51 Breaching experiments

The idea of a breaching experiment was developed by Erving Garfinkel as a way to show his students how they had socialised certain norms about their behaviour without realising it.
Garfinkel wanted to show that these behaviours weren’t neutral and could, in some situations, actually be very dangerous and harmful.
But how would we know what our normalised behaviours were? How could we uncover them and think about them when they’re so natural to us?

So, a breaching experiment takes the most mundane and normalised social interaction and makes it strange; it deliberately messes with it so that you and everyone else realise just how taken-for-granted your socially acceptable, ‘normal’ behaviour is.
It’s perfectly possible that, armed with that awareness, you might decide that the behaviour is fine and carry on as before.
But maybe, like Charlotte Riley and her Patriarchy Chicken example, you might realise that you’ve internalised some social norms that are bad for you and bad for those around you.
And, armed with that knowledge, you might decide to make a change.

So, here are some examples of breaching experiments you might try.
There are no standardised experiments here, just ways people have invented to shake up the mundane and everyday.

Keep in mind that a breaching experiment is, by definition, awkward. If it’s not a bit awkward for you and the other people involved, it’s probably not revealing enough about what’s been taken-for-granted.
So there’s a bit of bravery involved in doing this. Don’t try this unless you’re confident in your position.

Some breaching experiments to try

1. Taking things literally – Listen to what a person is saying to you, and rather than inferring their meaning from what they’ve said, interpret it literally. In other words, if they say “The pain is in my left leg”, you might ask whether it’s actually “in” their leg, like the femur. Or if they say “hi” to you, look up as if they were saying “high”. Of course, they’ll think you’re a bit strange for doing it, but the point is to watch for their reaction and see how reliant you both are on some hidden shared meaning that’s often just assumed.
2. Behaving badly (version 1) – In a meeting – ideally one that’s quite important – behave in a way that’s a bit odd: hum softly; stand up and stretch at random moments; talk just a little too loudly or too softly for people to really hear. Again, the idea is to jolt people out of assuming there is one standard way of doing things. (There’s a subtle version of this going on all the time with people looking at their phones now during meetings. But for it to be a breaching experiment it should go much further than this.)
3. Behaving badly (version 2) – As with all breaching experiments, a big part of the act is to see what kind of reaction your experiments provoke. One of the best experiments Garfinkel got his students to do was to go to a fancy restaurant and eat with their hands. Just the sight of someone shovelling food into their mouths with their hands is enough to make some people complain, or even walk out. But what does that say about people’s attitudes towards the majority of the world’s population for whom eating with their fingers is the norm?