Recently I laughed in church. It took me two attempts to do so before I could successfully break down my inner inhibitions regarding this particular, very public breach of a social norm. Indeed, when I finally accomplished it, my intent at the time was not to laugh but to commit a somewhat milder faux pas--namely, to express religious emotion in a way that would be appropriate in many churches, though not in the one I was attending at the time. Once I had succeed (against my intent) in laughing, I was as embarrassed as I have been in my life, and have not yet worked up the courage to call the minister and explain that it was all done in the name of gaining insight into the nature of social conventions and interactions.
Perhaps it is better that I not do so. It could well be argued that it would be a further violation of a social norm to admit to a minister that I used his church and congregation as laboratory for this particular experiement. As it is, I fervently hope that I do not confront, in the near future, any social occasion (e.g., a friend's wedding) that might require me to go back to the church in question.
In discussing this experiment and its outcome, I will first sketch in the circumstances that led me to choose this particular social norm as the one to be violated, then the difficulties I encountered in carrying out my transgression, and finally the reactions it evoked from those around me and from myself. In conclusion, I will discuss some of the reasons for and implications of this particular norm, and the effects of violating it.
Laughing in church is perhaps as strong and characteristic an example as we can imagine of a behavior that is not criminal or grossly disorderly, but is also entirely inappropriate according to our social conventions. It is far more dramatic (as I can now attest) than, say, facing toward the back of an elevator. Anyone who was raised as a churchgoer, as I was, must at some ti...