for the word “emotion” but the truth is that emotions are complex. They can be triggered by any sensory stimulus and elicit any of a number of physiological responses before a person is consciously aware of what he or she is feeling. The smell of an apple pie can trigger feelings of joy as you remember your childhood. Or, looking at a vintage piece of clothing can trigger sadness about the death of an older relative. The physiological response for either of these scenarios could be the release of tears. Examination of this particular physiological response would not shed any light on what emotion someone is feeling. However, some self-concept and conscious awareness of what a person’s mental state is can help with identification. Emotions can be elicited by present events, memories, reflections, or event imaginative musings. They allow us to interact with our environment and the people around us. They help us affiliate and empathize and even protect us regulate ourselves. However, there is so much more that we still need to learn about them!

Music can be Addictive

Music has been around for thousands of years and can be found all around us. Many people love listening to music, an activity which is reinforced by the listener himself based on its aesthetic reward. Scientists have long believed that our aesthetic appreciation for our favorite music is caused by activation of the reward pathways in our brain. Valorie Salimpoor, Mitchel Benovoy, Kevin Larcher, Alain Dagher, and Robert J Zatorre, of McGill University in Montreal, conducted a study using the neurochemical specificity of PET and interestingly, the temporal resolution of fMRI. Through PET scanning combined with a psychophysiological measure of autonomic nervous system arousal (chills) humans experience at peak emotional arousal, they discovered endogenous dopamine release in the striatum and decided to investigate the time course of this particular release. An fMRI investigation of the same music listening behavior to pleasurable stimuli and neutral stimuli was conducted using the voxels examined from the PET study. The researchers found a much stronger BOLD signal in the nucleus accumbens during peak arousal, likely indicating the presence of an emotional euphoric feeling. In addition, increased BOLD response was noted right before peak arousal in the caudate. The researchers explain this as anticipation of a euphoric emotional state, or reward prediction, and suggest that the reason music has been around for so long is that we “crave” the emotional peaks we experience while listening to it. However, greater investigation must be done to learn about the causes for this anticipation. As someone who loves music and always has a song in my head, I am interested in learning much more about how humans learn to appreciate aesthetic rewards. 

To read the paper published regarding this study, please read here.

Mind Reading

If I could design a mind reading device, it would be one which would allow researchers to translate the electrical activity from a person’s brain recordings into his or her actual mental images in real time. This device would work somewhat like an EEG machine such that electrodes would be placed all over the scalp of the participant. Then, the machine would combine our knowledge of ERPs and electrical signals from areas allocated for visual processing to put together visual images of what is likely being imagined by the participant. The device seems like the next step beyond Dr. Philip Low’s iBrain (pictured to the left). The device is the first portable EEG headset which monitors brainwaves through a single channel and transmits them back wirelessly to a computer to aid communication and help with monitoring apnea and drug trials. (See here for article with more information.) While the device I hypothesized might seem unusual and difficult to create, it would have important implications for those studying night terrors and sleep disorders, PTSD, and disorders in which human beings find themselves paralyzed and only able to communicate by pointing to a screen.