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30 People Share “Social Customs” That Are Outdated, Toxic And Should Be Retired
In some areas, the world can change very fast but in others, it can lag behind. It sounds cliché, I know, but it's true.
Whether we're talking about the Western World or any other place, each society has its own problems and shortcomings. Discussing these delicate subjects isn't easy, either. Emotions can heat up such arguments very fast.
But it looks like Twitter user @ewgraiam found a way to get people together for a civilized chat: they asked nicely and offered a microphone. Turns out, it was all they needed to talk in peace about all the cultural things that could be changed to make the world a better place.
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According to one study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, people tend to copy other people's choices, even when they know that those people did not make their choices freely, and when the decision does not reflect their own actual preferences. That's how powerful social norms can be.
Imagine you have witnessed a man rob a bank but then he gives the stolen money to an orphanage. Do you call the police or leave the robber be, so the orphanage can keep the money?
Researchers posed this moral dilemma to 150 participants recruited online in their first experiment. But before people made their choice, the researchers also presented information about how similar participants in a previous experiment had imagined acting during this scenario.
Tipping is Ok as long as it represents your appreciation for how will the server did. It should not be your mandatory contribution to the income of a worker because their boss can't be arsed to pay them a decent wage.
"Half of our participants were told that most other people had imagined reporting the robber. The remaining half were told that most other people had imagined not calling the police," Campbell Pryor and Piers Howe, the co-authors of the study, said.
"Crucially, however, we made it clear to our participants that these norms did not reflect people's preferences. Instead, the norm was said to have occurred due to some faulty code in the experiment that randomly allocated the previous participants to imagining reporting or not reporting the robber."
However, the participants followed the social norms of the previous people, even though they knew they were entirely arbitrary and did not reflect anyone's actual choices.
I remember as a child my mother whipping me until I was covered in big red welts all over my arms and legs because she was told by a neighbour that I was in a house that was being built with some other kids and we made a big mess. I screamed at that it wasn't me and that I was at another friend's house all afternoon but she wouldn't listen. After she had finished with me I ran out to my friends house and asked her mother to tell my mother that I was with them. She did. She explained that the girl the neighbour saw was the back of another girl who had the same hair as me long and brown and was around the same age. All my mother said was "oh, well that's alright then". She never apologised or said anything else. I was in real pain for days afterwards. But she really didn't care. day
"A series of subsequent experiments, involving 631 new participants recruited online, showed that this result was robust. It held over different participants and different moral dilemmas. It was not caused by our participants not understanding that the norm was entirely arbitrary," the researchers explained.
Whether or not this is a good thing largely depends on the situation. For instance, social norms are being used to encourage pro-social behavior and have been successfully used to promote healthy eating, increase attendance at doctor appointments, reduce tax evasion, increase towel reuse at hotels, decrease long-term energy use, and increase organ donor registrations.
Boys will be boys is meant to be a light-hearted acceptance of boys immediately getting mud all over their new trousers, and stuff like that. Anyone who uses it to excuse boys inappropriate behaviour is an idiot.
The customer is rarely right and is usually an idiot. I told all my staff the moment I became manager "you are not paid to take abuse, refer them to me and i'll kick them out, i'm a salaried manager and I'M paid to deal with that nonsense, not you".
If it's Gods will for kids to suffer and die of starvation, cancer etc then God is a f*****g Sadist. I HATE it when people say s**t like that, heard it many times after an ectopic pregnancy.
studied psychology & behavioral science in college so learned many 'disciplines' in those fields. while i am not a fan of freud, one thing he did write that i totally agree with is this: "the greatest injustice we do to our children is not to teach them the power of sex". just because a parent(s) are uncomfortable talking about sex doesn't mean that their children don't need to know about it at a fairly early age. this would not only protect them but also make them understand that they need to respect their body as well as others and to prepare them to be responsible when it comes to sex. stop teaching people to be ashamed of the what is a biological act and calling it something dirty.
I actually like the idea of school uniforms. All schools in Australia have their own uniforms and we almost never hear about the incidences mentioned above. We mainly hear about private schools and the fact many of them require girls to wear skirts, NO pants. That should definitely change.
I have always taught my children to respect their elders, BUT I have also taught my children that just because they are an elder doesn't make them right. You can disagree with them but be respectful in your manner and words and if they get upset, scream at you or say derogatory things you are well within your rights to walk away.
My husband's former boss would not hire anyone with facial tattoos or piercings (hair he didn't care about so much.) His reasoning was that some of his senior citizen customers might feel uncomfortable around them. I could see that...but at the same time...just because they got those done doesn't make them bad people or workers. I can understand it being unnerving.
Netherlands: "Working 38 hours per week is too stressful and leaves us with almost no free time. We're switching to 30 hours per week."
My mother once chewed out my oldest brother for not giving our Grandmother a hug and kiss. She was dying from a rare blood cancer and was down to 90 lbs. It's scary for a 9 year old to see that and no one ever sat down with him to explain what was going on with her. He reluctantly gave her a hug and kiss and ran out of the room. It made my Grandmother cry. I don't think he ever got over the guilt of how she cried. I told him several times that it was not his fault.
