Behavior in Groups

        When you sit down to eat, what do you notice?  Is there a difference in the social behaviors between groups of the same sex?  Or possibly different eating patterns when around the different sex?  This is the information I ventured out to find.  What I found was all too surprising.  

        When I first started observing tables it seemed hard to find any patterns or interesting data, but as I continued, I noticed that certain groups of people behaved differently from others.  The Circumstances: I gathered data on 4 random days (Monday to Friday) in November 2014 at different times a day.  Each observation was around an hour long and labeled with minutes.  The observations took place in the Indian Quad dining hall and to be considered a group there needed to be three or more people.  This location seemed like a good place to find groups in a setting where they would behave the way they are and not under the pressure of professors or residential assistants.  The fact that it is the same setting every time and a short time frame make this data reliable. Additionally, I tried to use similar time frames to avoid mistakes; for example, I would always go down at 11am.  

The first day of observation was fairly broad and more or less an orientation of what I wanted to focus on.  I could either focus on groups or single individuals.  The reason why I chose the group behavior is based on the fact that people pay less attention to the world around them when they are around others. Thus, it was easier to take notes and analyze their actions.  The following days, I started to focus on one or 2 groups per hour to make sure my notes were as detailed and precise as possible.

The analysis of the data will focus on groups of just males or just females and the notable behaviors of each.  In addition, the comparison will show how the behavior within the group shifts when a gender exchange takes place.

Every observation of same-gender tables starts out the same.  On all the 4 days, the same-gender groups would enter the dining hall together, not individually.  Table 5 on day 1, table 3 on day 2, table 3 on day 3, and table 4 on day 4: All groups came in without the opposite sex.  This observation can be easily explained.  First, most people I observed seemed to belong to some kind of sports team.  Due to the similar schedule and practice times, people who belong to a certain sports teams will go to the dining hall around the same time.  Second, the housing situation makes it more likely that people with the same sex spend more time together.  Therefore, the reasons for the homogeneity could be the similar schedules of sports plyers and the rooming situation.

Depending on the group, it would take them a few minutes to get food and drinks.  No matter which group I look at I can see similar behavior.  The first person getting back to the table as an individual starts eating and tries to find a way to distract himself/herself.  I did set my focus on the individual but I want to note one thing: In the dining hall setting, every observation of individuals in my notes showed some kind of isolation.  This ranges from texting to listening to music, reading a newspaper or choosing a single table.  Also, the dining time itself seemed significantly shorter for individuals.