I completed this activity last night after hanging out with a couple of my friends. After work, we all went out to Buffalo Wild Wings and had a girls night, ordering wings and sodas. After we had been there for about a half hour and had really gotten into a conversation, I decided to complete this experiment. These two girls are my best friends and we are used to being pretty strange around each other so I knew it would go over well and there wouldn’t be any hurt feelings.
I started with my friend Meghan. She was talking about her night at work and I continued to stare at her. I made sure to look at her directly in the eyes and not break eye contact. I even managed to take a couple of sips of my pop while doing this. She didn’t seem to think much of it and just continued talking, but you could tell she was slightly uncomfortable and was watching her words. I think that she mostly just thought I was paying really good attention to her, which doesn’t always happen, especially late at night.
The second experiment was the no eye contact. This one was especially hard for me because I am so used to having eye contact. I think it is incredibly rude not to look at someone and have found that in the professional world, this is a no go. I tried to look around and tried to just stare down into my pop, but it was quite a challenge. Again, Meghan didn’t seemed phased by it and continued to keep talking, but it seemed like the conversation didn’t last as long. It helped that we had another friend with us to continue to have eye contact, but every once in a while the conversation would kind of switch to a new topic or I would find that Meghan was mostly focusing her attention on our other friend.
The third experiment was a lot more challenging for me to complete. It was hard to find a time that we had a conversation standing up because most of the night we were sitting down at a table. When we finally were about to head home for the night, we all went outside and had our last minute conversations at our cars before heading out. While we were talking I would try to take slow, small steps towards Meghan, but it really didn’t do much. She wasn’t super uncomfortable and would just casually change her stance. She would just adjust her weight from side to side or take a small step to the side. Eventually she just got in her car and left, but I don’t think that had anything to do with the experiment, I think it was just time to go home.
Overall, I didn’t get much information from this experiment. I found that body language does have a lot but it was a hard experiment to do with my friends. If I wanted a better understanding of this experiment, I should have done it with someone that I was not as close with. My friends and I are all pretty close, so none of this really seemed unnatural to them.
What was the most uncomfortable experiment for you to do? Why?
For me the most uncomfortable one was slowly getting closer to the other person. I really like my space and the fact that I sort of had to do it to someone I didn't know all that well made it even worse. I also thought it was difficult to move in on the person so slowly that they didn't really notice. I've had people do this to me because they're "close talkers" and those were some of the most awkward moments of my life. I felt bad that I had to do it to someone else.
ReplyDeleteThe most uncomfortable experiment for me was the no eye contact. I was having so much trouble that I started laughing. My friend thought I was crazy because I started laughing in the middle of our conversation. She just started laughing too, then I told her what was going on.
ReplyDeleteI think the most uncomfortable for me to do was moving in closer and closer as well. It felt awkward to slowly move myself in on someone's confined space. It was sweet to see the way the person would react to moving in on their own personal space, but them not knowing what was going on made it easier for them to react in a natural manner. If they knew what was happening they obviously would not have moved back because they would've known what was going on in the first place and nothing would've been a natural process!
ReplyDeleteThe most uncomfortable experiment was definitely the two minutes of eye contact. I struggle with this in my own life, and it is something I have to work on, but maintaining eye contact for that long definitely made me feel uncomfortable. Because I was doing this experiment with my neighbor, who I know well, it was additionally uncomfortable because she could tell that something was up.
ReplyDeleteThe most uncomfortable part of the experiment for me was the sustained eye contact. My friend that I did this experiment on got very uncomfortable with making eye contact shortly after starting the activity. Then I had to move around a lot to get back into her field of vision. It didn’t help either that she asked me if something was wrong. I think sustaining eye contact for that long is very unnatural.
ReplyDeleteThe most uncomfortable experiment for me to perform was the one where we had to slowly back a person into a corner. I found this one very uncomfortable to do because I think the act of backing someone into a corner--even if done slowly--can be interpreted in many ways, such as an act of aggression, intimidation, etc. For these reasons, I felt somewhat more uncomfortable whild doing this activity compared to the others.
ReplyDeleteThe most uncomfortable for me was the experiment that backed a person into a corner. Although I'm very close to the person I chose, I still like my personal space, and in giving that up for the sake of the experiment, I was uncomfortable myself!
ReplyDeleteI personally didn't feel uncomfortable doing any of the experiments because I knew it was an experiment and the people I did the experiments on I am close with and it is pretty normal for me to act goofy and awkward toward those who I am close to and it doesn't cause any uncomfort to me or others, well I hope not at least.
ReplyDeleteThe most uncomfortable experiment for me to do was the no eye contact experiment. I am naturally a person who likes to use a lot of eye contact so not being able to made the conversation torturous. I was not able to play off of the person's facial expressions to know if what I was saying was making him uncomfortable or not. Overall, I thought it was a good experiment - especially for me because if forced me to step out of my comfort zone - I think I just had a hard time with it.
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