You must be able to observe the people in line unobtrusively so as not to

You must be able to observe the people in line

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so that new people are always coming up and replenishing the line. You must be able to observe the people in line unobtrusively, so as not to affect their behavior. You will observe the distance that people stand from each other. Use something with a consistent pattern that you can measure in order to gauge the distance, such as evenly spaced floor tiles. After finding your observation spot, you will observe at least FORTY pairs of people standing in line. For each person you observe (the actor—the person joining the line) you will record both category memberships (for the two social categories you chose). So, is the person who is joining the line male or female and young or old. You will also need to record both category memberships of the target person (the person already standing in line in front of the actor—again, is that person young or old, and male or female, assuming those are the category memberships you selected). Finally, observe how far the actor is standing from the target person in front of them . Don’t round too much because rounding sacrifices precision. Observe each person at the same point in the line, such as when the actor is the third person (using people as both actor and target is fine). Avoid using people who are obviously together. Record your observations in a table like this: Observation # Actor Target Distance (tiles) Inches 1 Younger Male Older Female 2.5 tiles 60 20 Older Female Younger Female 2 tiles 48 30 Younger Female Younger Female 1.5 tiles 36 Results You will examine your data in two ways: First, you will see if people stand closer or farther away from those of similar group memberships compared to dissimilar group memberships. Group your data into four groups based on the similarity of target and actor. One is a highly similar group, where target and actor share both categories. You will have two groups of moderately similar persons, one similar on Category A but not B, the other similar on Category B but not A.
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  • Spring '14

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