Thursday, October 8, 2009

Sociology Research: The “Wet suit” OB








Research Problem
What would people say if they saw someone in a Suit swimming in the ocean completely dressed? I want to know what people will do, say, react to what I do. The reason I am choosing to do this is simply the fact that it isn’t normal. How many times have you been to the beach and saw someone swimming in a suit, few to none. This is so out of the norm that I can get real and unique reactions from my study. The purpose of my project is to see how the general public will react to my outcast behavior.
Operation
How I film this using the camera I have. The camera I have doesn’t have zoom and the quality is bad. You can’t see far figures which will make it hard to see people’s reactions on film. This will make it so the camera man has to stay close which makes the action less fishy, the only water to counter something like this is to do it on a Saturday or Sunday when the beach is full. The things to think about are the number of people around me, or at the beach. How many people are there to react compared to on a busy day. Also will the reactions change is more people are at the beach? I feel the best way to find out id do it over and over on different beaches on different days of the week to get a great result.
Hypothesis
I think people will think I’m crazy or on drugs. They will always be majorly confused and curious to my cause and why I am doing it. I just imagine seeing some guy at the beach with a suit on swimming with his shoes on and his full suit on. I would think he was drugged up or just lost it. He must be crazy or just cracked out of the norm of reality. I would be scared and fearful that he was crazy. I mean if he is on drugs he could flip out on you if you stare at him. He might have lost his job or just gone mad.
Research Design
We didn’t use surveys or anything we just filmed the reactions live. We walked with a “hidden camera” to catch people’s reactions in the making. We also caught voice and comments which help prove the findings. I can’t tell you if the population would be a generalization for everywhere because I haven’t been everywhere but I do think it might be similar with the amount of people at the beach. I feel like I would get the same reactions in many counties in California, I do think it would change if the amount of people at the beach changed to a huge number.
We used the whole population at the beach. We didn’t select anyone. Some people didn’t even notice I was there but we still took that into account. We wanted to make sure that everyone was seen to show the true results of the outcome. I guess the sample would be considered the people at the beach in the middle of the day like surfers, tourist, older folks and such.
Findings
What I found was the way people reacted to what I was doing. The things they did or how they commented me clearly tells me what they thought. Some of them thought I was insane, some thought I was on drugs or I have been out partying all night so I needed a morning wash. People thought I had lost my job and was trying to kill myself or lost my mind all together. I noticed many people where vocal and blatant about what they thought and many wanted to know why I was acting so different. They had so much curiosity in me that some people even took pictures of me and filmed me. I do wonder how it the reactions would change in a larger group of people like when there are 300+ people on the beach. I suppose I would get more reactions because there are more people and more people would notice me right away. I have all my evidence of the reactions on film so that is my proof.
Summary
I found that people are very curious and if they aren’t nervous they will ask you what you’re doing, while others are totally silent about what you are doing and are too fearful to ask what I was doing. I also was surprised to see the cops or life guards didn’t even ask me what I was up to, they just looked at me in confusion and that was the end of it. I feel if the beach was more pacts I would have gotten a ton of reactions compared to the beach being so barren. The more people the more reactions that are possible of happening. I was surprised to see some of the assuming people made like the one about me losing my job, or like this one girl who clapped for me like I was standing up for something. People in suits at the beach catch the attention of everyone. If I was to improve the activity I would use way more cameras, do it on a weekend, have more people filming for me like 3-4 cameras, and also an underwater camera that I would use for the surfers in the water and other swimmers. I would try to get audio from the people that ask me questions or comment on my outfit. I would also try different beaches in different parts of the coast to see that if there is any difference in reactions.