There is no disputing that while we are out and about we must walk through many doorways. Whether we are at work, school, the mall, a supermarket, a restaurant or the post office we have all been in the position where nearing the entrance to a building can have an effect on our day. When a person sacrifices a few precious seconds out of their busy schedule to reach back and hold the door open it has the tendency to induce a smile. But can it muster up a couple of words? It is one of the first phrases we learn as children, yet sometimes it seems that not enough of us have mastered it. An underestimated expression that when used can change your opinion of an individual. Two words make up this simple and straightforward saying: thank you. While the majority of people we come in contact with acknowledge the holding of a door as an act of kindness, a lot of people strut through as if it’s part of a job description. An analysis of the behaviors of average people entering and exiting through a door being held open for them will reveal who uses the expression of gratitude more often: males or females. Since saying thank you usually comes natural to people, the outcome will most likely be equal among males and females. Method Random people were observed over a four day span. The four day span consisted of two weekdays (Friday and Monday) and two weekend days (Saturday and Sunday). The observations were made for one hour per day (11:00am – 12:00pm) at the main entrance of the Galleria at Crystal Run in Middletown, New York. As people entered and exited the mall the door was held for individuals at random. If the person walked through the door, they were counted and their reaction recorded. Results On Friday November 1, 2013 be... ... middle of paper ... ...both males and females use the expression “thank you” after a door is held open for them equally. While the numbers are very close, according to this analysis more females use this term than males. While the purpose of this experiment was to see which sex used the phrase more often, it was also able to show that more people say it in general. This fact in itself is comforting Difficulties While performing this experiment a few difficulties were encountered. While holding the door for one person, other people tend to go through at the same time. Instead of these people saying it themselves they adopt the thank you that the person in front of them said. This could potentially botch the outcome of the results. Also, observing an equal amount of males and females probably would have produced a more accurate result.
Gratitude is a gift that the earth urgently needs. Consistent gratitude is a form of recognition of the gift and the giver. Daily gratitude can help eliminate the need for more and practicing more of only what we need. Gratitude leads to a society of contentment rather than one that's always in need of more. We human individuals have conventions for appreciation; we apply them formally to each other. We say thank you. “We understand that receiving a gift
When measuring the entrance lines to the two parks we collected data on people in groups of five. When measuring in terms of time we started the clock when the first person began the entrance process and stopped it when the fifth person in that same line made it through the gate. We made note of the group’s total time and the amount of males, females, and children (measured by the same criteria as above). We chose to record entrance times in terms of five person groups ...
Zastrow, C. H., & Krist-Ashman, K. K. (2013). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment (9 ed.). Belmont:
In a field experiment, a woman (who was actu-ally part of the experiment) stood by her car on the side of a road. The car had a flat tire. To determine if modeling would affect the helping behavior of passing motorists, on some trials another woman with a flat tire was helped by a stopped motorist (all part of the staged event) about a quarter-mile before the place where the woman waited for help. As expected, motorists were more likely to stop and help if they had just witnessed another person helping (Bryan & Test, 1967).
On March 13, 1964 a woman by the name of Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was coming back to her apartment in Queens, New York at 3:00 a.m. when she was impaled to death by a serial killer. According to the news, the said attack was about 30 minutes long. During the attack, Kitty Genovese screamed for help numerous times. The killer left the scene when the attention of a neighbor was attracted. Ten minutes later, the killer returned to the scene and murdered Genovese. It came to attention that 38 people witnessed the attack and murder, but all thirty-eight failed to report it until after the murder. This ordeal got the attention of many people including scientists and psychologists who wanted to figure out why this occurred. Later, the events that were published by the news were found to be false. It seemed as if the news was experiencing the bystander effect as well, because their information did not contribute to the actual facts. There were not 38 witnesses to the crime, but several had heard the screams and a few calls were made to the police during the attack. But there was still talk about something that affected the minds of people during emergency situations. This phenomenon has become known as the Bystander Effect. There were several cases that are fairly similar to the Genovese one. As well as the Genovese case, these occurrences attracted the attention of many scientists and even the news had something to say about “apathy.” Is the bystander effect real? My hypothesis is that the bystander effect is in fact, a real everyday occurrence that limits the help offered by people. This is due to the number of bystander present during a given situation. The Bystander Effect is the social psychological idea that refers to cases in whi...
My breaching experiment involved three social norms. These social norms force people to be in an uncomfortable situation and make a decision as to how they should react to it. The first social norm I experimented with was sitting next to someone in an uncrowded movie theater. I chose this because of the awkwardness it caused. At all three of my trials, occurring from 1-9 pm, there were over fifty empty seats at Carmike on February 21st.
