Sociology
Professor Haney
Alex Strunk
8 April, 2018
Social Interaction Observation
While observing the interactions of others; I learned more about myself and my own preconceived judgements than I did about anyone else. The McFarland Student Union (MSU) is a social hive of constant engagement. It can be shown that all varieties of people go there to study, hangout, and eat. The Starbucks is the most popular asset to the MSU. I chose to observe my surroundings there because, even as campus life dies down, the MSU is lively up until they close. Throughout my observations, I noticed repeated cases of stereotyping (of my own fault), breaking gender roles, breaking social norms, prejudice (of my own fault), and rebellion. Society is comprised of a positive and negative system of stereotyping, norms, gender roles, prejudice, and rebellion that underlies in any social interaction. I believe that through this experiment I will see that the vast majority of the studied people will conform to similar behaviors, while there will be the occasional outlier that doesn’t comply with the system.
“Stereotyping is an exaggerated generalization about an entire category of people that is thought to apply to everyone in that category.” (Ritzer G10). Stereotyping is an unavoidable habit as all people make assumptions about one another using prior knowledge. The biggest example of stereotyping comes from my own assumptions of those around me. Every person that I wrote about, I labeled. From “skater boy” to “hippy man.” “Hippy man” had walked into the MSU looking like he just returned from a five month hiking trip across the coastal united states. He wore holey clothes that looked worn beyond their time, and a bandana snug across his forehead, as well as an accented chain dangling from his belt loop. Most of this assumption was made based off his shoulder length hair and overgrown beard. What screams “hippy” more than a raggedy man with a bandana and unkempt hair, right? The “skater boy” walked into the lobby with a kind of swagger that seemed like he didn’t care about anyone or anything. He held a skateboard in his left hand, and he was dressed in ripped jeans, a backwards hat, a designer sweatshirt and converse sneakers which caused me to make the assumption that he was a typical “skater boy.” Stereotyping isn’t the right way to judge people because, for example, the man I deemed “hippy man” could have just as likely been a very successful business man having a rough day, and the only way to truly know someone is to talk to them.
“Slowly, society has been making a slight transition away from stereotyping. Unfortunately it is a difficult process, especially since we rely on second-hand sources for our information for the majority of our knowledge. The main outlet of second-hand information is the mass media. As a result of depending largely on the second-hand source of mass media, mass media in turn plays a major role in determining the content of our culture. Stereotyping is a product of culture, therefore, mass media have a strong influence in supporting and tearing down stereotypical characteristics.” (Chandler).
I believe stereotyping is the biggest reason that people don’t get along, because if you didn’t assume poorly of someone from the start, there’d be no reason for racism or homophobia or gender any sort of blunt hatred.
Gender roles play a part in society by classifying certain clothing, accessories, gestures, or activities into male or female dominant. According to George Ritzer, author of Introduction to Sociology, gender roles are defined as the social presentation of gender, that includes clothing, hairstyle, attitudinal and behavioral traits. A couple stood in line at the Starbucks in MSU, and it can be assumed that they were a couple due to their social cues, such as; holding hands, their arms around one another, and their bubbly chemistry. In American culture, the normative approach to chivalry is that of a man spoiling a woman. It was uncommon, practically unheard of, for a woman to pay for a man’s food a hundred years ago. Today, it’s considered a revolutionary act of feminism if a woman pays for man’s food. It’s still not the most common or accepted thing, which is why it falls under the breaking of gender roles. That was exactly the case for this couple. The woman ordered herself a tea and then gestured for her partner to order (to which he also ordered tea), which she then paid for after pulling her card from her wallet. It was endearing seeing a woman pay for a date without the man trying to defend his masculinity by offering to pay. Doctor Sedar Yener, a Sinop University professor, studied the stress of feminine social conduct within the constraints of breaking gender roles.
“When individual doesn’t act or behave according to the determined gender perceptions then he/she experiences social dilemma and it results in gender role stress according to the expectancy states theory (Berger et al., 1972:243, Berger et al., 1977:48). Expectations of others at home and work are related to gender roles and individuals are expected to perform different roles according to their gender (Williams, 1995:88).” (Yener).
Yener states that woman can be mistreated or looked down upon based on them participating in an action that is considered masculine or the “man’s job.” Breaking gender roles goes hand in hand with breaking norms, as gender roles are on the same conceptual level as norms.
