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To explore the behaviour of students at the entrance of the students union

Abstract

Our project was conducted so we could observe students behaviour around the students union over a

period of thirty minutes. We then focused on what we believed to be the most important seconds of

behaviour during that thirty minutes. Our results showed interesting behaviour from a large group of

people which could be seen to subject another student into a particular action.

Intro

The primary focus on behaviour in public places seems to be centred around the behaviour of youth

and ant-social behaviour for example Donoghue’s research into anti-social behaviour and community

engagement (Donoghue, 2012), and was therefore difficult to find much work upon the general

behaviour and interaction between people in a public space. However, our research was not alone as

we found Goffman’s book on people’s behaviour in public spaces. He said that participation in an

accessible engagement not only directly exposes the individual to linguist and expressive

communication with other participants in the encounter; it also opens up the possibility that they will

expressively communicate something about him to the bystanders. Seeking some degree of intimacy

with potential fellow participants in the encounter, the individual can find himself spurned or

otherwise mistreated in a way that is visible to bystanders (Goffman, 1966). From this, we were

interested in whether Goffman’s descriptions of human encounters were accurate and relevant in

today’s society, fifty years after it was written; and thus decided to observe the entrance of one of the

most used buildings on Loughborough University’s campus, the student’s union building.

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Hypothesis

This particular project was designed to be purely an observation rather than an experiment and thus

a hypothesis was not needed. There was a particular series of interactions between students of the

time period of fifteen seconds where a student stood and held the door for ten students to what can

be seen as the exclusion of himself. This stood out for the reasons that there were many people

involved, and that a lot of things happened at one time.

Method Overview

A video was recorded observing the entrance to the student’s union building at Loughborough

University over the time period of thirty minutes. The reason that this was done is because we could

choose what the most important part of that thirty minutes was, and then analyse those seconds that

were deemed as most important. In summary it gave us multiple choices of what interactions we could

choose to analyse. We had no specific behaviour we were looking for at the start of the video which

meant we approached the recording with an open mind.

Materials

A video camera provided to us was used to record the thirty minutes of observation; USB cables were

used to upload the video to a laptop which could be used to crop and replay the video.

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Observation

There were no pre-given response measures and no pre-requisites that we were looking for in the

recording. However, the observation was taken to see what could be found when repeating the same

section of video repeatedly. When commenting on the behaviours of the people involved, care had to

be taken to distinguish between what is observation and what is inference. If an assumption was given

towards something that happened, our results would be inaccurate as our response is just subjective

speculation of what actually happened.

Procedure

Before our final study was taken, we conducted a pilot study. The pilot study was done in exactly the

same situation and setting, observing and recording the entrance to the student’s union building at

Loughborough University over the period of thirty minutes. The pilot study was used to make sure

that the project would work or if there needed to be any changes. Consequently, there was a problem

with the positioning of our camera. The problem was that the recording missed out part of the

entrance because there was a cash point in that vicinity. It was felt that it would go against ethical

consideration to video people using a cash point and so it was moved out of the lens of the camera.

When looking back on the video it was discovered that the cash point is too far away to see what

people were doing on it and it was therefore concluded that the next time a recording was taken, we

could include the cash point into the lens of the camera. It also turned out that we could not find any

interaction or behaviour of interest during the pilot study’s recording. The second attempt at the video

project was then carried out with the new knowledge that we could include a larger area of the

entrance to the student’s union than was originally thought. Both studies of the entrance were

recorded by video camera which was placed upon a wall built around the entrance giving us a

strategic place to video people’s behaviours in that area. Once recorded, the video was transferred to a

laptop so we could crop out the parts of the video we did not see as important, and also to have the

ability to repeat the video multiple times in order to observe it properly. B420141

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Ethical Considerations

There were a few considerations we had to make with the recording of the video itself. As mentioned

previously there was scepticism on whether we could record people using a cash point, originally we

did not, but after further consideration it was decided that the cash point was too far away from the

camera to impede on people’s privacy. The other consideration was videoing people, we could not ask

permission otherwise it would compromise the legitimacy of a natural situation and therefore render

the observation inadequate. The action that was taken was that the video would be deleted after the

results were taken, and when using the results, people’s faces would be blurred if visible to keep the

anonymity of the students involved.

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Results

Our results were taken from seventeen seconds of the thirty minutes of recording. This is because it

was felt that these were the most important seconds to observe human behaviour. Below are

screenshots of the video to allow proof of what happened in these seconds of behaviour.

Figure 1

This screen shot was taken at three seconds and it is outlined by the white rectangle that a person

(student one), has reached for the door and has stepped to the side to allow the person (student two),

he is with through the door. Furthermore, the grey rectangle outlines that the person holding the door

is closely followed by another pair of students.

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Figure 2

The screenshot above shows the fourth second, just as student one holds open the door; another

student walks out of the entrance, blocking the way in for student two. It also provides time for the

pair of students outlined in grey to get closer to student one holding the door. The body posture of the

pair of students outlined in grey implies that they are not going relieve student one and allow him to

walk through because their hands are in their pockets.

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Figure 3

The screenshot above was taken at six seconds, and as you can see student one, outlined in white, is

still holding the door. As time has gone by, more students (highlighted in grey), have walked up to the

entrance. It is noticed that all of these students have their hands in their pockets. An inference can be

made through this that they have no intention of relieving student one from holding the door. This is

further backed up by group of student’s posture. The students are either facing the floor or straight at

the door completely bypassing eye contact with student one.

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Figure 4

This screenshot was taken at eight seconds and it shows the body language of student one (highlighted

in white), standing back almost inferring a retreat from the crowd of students walking towards and

through the entrance. Another body language student one is portraying is his head facing the ground.

This infers that student one has accepted the duty of holding the door for all the students until there is

time enough for him to pass through. This has further evidence in screenshot below taken at 10

seconds; which shows that the crowd of students have dissipated and there is now time enough for

student one to finally pass through.

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Figure 5

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Conclusion

“Seeking some degree of intimacy with potential fellow participants in the encounter, the individual

can find himself spurned or otherwise mistreated in a way that is visible to bystanders” (Goffman,

1966). This short extract from Goffman’s ‘Behaviour in Public Places’, can be considered relevant in

the results we have found for our project because of the fact that student one was subjected to the

behaviour of the other students around him. This consequently held him responsible for holding the

door for everybody who was passing through to the point of stepping back and accepting the duty.

The body language of the students passing student one can be observed and inferred as negative

because of the way they are facing, which was straight ahead or to the floor, not making any visual

contact to student one. The behaviour observed has anti-social connotations due to the lack of

attention shown towards student one. Thus making Goffman’s observation accurate fifty years from

when it was written.

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References

Donoghue, J.C, (2012). Anti-Social Behaviour, Community Engagement and the Judicial

Role in England and Wales. The British Journal of Criminology. 52 (3), pp.591

Goffman, E, (1966). Behavior in Public Places. 2nd ed. United States: Free Press.

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