Standing in line is a pain. At the post office. At the box office. At a restaurant. But on Black Friday, it’s an experience.

The first spot outside some Best Buy stores is usually claimed weeks before Black Friday, often by a person in a tent. Shoppers at Walmart will print out maps of the store, with circles around their primary targets. Someone, somewhere, will try to cut in line at a Target, arousing the anger of the people who played it fair.

At risk are both bargains and bragging rights, turning what would otherwise be a miserable experience into an adventure.

“These queues are quite different than the usual annoying ones we encounter day to day at the A.T.M. or in the subway,”said Richard Larson, a professor at M.I.T. who has spent years studying line behavior.

Professor Larson, whose nickname in academic circles is Dr. Queue, said he would never wait in a line on Black Friday himself. The lines, he said, are“once a year, they’re exciting. They’re the kind you might tell your grandchildren about.”

Lines test patience, personal space and principles of fairness and rationality, especially on Black Friday, when the crowds can be overwhelming. Still, the promise of a once-a-year score draws shoppers to queues that start before sunrise—or in some cases, the night before.

J. Jeffrey Inman, a veteran of Black Friday lines and president of the Society for Consumer Psychology, said that many families treat the hours long experience as a bonding ritual and a cherished tradition.

“It’s not something unimportant,”said Mr. Inman, who is also a professor of marketing at the University of Pittsburgh.“And there’s this layer of competition to it, with people edging forward, because there are only so many of those big screen TVs inside the door.”

People may actually gravitate toward longer lines, so they can feel a greater sense of accomplishment once they finally make a purchase. Professor Larson said,“Even if they don’t know what the line is for, they reason that whatever’s at the end of it must be fantastically valuable.”

In many countries, authority is seldom questioned, either because it is highly respected, or because it is feared. Because rank has been important in certain societies for a long time, people have been trained never to question those in authority. For example, children are not expected to question their teachers in school. It may be considered improper for young businessmen to suggest ideas that differ from those of older, more experienced members of the business.

In other countries, including America, children are trained to question and search for answers. When a child asks a question, he will often be told to go to the library and find the answer for himself. By the time students reach the age of 14 or 15, they may be developing exciting new ideas in all fields of science and arts. To encourage such creativity, there are many national prizes offered to students every year for their scientific discoveries and artistic accomplishments.

This interest in questioning and searching may be considered by some people as bad for young people’s manners, that young people lack respect for authority. This impression may be created when visitors notice young Americans asking questions and arguing with older people. However, this is because many Americans have a different attitude toward authority than may exist in other areas of the world. In a work or business situation, ideas are freely and openly discussed and argued. It is important to remember that it is the person’s ideas that are being questioned, not the individual himself. The two are quite separate. The purpose of the searching, questioning, and arguing is to find the facts in a particular situation, and therefore a solution, so that the work of the business can progress in the most effective manner possible.

As was mentioned earlier, you may notice the same questioning in social conversations. Although some individual may think that Americans are rude because of the direct manner with people, they are merely trying to learn more about your ideas.