NEGATIVE REACTIONS ACROSS DIFFERENT RACES

Observation of Negative Reactions Across Different Races Jessica Hart, Ryenn Peterson, and Rebecca See Loras College

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Abstract The purpose of this experiment is to observe reactions among different races when they see a person wearing clothing that is not of their cultural norm. We had a subject dress up in hoodlum clothing that would likely receive negative reactions among shoppers of multiple races in WalMart. We coded for these behaviors: staring, pointing, approaching/confronting, and/or laughing when participants observe the subject walking around. African Americans tended to have higher negative results compared to Caucasians and the other races that were observed.

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Observation of Negative Reactions Across Different Races We decided to observe negative reactions of Caucasians and African Americans because we have noticed that when a person wears clothing that is not part of their culture or background, other people tend to react negatively towards that person. We wanted to observe behavior when there is a violation of a social norm from dressing in a stereotypical clothing of a different cultural norm other than what that person is from. We came to the conclusion that Caucasians would be more offended at a person wearing non-typical clothing after witnessing how many react when the event happened by accident. Someone wearing clothing that is not typical for that person's race will cause a higher negative reaction among Caucasians than those of African American heritage or of a race other than Caucasian and African American. Method Participants The participants were randomly chosen out of the shoppers that were walking around WalMart and gave negative reactions towards the subject. We chose 15 Caucasian shoppers of either gender and 15 African-American shoppers of either gender. There was no set age range for the participants. The shoppers that didnt show a negative reaction were not observed. Procedure The subject dressed up in hoodlum clothing and traveled to Wal-Mart around 5:15 P.M. The subject walked around the store, covering a department or two in each corner. The two researchers observed negative behaviors from walking approximately 10 to 15 feet behind the subject. We used event sampling to record the data on the coding sheet, see figure 1.1. The

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researchers marked the coding sheet with a check mark as negative behaviors, such as: staring, pointing, approaching, confronting, and/or laughing, were observed. We defined staring as participants keeping their eyes on the subject for more than 5 seconds. We defined pointing as pointing as physically pointing at the subject. Approaching or confronting the subject was defined as approaching and/or confronting the subject on what the subject was wearing. We also defined
laughing at the subject as laughing or giggling at the subject. The subject was a Caucasian woman

dressed in hoodlum clothing. The hoodlum clothing consisted of neon pink sneakers, Chachi Momma brand dark blue sweat pants, a white IaMmE dance crew t-shirt with the phrase Feel Like Money ironed on the front, and a dark blue snapback cap. Results We had 15 African-American participants and were all observed staring at the subject. Of those 15, one was also staring and pointing; and three others were observed staring, pointing, and laughing at the subject. We had 15 Caucasian participants that all were observed staring at the subject. There was one Caucasian of the 15 that was observed staring and also approached the subject but no interaction occurred between participant and subject. We also observed staring from other races other than Caucasian and African-American, but had only five participants show negative reactions to the subject. Discussion We predicted that someone wearing clothing that is not typical for that person's race will cause a higher negative reaction among Caucasians than those of African American heritage or of a race other than Caucasian and African American. After doing the observational study, we found out that what we predicted was not supported with the data we collected. African-

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Americans tended to have higher negative reactions when compared to Caucasians and other races. We also observed some individual participants looked at the researchers to do something about the subject wearing the hoodlum clothing as they gave negative reactions towards the subject. A problem that we ran into while doing the observation was it was harder to find participants of other races than Caucasian and African-Americans. We did observe 5 people from other races that showed negative reactions to the subject. Another problem we ran into was that all the negative reaction we observed included staring so using that negative reaction to compare between the races did not show a difference. To recapitulate, the amount of observed negative reactions was higher in African-Americans than in those of Caucasian and other races.

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Figure 1.1

Participants 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Staring

Pointing

Approaching/confronting

Laughing