Each society follows an unsaid set of expectations that define their culture called norms, though norms are often broken. “Norms are informal rules that guide what the members of a culture do in given situations and how they live.” (Ritzer G7). Within the first half hour of my study, a girl walked in and sat directly beside me at the counter. It made me slightly uncomfortable because the entire lobby was practically empty, and there were plenty of open seats all around. The normative behavior would be to sit, at the very least, a seat away from someone, but not directly beside them. This has happened to me before, and it tends to be slightly discomforting each time. Another case in which someone broke away from standardized norms would be the person I labeled, “Hacker.” This was a man who appeared to be in his mid 20’s who sat in the back of the lobby with a hat, hood, sunglasses and laptop. While this would be a good example of stereotyping, I would like to focus on the aspect of his sunglasses. A mental alarm went off in my head as soon as he walked in simply because he was wearing sunglasses indoors on a cloudy day. It wasn’t as if he’d even sat by a window, and this just prompted the “sketchy hacker” label further. Prevailing norms are the matrix of social interaction as individuals who share common normative beliefs tend to relate on this note (Social Influence). Differing norms can also lead to extreme biases passed down from generation to generation, known as prejudice.
Prejudice is another sociological term that was brought on by my own thoughts throughout the experiment. Prejudice is defined as negative attitudes, beliefs, and feelings toward minorities. (Ritzer G8). This part of the study is shameful, to say the least, but I believe it’s a key example of prejudice. I believe it doesn’t matter whether you meant it or not, but that you thought it at all because that proves that it’s imbedded somewhere in your mind. An man with a backpack walked into the lobby, and I thought nothing of it, but when I saw his face and realized he was Arab; the thought “terrorist” crossed my mind. Clearly, this man was just a typical student sporting a backpack filled with books and what not, but with all the recent news, it just comes to mind. Aside from this, I also saw a white man with overgrown hair and a tired look in his eyes sit in the corner of the room. He had headphones in, and it crossed my mind that he could be the next school shooter. Simply based on a backpack and the ethnicity of these students I formed a generalization that was horribly untrue, but unavoidably thought.
“While the existence of terrorism is not new, the current phenomenon is new for several reasons. Terrorism today is characterised by mass casualty attacks with no distinction drawn between combatants and noncombatants, caused by any means available. Additionally, it seems to allow little, if any, room for negotiation. Arguably the most important aspect to modern terrorism is the emergence of transnational actors. These groups, like Al Qaeda, make it virtually impossible to use the past analytical frames of reference, making it difficult to understand and even more difficult to defend against.” (Evans).
Terrorism was massively inflated by the government crises response in recent terrorist attacks. The government plastered “terrorism” as the headline for every speech, news article, etc. This repetition of hateful attitude tends to rub off on scared individuals who don’t know how to process the attacks, and from this society starts to have this imbedded prejudice against people of Iranian/ Arab descent. It may not be harmful, but it is enough to disrupt a peaceful mind, and it is a bias that should not exist, as are most.
Rebellion can be as simple as throwing a piece of paper into the trash can despite the presence of a recycling bin to starting a full blown riot. As defined by Ritzer, a rebel is an individual who rejects both traditional means and goals and instead substitutes non-traditional goals and means to achieving those goals. This can be seen when observing the Starbucks workers themselves. During the hustle and bustle times of the day; the workers keep to themselves and work diligently, but as the customers started to dwindle; so did their work ethic. The workers began leaning against the counters and ranting about their personal problems. I heard segments of their conversation that included things like “Yo” and “Hell naw!” and “I smoke a lotta weed!” One even began making herself a frappuccino. While making a frappuccino may be allowed, I’m pretty sure the Starbucks work policy is not marijuana friendly. Max Weber stated the theory of generational rebellion in which each oncoming generation rebels against some of the norms from the past generation. This is seen in the up and coming marijuana legalization debate, which makes it almost socially acceptable to talk about it in the workplace.
Throughout this experiment, I learned a lot about my personal sociological state, as well as that of those around me. It was very interesting to truly think about the social phenomena that takes place around me at any given time. When categorizing the behaviors into stereotyping, norms, gender roles, prejudice, and rebellion, I began to realize that every action has an underlying sociological explanation. Overall, I still agree that the majority of the people studied stuck to stereotypical behaviors while a few outliers, which I chose to focus on soley, saw things from another perspective.