Microsociology is a system. It is a system that humans have created to specifically study people and their responses as well as how they carry on behaviors that involve other people. Whenever anyone is dealing with any system, there is a certain way to go about approaching the system to get the desired response. When the approach is not handled in the same manner, then there can be different responses that can be garnered. The same can be said for human reactions to known settings. There are 3 branches of microsociology that give its meaning better justice in their varied definitions. Symbolic interactionism is described to be the ‘security guard’ of sorts when people try to find what action is ‘fair play’ and appropriate when they interact with certain people. Next there is phenomenology which takes into account the different social space that people are in at any given time and how people will detect whenever something around them seems to be off kilter. Finally, there us ethnomethodology which describes the day to day life of people and how they go about it which can consist of how they analyze daily occurrences within their lives. Breaching experiments tend to fall in this category as they allow for the testing of whether the normal occurrences not happening actually affect people and how they perceive a situation. I decided to take on a breaching experiment that I noticed on the TV show, Seinfeld.
There is a scene on the show that has the female character, Elaine to be in a bathroom stall. She notices that there is no toilet paper and so she does what may seem like a normal request and asks the woman in the next stall if she could provide her some toilet paper. The woman reacted in the most annoyed way and say no. this went on for a while with Elaine trying to bargain and negotiate with the woman to even give her a square of toilet paper. The lady leaves the stall and Elaine sees that there is toilet paper in the lady’s stall and that she could have given her some, but didn’t.
I decided to try this. The 2 times I did this was at the college bathroom stalls so there were only females of the college involved in this breaching experiment. I didn’t plan it out too well the first time and I happened to try it at a busy time in the day when classes were letting out and the bathroom was packed. My calls to the next stall weren’t even heard because it was too loud amongst the sounds of the faucets and hand dryers. My nerves also probably caused my voice to not be as loud as it was my first attempt. The next attempt was more successful and the girl next to me at first didn’t know I was talking to her. Then when I waved my hand below the divider she realized which side I was asking from and she actually was very nice about it. She mentioned that this happened to her once but no one was in the stall next to her and that she was left to use her Kleenex tissues in her purse. She gave me some toilet paper and was very nice about the whole situation. I kind of felt bad even trying this on such a nice girl. I waited till she left the bathroom because my stall did have toilet paper and I feared her realizing that I asked for paper when I actually had some. I didn’t tell her it was an experiment either.
So I guess I was a little luckier than the scene from the show. In the show, it almost felt like it was not the norm to the lady in the stall and that is why she didn’t cooperate with giving her tissue paper and actually had said that she didn’t have ‘a square to spare’. Her method of living, along with the girl in my experiment, was conceptualized in a certain way and by having Elaine and I ask for toilet paper in that way was very different from the way they would have constructed the situation which is why it calls for a great breaching experiment.
There is a scene on the show that has the female character, Elaine to be in a bathroom stall. She notices that there is no toilet paper and so she does what may seem like a normal request and asks the woman in the next stall if she could provide her some toilet paper. The woman reacted in the most annoyed way and say no. this went on for a while with Elaine trying to bargain and negotiate with the woman to even give her a square of toilet paper. The lady leaves the stall and Elaine sees that there is toilet paper in the lady’s stall and that she could have given her some, but didn’t.
I decided to try this. The 2 times I did this was at the college bathroom stalls so there were only females of the college involved in this breaching experiment. I didn’t plan it out too well the first time and I happened to try it at a busy time in the day when classes were letting out and the bathroom was packed. My calls to the next stall weren’t even heard because it was too loud amongst the sounds of the faucets and hand dryers. My nerves also probably caused my voice to not be as loud as it was my first attempt. The next attempt was more successful and the girl next to me at first didn’t know I was talking to her. Then when I waved my hand below the divider she realized which side I was asking from and she actually was very nice about it. She mentioned that this happened to her once but no one was in the stall next to her and that she was left to use her Kleenex tissues in her purse. She gave me some toilet paper and was very nice about the whole situation. I kind of felt bad even trying this on such a nice girl. I waited till she left the bathroom because my stall did have toilet paper and I feared her realizing that I asked for paper when I actually had some. I didn’t tell her it was an experiment either.
So I guess I was a little luckier than the scene from the show. In the show, it almost felt like it was not the norm to the lady in the stall and that is why she didn’t cooperate with giving her tissue paper and actually had said that she didn’t have ‘a square to spare’. Her method of living, along with the girl in my experiment, was conceptualized in a certain way and by having Elaine and I ask for toilet paper in that way was very different from the way they would have constructed the situation which is why it calls for a great breaching experiment.