Informal Sanctions Research Paper

Informal Sanctions In Social Environments
Personal Reflection Upon reading the chapter, I was struck by the section on informal sanctions. According to our textbook, informal sanctions are described as “spontaneous, unofficial expressions of approval not backed by the force of law or official policy” (Ferrante, 2014, p. 185). Informal sanctions help to shape our daily lives, even down to our each interaction. Since reading this chapter, I noticed that informal sanctions affect my friend groups and the social networks in my life. People that do not think like me or people that do not like the things I do, I apply informal sanctions to those people. I apply these by avoiding these people, not talking them, or not sitting at their lunch table. Without even realizing it, I was applying …show more content…
Everyday at lunch, most people sit at the same table with the same group of friends. Nobody is willing to move to other tables with new groups of people, because they are afraid of losing their positions they deemed advantageous. While these informal sanctions are performed by everybody in the lunchroom, I will now do my best to break these informal sanctions I apply on other people. I will allow any person to join me at my lunch table and I do will do my best to expand my friend groups, including those who think and act differently than me. This will help to break the informal sanctions my friends and I apply to other people, without even knowing. Breaking these informal sanctions will hopefully allow to create a larger and more diverse group of friends and classmates. This could have major benefits. According to the AMP Global Youth website, diversity “not only will [...] enhance your social development, but you will also increase your understanding of the world” (O’Boyle, 2015, para.5). Retracting these informal sanctions will help me to live a better and more productive