A social norm is a rule that dictates how a person should act in a given group or society. Social norms can be as simple as shaking hands with someone when you meet them or stopping your car at a red light. Social norms can be understood as a group custom or habit. Most of the time they are subconscious — people do them without even realizing it.

The SMCHS Psychology classes completed a project that required students to break social norms and delve deeper into the behaviors of society.

Why should dancing in public be any weirder than saying “please” when asking for something?

With few rules, other than illegality, SMCHS students had a number of ways to break these social norms.

Seniors Christine Elqura and Amanda Marino chose an edible adventure.

Their location, the Mission Viejo Mall, is one of the most popular local malls. The seniors chose to explore their social norm on a Saturday afternoon, when the food court at the mall would be packed with people.

“The point was to experience firsthand and learn what social norms really are,” Marino said.

They decided to go about asking shoppers if they could try some of their food.

Clearly, some people reacted better than others. Trying someone else’s food is considered unsanitary and definitely a little strange.

“Going into the project I expected that people would say no to us when we asked them to try their food,” Marino said. “That’s how we both would have reacted if someone asked us. We were taken back by how welcoming people acted when we asked to try and most of them all said yes. It turned out to be very disgusting.”

Elqura and Marino hadn’t expected such a positive reaction from most people. This walked them into some pretty strange situations.

“I went up to these two girls and asked to try their food, they said yes,” Marino said. “I then had to eat the grossest tofu I have ever tasted and I had to pretend that I liked it. The girls were so weirded out and confused about why I asked them to try it.”

Seniors Jerod Magazine, Katie McLaughlin and Taylor Comroe had a different approach.

They chose the Irvine Spectrum, another one of the most popular local malls, as their destination. The Spectrum is a well-known outdoor mall that is almost always bustling with people.

The group wanted to go a little lighthearted. Their aim? To break social norms and make people laugh or break out of their shells.

“We did a dance at the Irvine Spectrum with just music in our ears so no one else could hear anything and see if it made people uncomfortable or laugh” Magazine said.

The group recounts this experience as a huge success. Magazine reveals that he would have reacted the same way and filmed this funny feat.

In the modern world, when something memorable happens, people take to social media to share it with the rest of the world. Naturally, when random people start dancing in front of shoppers, they take to their phone cameras to record the funny experience.

“While I was dancing, some kid yelled ‘FREAK’ and some mom who we didn’t know basically got into a verbal confrontation with the kid telling him he shouldn’t call someone a freak for just dancing,” Magazine said.

Who needs a flash mob when you can dance your heart out all on your own?

Seniors Kelsey Flaharty, Carrington Holman and Maggie Ghotbi chose to violate people’s private space while adding an extra bit of flare: falling in random places at random times.

“We thought it would generate a response from the public,” Flaharty said.

Just as so many other people, they chose a mall — a widely populated public place. The more people present, the more reactions could be gathered.

The groups recounts the only truly challenging aspect of the project was recording it without being noticed.

Keeping the camera secret was key to getting an honest reaction from witnesses. If Flaharty, Holman and Ghotbi had been on the other side of the experiment, they would have reacted similarly to their spectators.

“I would have either laughed or felt uncomfortable at the invasion of personal space,” Flaharty said. “But if I saw someone falling in random places, I probably would have tried to help them.”

A project like this exploits some pretty strange tests, and Holman got creative with some of her experiments.

“I hid behind toilet paper in Target and when I saw a person walk by I jumped out of it and said ‘Yes! It worked, what year is it?!”’ Holman said.

How would you have reacted to someone falling down randomly in a store like Target or Claire’s?

Seniors Danielle Field and Taylor Nen aalso decided to dance in public, but with their headphones on. When dancing got mundane for Field, she ended up pretending to be in her own concert.

“Towards the end I got bored and started wailing the national anthem in the middle of the Target checkout lines,” Field said. “But that just got us kicked out.”

The success of the project was hard to determine, people didn’t react in the way Field and Nen expected them to.

“In a way it was successful but we didn’t get the reactions we were hoping to get,” Field said. “Most people disregarded us and pretended we weren’t even there which seemed very odd if you ask me.”

With a variety of different reactions, it’s no wonder why singing and dancing randomly isn’t accepted as the “normal” of society. Most people see these random performances as unusual and embarrassing.

Field and Nen felt the same way. Had they been the ones watching the situation unfold, they said they would have found themselves laughing at the uncomfortable singing and dancing performances.

It’s safe to say that social norms have been broken — even battered, bruised and injured — by psychology students.