What is your reaction when people stare or look at you in elevator? People normally avoid facing

All behavior was observed in such a manner that the individuals did not know they were being watched. All observation was also done in public so as not to violate the individuals' privacy. The specific variables that were used as a measure of implied interest/attention in conversation, were frequencies of smiling, and eye contact throughout the course of the conversation. All variables were measured by estimation, in terms of relatively frequent, moderate, or low.

The social norm that I decided to break was involved with human interaction. I chose to break the norm of eye contact when speaking to others. The purpose of this norm is to show engagement to another individual when communicating to them. The focus of maintaining eye contact is to show that you are paying attention to them and actually listening to them, it demonstrates to the speaker or listener that you are taking them seriously and are engaged with them. It can also be taken as a show of respect, a notable example of this is the classic line of “Look at me when I am talking to you.”. By not maintaining eye contact when someone is speaking to you it shows them that you do not care for what they have to say and they interpret that as disrespect.

Humans have several ways of communicating with one another, whether that is written, spoken, facial expressions, or through body language. We use all of these forms all the time, it would be impossible to live a day without speaking, writing or reading, making facial expressions, or using any body language to communicate with others. While all these forms of communication are commonly known, another form, not as intuitively obvious, is silence. Like all forms of communication, silence will change with reference to different cultures. Just as different cultures speak differently or have different languages, and have different body languages, cultures also have different meanings behind silence. Native American cultures have been described as reluctant to speak or lacking in personal warmth simply because their culture views silence differently than most Americans. Apaches use silence for situations of uncertainty and unpredictability, Americans prefer that silence does not happen at all but will accept it for situations of comfort or in some cases when they want to avoid small talk with strangers. These difference in the use of silences are simply due to the cultural differences between Apaches and Americans. As Apaches’ use of silence reflects their cultural values of recognition and respect, Americans use, or lack of use, of silence reflects their cultural values of directness and urgency.

There are many theories on the bystander effect, with most involving the story of Kitty Genovese. Her ‘friend’ and neighbor,

In the first situation, my friend and I in the food court, found that people would notice us staring right away. I noticed that when two people were staring people tended to take it more personally and think there was something wrong with their appearance. A lot of females would run to the restroom to check their makeup or hair. The sanctions received from most males were not as intense. Most men would become very uncomfortable, look at us confused, shake their head and then eventually continued on with what they were doing. Naturally the longer we stared at any individual the worse their reaction became.

I decided to go to Panda Express at 5:30 pm for my observations, while there I was able to observe just how much people rely on nonverbal communications to get their point across. Although I witnessed several encounters of unique body language, there were also a few actions that reoccurred several times in several different people. For example, when a customer would approach the counter where employee served the food, the employee would raise her eyebrows and smile at the customer. The employee’s smile, however, did not reach her eyes suggesting that while it is her job to smile and be welcoming to the customer, she most likely did not want to be at work. Additionally, I noticed that when customers approached the counter about 90 percent of them had their arms crossed. The act of crossing ones arms usually means that a person is trying to put a barrier between them and a situation that they either don’t like, or are uncomfortable with. This may mean that the customers were displeased with having to wait in line to get their food, on the other hand it may be that they were simply comfortable folding their arms. Once they reached the front of the line, every customer pointed to the food they wanted along with verbally telling the employee. This made their communication more effective as it helped to overcome the barrier of sound because the restaurant was noisy.

As stated earlier, this experiment completely proved my hypothesis wrong. Many of the people that rode the elevator with me stared at me as though there were something wrong with me. Most were uncomfortable and fidgety and kept looking over their shoulder at me as they rode forward, and me, backwards. More than a few asked if I was alright and even asked my friend, who was acting as if he did not know me, knew what was was wrong. I even conducted a few controlled experiments where I rode the elevator forward to see if people would react to me then, but not a single person outside of the experiment even acknowledged my existence. I would have thought that in a place like L.A. County, people would be too busy to notice others, or people would have been raised to mind their own business and keep to themselves, but apparently abiding my social standards and making sure that others do as well is a higher priority.