Darley and Latané conducted several experiments to achieve a goal to explain the psychology behind the bystander effect. The several dozen experiments conducted within 12 years ended with similar results. The experiments involved placing a participant either alone or with other participants and then staging an emergency scenario. Both Darley and Latané took note of the time it took the participants to respond to the emergency situation, and whether or not they took intervention measures. A frequent outcome of all the experiments was the presence of other participants prevented the participants from helping. In one experiment by Darley and Latané, subjects were positioned in three different treatment conditions. Which entailed being alone in the room, being with two other participants, and with two confederates acting as if to be normal participants. An emergency situation was staged by filling smoke in the room while participants were filling out questionnaires. The participants who were alone in the room, 75 percent reported the smoke. On the other hand, only 38 percent of participants in the room with two other individuals reported the emergency. In the case of the final group, the two confederates took notice of the smoke but ignored it, causing only 10 percent of the participants reporting the emergency (Darley
The life of Edgar Allan Poe, was stuffed with tragedies that all affected his art. From the very start of his writing career, he adored writing poems for the ladies in his life. When he reached adulthood and came to the realization of how harsh life could be, his writing grew to be darker and more disturbing, possibly as a result of his intense experimenting with opium and alcohol. His stories continue to be some of the most frightening stories ever composed, because of this, some have considered this to be the reason behind these themes. Many historians and literature enthusiasts have presumed his volatile love life as the source while others have credited it to his substance abuse. The influence of his one-of-a-kind writing is more than likely a combination of both theories; but the main factor is the death of many of his loved ones and the abuse which he endured. This, not surprisingly, darkened his perspective considerably.
The term of “bystander effect” was coined to explain the lack of action in an emergency situation when more people are nearby. Psychologists had tried to explain the absurd phenomena for years. Finally, in an eventful lunch, American psychologists Darley and Latane discussed to show and explain why such an event occurred. They designed an experiment where participants were asked to sit down in individual cubicles and could communicate with other subjects over an intercom system. There was actually only one real participant in the study; the other participants were pre-recorded voices, including one person that had a seizure. The researchers manipulated the...
I was the only participant in the experiment. The experiment involved me walking down a street and dropping a bundle of papers. I would then go about collecting the papers while observing if any of the people around me would offer help. The experiments were structured to take place in two particular times of day. I would walk down the street early in the morning, when it was more likely that only a single person would be walking down the street. This would allow me to observe if a solitary person would offer help. I also picked the early afternoons to walk down the street and drop the papers. This would allow me to observe whether people within the crowd would offer help, or the bystander effect would dominate the situation.
Bibb Latané and John Darley, two psychologists, studied the bystander effect during their experimentation after the murder of Kitty Genovese. The Bystander Effect refers to the effect that bystanders have during the intervention of an emergency. Latané and Darley used a series of experiments to look at different aspects of the bystander effect; The series of experiments included smoke, a lady in distress, hand in the till, stolen beer, “children don’t fight like that,” and fit to be tried (Latané & Darley, 1970). Latané and Darley asked, “What is the underlying force in mankind toward altruism?” and “what determines in a particular situation whether one person will help another?” Their hypothesis was that “the number of other people present
Throughout the course of history there has been a vast amount of work on different aspects of helping behavior. Helping behavior can be defined as assisting an individual when they are in need of aid. A social psychologist may define helping as a function of the particular, momentary situation the bystander may find themselves in (Amoto, 1990). Helping behavior is considered a key aspect in social behavior. When considering helping behavior, gender is also an important variable that may have an influence on helping. In American society there is a well-known difference in the distinction in gender roles. Women are expected to care for the personal and emotional needs of others, and to deliver routine forms of personal service (Eagly & Crowley, 1986). Men can be expected to be more aggressive and show less emotion than women, but also expected to preform courteous duties. Society has a great impact on male and female gender differences, and could impact the response in helping behavior. According to a previous study done by Latene and Dabbs (1975), the results stated that men were more likely to give help, and women were more likely to receive help. The results from the study indicated that there is in fact a relationship between sex and helping behavior. The social customary of helping behavior may determine the response in helping behavior. Also, when considering gender as a primary effect on helping behavior, cell phone use has also been correlated with this relationship.
Frye describes how a male opening a door for a female is a form of oppression. When a male opens a door for a female, the door represents the idea of “helpfulness,” but it does not show that (Frye 12). Opening a door for a woman shows that woman does not know how to open the door. The males tend to show that they are able and willing to help a woman. However, this causes women to expect the “prince charming,” but men only “make a fuss about being helpful and providing small services when help and services are of little or no use” (Frye 13). The small gestures of help only prove to men that they can provide for women, but they are not helpful enough for women. Men want to show that they are nice, charming, and always there to help the women.
“Where there’s a helpful smile in every aisle” is a true motto at Hy-Vee. I have learned to greet customers with a smile and address them when they come through my line.The greeting opens up the opportunity for further conversation and gives the customer the feeling that they are cared about. I try to talk about their day, if they found everything they needed and if not, offer assistance.Through
On September 12, 2014, I observed two people; Person A and Person B. The observation took place at Applebee’s, a local restaurant, beginning at 7:21 p.m. and ending observation at 8:06 p.m. I was serving their table for the evening, enabling myself to observe them closely. The restaurant had died down from the dinner rush, leaving them one of three tables in the smoking section, normally filled with eight. Along with the outside light fading, the lighting indoors was dim, making the dining experience feel more quiet and intimate. The background noise was filled with a light roar of other group’s conversations, and a jazz station played quietly from the speakers overhead.