Observation
Field Log
7:00 am: wake up; interact with the spouse; drink the coffee he made for me; look through the news feed, see political scandals and crime; leave comments under the two most shocking posts; charge my phone.
Nuclear family, romantic relationships, marriage, social networks, civic participation, social deviance
7:45 am: do morning exercises together with the husband; wash up and brush the teeth; dress.
Social norms, health, self-expression, gender roles, impression management
8:30 am: meet the friend who asked me to help two or three days ago; discuss his problem; identify the area of action; observe good owners walking their pets and sellers of street food; notice an abandoned, hypothetically homeless dog near the bus stop.
Social norms, poverty, negligence, roles, interactions, impression management, socialization
9:15 am: shop for the missing food products, fill in a short questionnaire on the quality of service at the store, return home, cook and eat an omelet for breakfast.
Roles, gender roles, impression management, social norms
10:00 am: begin to work; become acquainted with the tasks; search for relevant information; think; make decisions; stay in contact with the supervisor to avoid missing essential points.
Institutions, social norms, roles, keeping family, information flow, brain activity, interactions
2:00 pm – 2:40 pm: have a break; have lunch; visit the Facebook community related to my hobby; look through the recent posts, save one or two to examine later; interact with the other users; have a short dialogue with my mother, who always worries and this time is willing to ensure my diet is balanced; decide not to admit it could be better.
Social networks, interactions, socialization, social norms, extended family
6:00 pm: meet the spouse, who returns from work, interact with him, and have dinner together.
Nuclear family, marriage, gender roles, interactions
6:45 pm: walk to maintain the level of activity in accordance with the physician’s recommendations; watch nature, listen to my favorite music, contact a friend who lives in a different city, and share the latest news.
Healthy lifestyle, roles, esthetic pleasure, interactions, social norms, friendship
8:00 pm: cook simple meals for the next day; put the dishes into the dishwasher.
Gender roles, domestic life
8:40 pm: read a short article in German, and note a few new words.
9:00 pm: watch a cartoon with the husband while knitting a skirt for myself; eat two apples for supper.
Nuclear family, education, hobby, creativity, self-improvement, interactions
10:40 pm: wash up, brush the teeth, go to bed.
Application
Social Norms
The above field log describes the ordinary day of the female who has a family, a job, hobbies, and educational goals, from which career ambitions emerge. Therefore, I seek to allocate my resources in a way that would allow for the maximally appropriate integration of all of those, which presupposes activity in several spheres in parallel. The latter nuance, in turn, adds to the significance of the role social norms play in my life since the amount as well as a variety of my social contacts increases inevitably.
Thus, during a walk, social norms involve neatness, and proper behavior that does not cause any inconvenience for the surrounding people and other. Furthermore, helping friends is actually possible to see as a norm; those who refuse to do that are considered deviant automatically, regardless of the reason. While shopping, the essential norm-based requirement is to wait in line without trying to avoid that, for instance, by force; regarding online communication, no forms of hate speech and no fakes are socially acceptable. Even domestic life rests partly on social norms, such as cleanness and fresh breath, which hygiene procedures like brushing the teeth target.
Macro-Level and Micro-Level Analysis
It is quite apparent that norms influence both the lives of particular individuals and the performance of the entire society, as the latter actually consists of the former. A norm exists in case the community members practice certain behavior, believing that others do that as well or expecting a compliment from those whose opinion is important to them (UNICEF, 2021). Therefore, at the macro level, social norms make the vast majority of the population act similarly in specific situations and contexts. Hence, unwritten but commonly known and strongly prescribed patterns appear that eventually become integral to the culture. The micro level, meanwhile, stands for the need of a certain individual to adjust his or her everyday behavior to those recommendations so that society recognizes him or her as normal.
Concept Analysis
As the day the field log describes is quite busy, various concepts are applicable to it. One of the main among them is socialization , which is important for both individuals and society, particularly in the context of norms. Thus, Ward et al. (2019) highlight that communication not only simplifies transmitting the rules and principles of a certain community to the next generations but also enables people to put themselves into perspective. In other words, a person acquires a chance to see how the other perceives him or her; this, in turn, determines the areas where corrections are necessary if such exist.
The concept of family , whose essential role is apparent from the log, comprises two subconcepts in the given case, notably, nuclear and extended . The former is worth mentioning among the key determinants of the routine due to the need to coordinate all of the everyday actions with the partner’s lifestyle, day regimen, and demands. The extended family, meanwhile, connects the micro group, whose nuclear equivalent is, to the society, an essential agent of socialization. It is noteworthy that families may have inner traditions, such as usual communication styles; however, those should not prevail over social norms in extrafamilial contexts. If they do, the probability that society will accept the person depends inversely on the degree of the contradiction.
Interactions and impression management are also essential points, which, in fact, are closely intertwined since public opinion on an individual determines his or her social success. In sociological terms, this fact makes people develop so-called images that reflect the ways they would like others to see them (Grebelsky‐Lichtman et al., 2020). Simply stated, the need to interact with society makes its members highlight their strengths and camouflage their weaknesses to reach a higher degree of acceptance. In my case, I monitor the stylishness of my clothes and do not inform my extended family on certain issues I am facing to make my image more favorable.
Reflection
As apparent from the analysis of my everyday life, I interact with society via a range of channels in parallel, playing several roles. Thus, within my nuclear family, I am a spouse, while the members of the extended position me as their child, grandchild, cousin, and other. The ways I interact with each circle, consequently, are dissimilar as well, primarily due to the difference between my feelings in these cases. Notably, my husband perceives me as an adult, helping me realize my responsibility and make important decisions. In the opinion of my parents as well as more distant relatives, on the contrary, I am still too young to be self-sufficient, which can be quite disappointing and, furthermore, affects my self-esteem.
Outside the family, my roles change depending on the context, but their common peculiarity, excluding interactions with friends, is that hardly anybody considers me unique, while my relatives do. Notably, I am one of the numerous walkers in the street and the only other buyer for shop staff; even in social networks, I perform identically to millions of other users. The interaction, therefore, occurs differently as well; my motives in such situations are practical rather than attachment-based. This means that the purpose of such communication comes down to completing tasks or resolving issues, unlike family scenes, where I derive pleasure from contacting dear people.
Notwithstanding the dissimilar nature of the cases, both can show how the other affects me and I affect them. The former manifests itself in the desire to make a maximally positive impression, which, for instance, encourages me to dress decently prior to leaving my home or disguise my problems and failures from my relatives. Regarding the inverse direction, my needs and opinions of mine, both as a close person and as a customer, may be essential, which may make others consider those when shaping their behavior.