Social Codes And First Meetings

What’s It All About?

Every social interaction is guided by specific ‘codes’ that both guide behaviour and are shaped by the behaviour itself. These codes dictate what should generally occur when an individual is faced with a certain situation to ensure a reasonable level of social cohesion and order is maintained. Typically the codes are not written, and sometimes not actually verbalised, but emerge at some point in time and become accepted. In this week’s reading, “Telling the Code”, Wieder explores the example of the implementation of a set of social codes in the setting of prisons, half way houses and rehabilitation facilities. In this setting, individuals create rules of conduct, that are often unspoken, that are recognised and enforced by those belonging to the group of criminals, their rehabilitated counterparts and interestingly, the staff who work at the institution in which they live.

I felt as though Wieder may have been able to communicate the general gist of the example in fewer pages. Although the example is quite interesting, I found it got a little boring and repetitive at times. I also think that perhaps the inclusion of examples other than the ‘convict code’ may have made the concept of social codes easier to understand and apply to everyday life.

Example Time!

This week is was a little more difficult to come up with an example relating to social codes. However, I was able to identify the manner in which social codes are utilised when two individuals meet for the first time.

Often people, upon meeting for the first time, use some kind of salutation such as ‘hello’ and then proceed to introduce themself with simple and generally public information, such as their name and profession. Upon first meeting it is generally not socially acceptable to divulge information that is more personal or sensitive in nature, such as sexual orientation and sometimes age. Similarly, the proximity to which each person stands and the level of physical contact that they can engage in are normally socially understood. There are no written rules regarding how to behave in this manner, but everyone goes about behaving like this anyway because the unwritten, and sometimes unspoken social codes suggest we should. If the social codes are broken when two people meet, or the two people have been raised with different social codes, the situation tends to get a little awkward and no one really knows what to do other than to attempt to ‘save face’.

Yep, it happens, and it sure is awkward when it does.