Actually...most of the commercials I see have people sacked out and sleeping.
I was super impressed by my husband's aunt when her teenage son discussed politics with her. She disagreed with him, but ever so respectfully. She calmly and firmly gave her rebuttals. My parents would have pretty much told me to shut up and that I don't know what I'm talking about.
I'd got harassed and yelled at until I "agreed" with my mother. Or so she thought. I kept my own opinions to myself just to shut her up. However once I was an adult she heard my opinions and I made it clear I expected her to respect them.
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There are limits to this. It’s the parents job to show children the limit to expressing their opinions and thoughts without being disrespectful. It’s about teaching appropriate communication in the appropriate settings
I do this with my son all the time. He asks a question, I try to explain. He will rebuttal, I listen and then give my opinion on the matter. We usually come to an agreement on certain aspects and let the other stuff go as a "you have your right to your opinion."
Sometimes a person not deeply involved in something is able to see through all the fluff, get down to the basics, and zero right in to what’s wrong. And sometimes that person is very young, even a child.
The whole notion of "backtalk" is twisted. Children learn by example; if you perceive what they tell you as backtalk, you are speaking to them in the wrong way already. Of course there are situations where "a no is a no" but even toddlers usually possess quite a bit of reason if you take the time to respect them in their full individuality. We are raising people, not automatons!
Raising a submissive child will backfire, and it could very likely be horrific. Perhaps not for the parents, but the child's future spouse, children, coworkers, neighbors,...
I encouraged my kids to challenge me if they felt I had somehow messed up, but they had to have a well thought out case, and that simply disagreeing was okay (No - you're still doing the dishes because I said so). As I explained to them: I'm a human being, not a robot and I do make mistakes. As long as they voiced their opinions/concerns in a respectful manner and used a pleasant tone, I was willing to listen &/or negotiate better terms - curfews was the biggest one. They knew that I was always available & open to discussion. As a parent, I think allowing your child to be heard is one of the greatest gifts your can give them.
I get hissed at all the time for “back talk.” I tried to point out a reason why my sister should wipe the tub clear of shampoo when she is done, and it was actually pretty important. My grandpa doesn’t really have good balance and could slip and fall in there and he was coming in a few weeks. Instead of accepting this, my mom snapped at me in a very Kareny tone with “YOU’RE NOT IN THE COVERSATION, YOU ARE NOT THE MOM.!!!” I also come home from school and she asks me what I learned. I say whatever it is that I learned, and she often says in a not pleasant and kind of put downy tone, “I doubt that. That’s not what I learned in school” I say that she’s was in school 30 years ago and times have changed she calls me for back talk, which is basically an adults way of telling a child that they don’t want to admit that they are wrong. She claims that “friending” someone on nitro type gives them a way into our internet, posing danger to our devices, which is completely BS.
A teacher in primary school gave our whole class a punishment exercise for not paying attention during something. We had to write this paragraph out 3 times. I noticed she had misspelled a word. i checked in my dictionary, then put my hand up to tell her (i felt that it was bad for a bunch of kids to copy it out multiple times, maybe learn the wrong spelling). she was NOT happy with me. She corrected it on the board, but also yelled at me for pulling her up.
I have very mixed views on this. Nowadays, in certain cultures, children are not just allowed but expected to air their view. Unfortunately, if they end up wanting to dominate every conversation, you have raised a very anti_social child. The kind of disagreement which is distressing is when a child is convinced that they are right and you know (for sure cos you Googled it) that they are wrong. The 'I know better than you because I have been on this planet much longer' isn't really helpful. Validating a child's feelingsis is mandatory in a parent.
my parents are like this. they will get mad at me for something that they weren't in the room for and something that i'm not the porblem in, or something that isn't even a conflict. but stop disrespecting me i know better than you even though i wasn't in the room or involved
You are still the parent. No matter the validity of their point, you are still in control.
Not just narcissistic, but authoritarian. They think they should *always* get their way just because they're in a position of authority. This can teach kids to be horrible bosses when they grow up, and horrible parents too, of course.
Not only parents, but older siblings. There's nothing for a child to gain when his / her older brother or sister continually calls him/her an idiot for merely asking a question about something he/she has not yet encountered.
I hate retorical questions! If you don't want to know why I chose to do something, then don't ask "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?". That sentance should be reserved for when you truely want to investigate what happened, so you can react apropriatly and avoid it repeating in the future. Instead it has become synomonous with "YOU ARE AN IDIOT!", which is not a constructive aproach to take when something goes of the rails. When you get an answer, then for some odd reason, you get even angrier with the person trying to show you his reasoning, because the right answer to the question is apearently silence, whith no one getting any wiser.
If you want your children to become masters in hiding their feelings and thoughts to you, you should definitely keep telling them that they are just rude and talking back and that's why they are grounded.
