Due: Oct 11

Length: 4-6 pages

In this assignment you will identify some of the ways in which people shape their setting, props, manner, and behavior so as to express a view of themselves to others they interact with. The major goal of the paper is (A) to analyze how people are using setting, front, manner, and/or demeanor to express who they are by (B) closely observing some human behavior. Select a person or people whom you feel comfortable observing for a period of time. These can be strangers in public places or friends you know well. Identify one of the social roles that this person occupies or one of the stances that this person takes. Using photographs, video recordings, or audio recordings, show how he or she expresses this role or stance through features of the settings he or she performs in, the front (or props) he or she uses as part of the role, or the manner (or demeanor) he or she adopts.

In order to analyze how performances express particular views of the self, you need to contrast one performance with another. For example, how does the expression of being a doctor differ from the expression of being a professor? How does the expression of being lovers differ from the expression of being friends? How does the expression of being the more senior person in a pair differ from the expression of being the less senior person? How does the expression of being a woman differ from the expression of being a man? How does the expression of being interested in what a friend has to say differ from the expression of being uninterested in a fight overheard in a public place? How does a teenager's expression of wanting to be at an event with his parents differ from his expression of wanting to be anyplace else?

Your paper will be graded on (A) how interesting and non-obvious are the conclusions you draw on the way people express the role or stance you selected, (B) the care with which you document your conclusions, and (C) the quality of your writing.

Your report should have three sections:

Hypothesis: Pick a social role or behavioral stance. Based on your prior experience, observations, and readings, how do you think this role or stance will be expressed? What will be the obvious signs and what will be some subtle ones? How do you think setting, front, and manner will be used? Record your hypotheses before you do any systematic observation.

Methods : Observe and record your subject's behavior. Describe how you know what role or stance the person was "playing" during your period of observation. For some roles or stances (e.g., gender) this is easy, but for others (e.g., lack of interest), this may be difficult.

Describe your data collection technique. How did you sample your subject's behavior? How did you make the observations? One problem in observing behavior is that your subject might be very self-conscious that you are observing and act differently than he or she would otherwise. You can try to overcome this problem (for example by recording people in public places, when they aren't aware that they are being observed) or by acclimating the subject to your presence. Alternately, you can take advantage of the phenomenon that your subject is presenting him or herself to you, by arranging the situation so that a certain type of self is being expressed (e.g., videotaping someone while they try to practice a job interview).

Observations: This is the major section in your paper. Tell me something interesting about the way your subject expressed his or her stance or role. Your goal here is to be able to describe the rule or rules that your subject is using so that someone else could use them as a script to also express the role or stance. That is, imagine that your research was going to be used by an actor playing the part of your subject. How would you prep the actor and tell him or her to behavior. Present data to illustrate and to document the points you are making. Figure out a way to include some of the raw data (e.g., a video clip, the transcript of a piece of conversation, or photographs of clothes) to illustrate your conclusions.

It will be helpful to summarize your observations in a table like the following:

or

or

Entries in the table can be concrete descriptions of the setting, props, or manner that your subject(s) used to express the role or stance, or they can be counts of the number or percentage of times that you observed the sign.

Are some of the signs you identified more important than others in communicating the role or stance?

General conclusions. End the paper with some general conclusions about what you uncovered that try to go beyond the particular person you observed. You should be trying to answer one of the following questions:

Are the signs you identified intended for communication or are they merely by-products of being in the role or having a particular attitude?

Are these signs arbitrary conventions (the way a CMU sweatshirt signifies commitment to the school) or are they more deep-seated (the way a smile signifies friendly interaction)?

How general are the signs? If you have appropriate data, show whether they apply to other people besides the one you initially observed.

What limitations are there on the way you sampled and collected the data?

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