The experiment that I am conducting for this class involves what to most people would be considered social norms. You know things like cleaning up after yourself after you eat, not leaving pots on the stove and dishes on the living room table, and not leaving trash strewn about the place – things that to most people come second nature but to my roommates is almost impossible. What I am doing for this experiment is instead of just telling/asking them to clean up after themselves (a tactic that didn’t work at all), I’d model the way and lead by example by keeping the apartment clean. I was hoping that this behavior would inspire them to keep things cleaner themselves and that hopefully our apartment would become at least a little neater. I started this experiment on Saturday by cleaning the entire kitchen and the bathroom located in my room. In the following couple of days I vacuumed and picked up around the whole apartment and kept things as organized as anything had been since we had moved in. And the results so far? Pretty much as you would think, no one else has picked up on the habits of cleaning they are simply appreciative that someone finally has been cleaning. I think if I keep up this experiment in this manner than they will simply allow me to keep cleaning up after them and it wouldn’t be a very eventful experiment. Instead, I plan on modifying my experiment. My new plan is to let one of my more sympathetic roommates in on the experiment. I am going to try to convince one of my roommates to start cleaning around the apartment as well, and then we will see whether two people cleaning in an apartment of four is enough to make a difference. Hopefully with two of us leading by example the others will catch on and keep things clean as well. That would make this a truly successful experiment in correcting what should be social norms for my roommates but sadly are not.