And who decided that hugging another man is considered cheating on your boyfriend. I hug my friends because I care about them...not because I want to sleep with them.
There's a flip side to this, where you end up with 27 year olds still living at home with mommy doing their laundry, not because rent is too expensive, but because their parents have enabled them to feel like they are their little angel forever. At 18 you should be able to *want* to move out without feeling like you *need* to move out, and know you are able to function in society while knowing you have support for the things you don't know yet.
maybe they are old and don't know what they are talking about but you can still be respectful in your manner and words and you have every right to walk away as well. I just get angry when I see someone screaming in the face of an elderly person. Also they grew up in a different time, many say things that they don't understand could be considered rude or racist. I had a conversation with a much older man and he called a certain Asian group a term I considered derogatory. I stopped him and said that word isn't acceptable anymore and you should not use that, please use this instead. He stopped and said well that's what we called them and I said I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate being called that and if you want to continue this conversation you can't use that word again. He kept talking and then stopped and said what word am I supposed to use again? He tried! If he had said the inappropriate word again I would've just walked away.
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Women should be able to be calmly straightforward about things without being labeled a bitch. We shouldn't have to go into sweetie pie mode to make a request or point out something that is wrong.
Wow, BP didn’t censor a cuss word!
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This happened today where I work: my boss (a man) was about to take my new coworker (a girl) to a meeting with clients at their place, and told her to be prepared to be harassed by the the guys that work there, but not to take it seriously. I can't believe I heard that... W T F???
I know that lots of countries have some of these issues but it does feel like this should really be called 30 outdated American customs. I don't think that that most of these problems exist in a lot of countries.
Having babies until you get the sex you want. Know people who had 11 kids to get their son, parentifed the older girls, so they could keep cranking out babies, then they wonder why their daughters don't talk to them. Well duh. None of them had penises so you decided none of them were good enough for you. Why the f**k should they talk to you? Acknowledge you?
There are some fabulous suggestions here. Question is, how the heck do we make them happen?
I disagree with the tipping one, Giving a waiter/waitress a few dollars is not the end of the world. If you can afford to eat out in the first place then you can afford to tip at least a few bucks.
These are social attitudes, more than customs. A social custom is something like men insisting on opening doors for women because they are women or women assuming that men will pay for a date.
My parents have never forced me to eat what I didn't want. They were forced to and vowed when they had kids they never would.
When someone has a legitimate problem, either emotionally or physically, and rather than wanting to discuss it, the person they tell starts talking about the bible.
Marriage as a sign of love. Love/trust/dedication does not require a legally binding contract, the only purpose of which is the threat/deterrent of divorce. Love (plus all the good stuff like trust) exists emotionally between people. Marriage only ever existed as a method of control and oppression. Now people somehow try and romanticise it.
Plus guaranteeing support. Check out the wedding vows. For peope with faith, the holding of the wedding is what counts, it means they are swearing before God and that is very important to them.
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Or finding it hard to show common courtesy/basic decency.
Load More Replies... Women should be able to be calmly straightforward about things without being labeled a bitch. We shouldn't have to go into sweetie pie mode to make a request or point out something that is wrong.
Wow, BP didn’t censor a cuss word!
Load More Replies... This happened today where I work: my boss (a man) was about to take my new coworker (a girl) to a meeting with clients at their place, and told her to be prepared to be harassed by the the guys that work there, but not to take it seriously. I can't believe I heard that... W T F???
I know that lots of countries have some of these issues but it does feel like this should really be called 30 outdated American customs. I don't think that that most of these problems exist in a lot of countries.
Having babies until you get the sex you want. Know people who had 11 kids to get their son, parentifed the older girls, so they could keep cranking out babies, then they wonder why their daughters don't talk to them. Well duh. None of them had penises so you decided none of them were good enough for you. Why the f**k should they talk to you? Acknowledge you?
There are some fabulous suggestions here. Question is, how the heck do we make them happen?
I disagree with the tipping one, Giving a waiter/waitress a few dollars is not the end of the world. If you can afford to eat out in the first place then you can afford to tip at least a few bucks.
These are social attitudes, more than customs. A social custom is something like men insisting on opening doors for women because they are women or women assuming that men will pay for a date.
My parents have never forced me to eat what I didn't want. They were forced to and vowed when they had kids they never would.
When someone has a legitimate problem, either emotionally or physically, and rather than wanting to discuss it, the person they tell starts talking about the bible.
Marriage as a sign of love. Love/trust/dedication does not require a legally binding contract, the only purpose of which is the threat/deterrent of divorce. Love (plus all the good stuff like trust) exists emotionally between people. Marriage only ever existed as a method of control and oppression. Now people somehow try and romanticise it.
Plus guaranteeing support. Check out the wedding vows. For peope with faith, the holding of the wedding is what counts, it means they are swearing before God and that is very important to them.
Load More Replies... Or finding it hard to show common courtesy/basic decency.
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