Editing Breaching experiment (section)

== Harold Garfinkel and "making commonplace scenes visible" ==
Garfinkel suggests that each member of society uses "background expectancies" to interpret and decide how to act in a social situation. However, individuals are unable to explicitly describe what each of these expectancies, or rules, are. One way to help make background expectancies more visible is to be a "stranger to the life as usual character of everyday scenes". For instance, saying "hello" at the termination of a conversation. Although the term "breaching experiment" developed as a result of Garfinkel's approach, he warns it should not properly be called an [[experiment]], but more accurately, a demonstration meant to produce disorganized interaction in order to highlight how the structures of everyday activities are ordinarily created and maintained.{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p=36}}

Some examples of everyday scenes include the [[home]], [[school]], or [[workplace]]. One task Garfinkel assigned to his graduate students was to challenge everyday understandings by frequently asking for clarification during a normal [[conversation]] with a friend or family member.  Below is an example of an excerpt quoted in Garfinkel's text, Case 2 of ''Studies in Ethnomethodology'':{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|pp=41-43 }}

:{{dialogue
|S|Hi Ray. How is your girlfriend feeling?
|E|What do you mean, "How is she feeling?" Do you mean physical or mental?
|S|I mean how is she feeling? What's the matter with you?|mood3=He looked peeved
|E|Nothing.  Just explain a little clearer what do you mean?
|S|Skip it.  How are your Med School applications coming?
|E|What do you mean, "How are they?"
|S|You know what I mean!
|E|I really don't.
|S|What's the matter with you?  Are you sick?
}}

This is a breaching experiment in the form of [[Interpersonal communication|interpersonal conversation]]. The violation of the expectancy of shared verbal understanding between friends results in the subject expressing confusion and irritation. Garfinkel conducted other experiments—often using his students:

* Students were to return to their parental homes and observe their family as if each student was a [[wikt:lodger|lodger]]. Many students found this difficult as their distanced assessments of their family were discordant with their everyday beliefs (e.g., how often people argued). They were happy to return to what one student described as the "real me".{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 45}}
* Students were to do the same as above, but actually behave as if they were lodgers. The associated distance and politeness resulted in reports of "astonishment, bewilderment, shock, anxiety, embarrassment, and anger, and with charges by various family members that the student was mean, inconsiderate, selfish, nasty, or impolite".{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 47}}
* Students were to engage in conversation with others with the assumption that what the other person said was directed by hidden motives. Family members and friends were reported as having hurt feelings, and the two students who tried this with strangers were unable to complete the interaction.{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 51}}
* Students were to participate in an evaluation in which their assessments of others was contradicted by subsequent information revealed by other assessors. Subsequently, many students tried to reconcile their initial opinion with the information and assessment provided by others.{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 59}}
* They were asked to bargain for standard-priced merchandise in a store. Students felt anxiety in anticipation of the task and approaching the salesperson. However, this lessened once they began their interactions and were surprised by the possibility of succeeding.{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 69}}
* Subjects played tic-tac-toe where the experimenter asked the subject to make the first move, then erases that mark and moves it to another square before making the responding move. Subjects were confused by this and interpreted the action as a sexual pass, a comment on their own stupidity, or as the impudence of the experimenter. Eventually, most demanded a reckoning of this behavior.{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 71}}
* Subjects were asked to stand very, very close to a person while engaging in otherwise innocuous conversation.{{sfn|Garfinkel 1967|p= 72}}{{Vs|date=August 2024|reason=How would subjects be asked? Shouldn't it be experimenters that were asked to do it?}}

Garfinkel instructed his students to treat such everyday, implicit understandings as problematic phenomena to be studied. Breaching experiments reveal the resilience of social reality, since the subjects respond immediately to normalize the breach. They do so by rendering the situation understandable in familiar terms.  It is assumed that the way people handle these breaches reveals much about how they handle their everyday lives.<ref name="ethnomethodology1996" />