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University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, April 22, 1952
Students Find Out What Happens When They Break Conventions
What happens to a student when she wears colored anklets on the campus instead of the usual white socks? Nine girls in an Elements of Sociology class participated in an experiment to find out.
For a two-week period the students wore red, pink, chartreuse or yellow socks without giving anyone an explanation. Under instructions they also kept detailed logs of the reactions directed against them.
The plan had two purposes, one to demonstrate the difference between social conventions and more, and one to show the difference between formal and diffuse sanctions, according to E. Gordon Ericksen, professor of sociology, who is teaching the course and who initiated the experiment.
The log reports showed that the response to the colored socks on the campus was primarily unfavorable. The girls reported that many students expressed disapproval by bending forward in their chairs and staring at the colored socks. Men students frequently shouted, "Well, get a look at those socks!"
"All of these negative sanctions," Dr. Ericksen explained, "were of the diffuse type, the type where the individual expresses disapproval as a self-appointed agent of the KU anti-colored socks group."
anti-colored social wear. On one occasion only did the diffuse sanction become formal. A sorority official informed the "offender" that she was "out of line" and would not be initiated until she discarded the colored anklets. This notice was given by the standards chairman after several girls had been given informal prior warnings.
Some of the comments the girls received during the experimental period were:
"I think I'll turn you into the social criticism board. Boy, you're really going to get fined for wearing those."
"What will people think about our sorority?"
"You're unconventional. It's un- Kansan."
"Planning on going to a costume party soon?"
Magazine Offers Literary Prize
Prizes again will be awarded teenage fiction writers in Seventeen magazine's seventh annual Short Story Contest, which is opening earlier than usual this year. There will be five prizes; a first prize of $500, a second prize of $200 and three $100 third prizes. The contest closes July 30.
Winners will be announced in the December 1952 issue of Seventeen and their stories will appear in the January "It's All Yours" Issue next year. Stories not winning prizes will automatically be considered for publication in the magazine's monthly "It's All Yours" section at the usual rates. Rules condensed from the April issue of Seventeen:
1 Only original, unpublished manuscripts will be considered.
2 Length should be between
2,300 and 3,500 words.
3 The author must be between 13 and 19 years old (as of July 30, 1952) and must submit a notarized statement to this effect.
4 Contestants may submit more than one manuscript.
5 Stories will be judged by the editors of Seventeen on the basis of suitability for the magazine, as well as over-all literary merit.
Address all manuscripts to: Short Story contest, Seventeen magazine, 88 Madison ave., New York 22 N. Y.
Alpha Chi Omega Emeralds
Alpha Chi Omega recently entertained 25 children between the ages of five and nine in New York school with an Easter party. Favors for the children were Easter baskets and plastic bunnies. After refreshments three movies in a holiday spirit were shown.
Alpha Chi Omega Entertains
"What do you have red socks for? Are you trying to hit Vogue this season? Do you really like that? Oh, really!"
"Are you sick or something?"
Wine stains should be sponged from table linens with warm water and soap immediately the meal is over. This precaution will save scrubbing and bleaching later.
Most of the girls reported getting more stares and critical glances than remarks. One student said her two friends would walk ahead of her and wouldn't talk to her.
Dr. Ericksen said he believed the experiment was quite successful for class instruction purposes "since it demonstrated that violations of conventions invited only minor punishment."
"Indirectly," he added, "the experiment showed that it is not the effect of the sanction upon the person that is important, but rather the effects it has on the group, since it functions as a warning to members that they must not disobey the rules of the game. In this way, the sentiments of the group are kept intact."
One participant said she underwent an uncomfortable moment when she walked up to a group of friends at a bridge table who looked at her and did not speak to her.
Another student wrote in her log:
"When I left the dining room at noon, everyone watched me leave.
Then I heard a murmur over the whole room."
And in another log: "Why are you wearing colored socks?" someone asked me. 'Because I want to be different,' I replied. 'Well, you sure are different. In fact you are creating a spectacle,' she said."
While the experiment was not intended to change convention, Dr. Ericksen said that the class members insist they may have started something, "although each of them says they fully intend to comply with the prevailing convention."
The students who assisted Dr. Ericksen are all college sophomores. They are Virginia Barber, Jean Denman, Joyce Driver, Ann M. King, Haven Moore, Nancy Morebach, Shirley Piatt, Jo Wampler, and Anna Marie White.
YOUR EYES
should be examined today. Call for appointment. Any lens or prescription duplicated.
Lawrence Optical Co.
Phone 425 1025 Mass.
3 Graduates Receive Commissions In Navy
GREATEST BLOW ON EARTH
In the days when it took a real Composer to know a Grace Note from a seventh inverted minor chord, there was a Freshman named Orgatroid whose Aunt had told him the Piano was the Fast Track
to popularity on Campus and thereafter. He believed her and took lessons.
being tone Deaf, Orgy kicked the Dashboard out of the family Steinway over missing "Forest Echoes". In college, some other Student with the ivory touch was always making Orgy's Schubert sound like hydraulic Brakes. This frustrated our Boy, Next, he am a Brutenette. She was cold to Cacophony but a Set-up for Sonnets. He took to writing her Sequences, for which he had a gift. But she was getting Mail by the bushel. His vaniations were tossed out with the Bills.
OR- BUFFALO BILL'S SQUARE DEAL
D desperate, Orgy got. Then he saw a sign that said "Just Call Western Union". His next Sonnet hit the Brunette on a Yellow Blank that even She could scan. Her mother invited Orgy Home for a Meeting. Today he is a Foreman in his Mate's Father's Cold Rolled Mill.
Three University graduates were among 173 men receiving commissions in the naval reserve at the Navy's only officer candidate school in Newport, R. I.
From Matriculation to Old Age, there's Magic in a Telegram. For whipping a Sawbuck from the Skipper, grabbing a Deathless Date from the Jaws of the Basketball Captain, or beating a Business Rival to the Draw, a Telegram does any Job quicker and better.
They are Norman Lee Bell, who received his bachelor of science degree in 1952; Stanley M. Printz, who received his bachelor of arts degree in 1950, and R. Duff Ginter, who received his bachelor of science degree in 1948.
To keep dirt from marring your ironing board when not in use, try covering it with a washable plastic slip cover.
KU Graduate Receives Air Force Medal
Airman First Class Harlan J. Kilmer; son of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Joseph Kilmer, 3036 Michigan ave., Kansas City, Mo, has been awarded the American Spirit Honor medal as the outstanding member of his basic training class at Lackland Air Force base, San Antonio, Texas.
He won the medal for best displaying qualities of initiative, loyalty, honor and example to comrades. Presentation was made in ceremonies witnessed by his unit. Kilmer has been assigned to Aviatin Cadet training at Ellington AFB, Houston, Texas. Following graduation from Westport high school, he earned a bachelor of arts
degree at the University of Kansas in 1949. ___
Wigington Selected to Head Tau Beta Pi Fraternity
Ronald L. Wigington, engineering junior, has been elected president of Tau Beta Pi, honorary scholastic fraternity for engineers.
Other officers are Edwin L. Richardson, engineering junior, vice president; Lyle M. Jenkins, engineering junior, correspondent secretary; Edward C. House, engineering senior, treasurer, and Marvin A. Carter, engineering junior, cataloger.
Poor guy was submerged in a veritable sea of cigarette tests! He didn't know whether he should "blow"or just jettison the whole job! But he fathomed the matter when he suddenly realized that cigarette mildness can't be judged in one quick spout! Millions of smokers have found, too there's a thorough cigarette test!
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