Making a Change One Person at a Time

1. Positive deviance is when you go against a social norm in a way that has positive results (especially for others). Diaz responds to the mugger with an act of positive deviance by offering both his jacket and later to go out for dinner after he was mugged. This is positive deviance because he responded the complete opposite of how most people would act to have a positive influence upon someone else.
2. When I was buying lunch one day, someone was trying to buy lunch but they didn't have money on their card to pay for it so they were going to put it back and not eat anything for lunch. Instead, I offered to pay for their lunch even though I did not know them. This is a positive act of deviance because most people are too frugal and selfish to pay for someone else's lunch if they weren't going to get payed back. Plus, it helped them out by being able to eat for lunch.
3. When I offered to pay, the student at first just stared at me in disbelief as if she was unsure of what I just said. Then she responded, "No that's ok" but I insisted. She gave me one more look and said, "Are you sure?" and after payed she said thank you. She seemed very grateful that I was paying even though it appeared she felt kind of bad. The cash register person didn't even make an acknowledgement to what was going on. I felt really good about myself afterwards because I knew how thankful she was and that I would be happy if someone did the same for me on the days I run out of money. This event has made me realize that just because something is a norm (everyone for themselves in this case) isn't always right and people should not be afraid to break these if it is in a positive fashion.