In society people are expected to follow many unwritten rules that are thought to be the “norm”. When one decides to break one of societies unwritten rules it puts not only the rule breaker but everyone around in positions where they are forced out of their comfort zones and must adjust to the abnormal. For this assignment the task was to choose multiple norms to break in front of various audiences then analyze the experience both as the norm breaker and reactions of the unknowing audience. This paper will discuss breaking of an interpersonal behavior norm by standing too close to others while browsing various stores in a mall. Also a social etiquette norm will be evaluated by choosing to sit on the floor at a food service establishment to

There are eight key forms of nonverbal communications used on a daily basis. These forms can affect the way people view another person; however, without understanding the forms of nonverbal communication there is certain to be a lot of misinterpretations. Cultural and language differences are a common reason for miscommunication. When communicating with people in different cultures, a person should be extremely aware of the hand gestures and nonverbal communication tools they are using. Many of the hand gestures used in the United States that mean good things, mean offensive and profane things to other cultures. Nonverbal communication is described as body language, hand gestures, and facial expressions. It is known that people reveal more information through nonverbal communication, than words alone to get a point across. There will always be some interaction between two or more people that everyone’s

My experiment consisted of me asking strangers, on the streets of Downtown Grand Rapids, for directions to Rosa Park’s Circle, and invading their personal space. To start, I would approach a stranger; tell them that I am lost, and that I am in need of directions to the Rosa Park’s Circle. As strangers began giving directions to me, I inched closer and closer to them. In addition to invading their personal space, I also held intense eye contact with them, trying my best not to blink. The whole time, although it was difficult, I kept a straight face while I performed my experiment. To make sure that I gathered enough information, and a variety of results, I tested my

The purpose of this question was to encourage the group to think about how they feel when someone is rude or ignores them opposed to how they feel when someone gives them full attention and how attitudes can be ‘contagious’.

This area includes behaviors such as observing facial characteristics, embracing, touching, or whispering. In situations where this space is invaded, such as in an elevator, people usually don’t make eye contact with other, much rather stare at a wall or a ceiling to avoid the awkwardness, or the invasion of the intimate space.

The bystander effect is both a social and psychological phenomenon in which an individual’s inclination towards showing helping behaviours are minimised by the influence of other people. Research has found that the more people acting as bystanders in a situation, the less likely it is that helping behaviours will be demonstrated. However in the correct conditions, where conditioned cues increase self-awareness, it is possible to reverse the bystander effect phenomenon. The bystander effect is prevalent in everyday life, and often decorates the news, shocking the world, especially when authority figures such as police men and women succumb to the effect. Diffusion of responsibility, ignorance of others interpretation of an event and self-consciousness are all social processes which appear to lead to social inhibition of helping behaviours and one of the main theories of the bystander effect is provided Latané and Darley (1970) whose cognitive model provides a series of decisions that can lead to social inhibition. The bystander effect is influenced by the conditions an individual is in when an event occurs, for example the bystander effect appears to be most dominant when an individual is in a group of strangers with low group cohesiveness. FINISH

The geographical area of China is more than 9 million square kilometers and as a result, it is the fourth largest country in the world. There are several ethnic groups in China, the Han Chinese is the largest group, and it is found in almost all parts of the country. Other minority groups include Tibetan, Zhuang, Korean, and Mongol. The Chinese society is high context and non-verbal. The Chinese people acquire the knowledge of what they are supposed to do and say even if they are not told through conversation. Voice and facial expressions play a critical role in determining the feelings in a person. They do not have facial expressions when in a conversation. Direct eye contact is avoided because it is viewed as a symbol of disrespect (Clair & Norris, 2011).

“Systematic research on the role of nonverbal behavior in social interaction has been common only in the past 20 to 25 years.”(Edinger and Patterson, 1983, p. 30).because that statement was published in 1983, it is apparent that the study of nonverbal behavior has been around for roughly 50 to 55 years. However, that is still a relatively recent amount of time compared to research in other science fields such as chemistry or biology. Despite the fact that this field is relatively recent there are many theories about our interaction with others. This paper will discuss the nonverbal expectancy theory along with two other theories, and describe how these theories can work together.