Research Paper on Institutional Affiliation(s) Social Experiment

Introduction

Communication is an integral part of a person's social life. A person's conversation is dependent on their communication skills. There are two parts to communication. There is verbal communication and non-verbal communication. In my previous paper, I had outlined that I prefer non-verbal communication to verbal communication. The people I interviewed who include my mother and sister informed me of my poor skills in communication both in verbal and non-verbal communication. In response, I set out to conduct a social experiment with the objective of improving one of my communication skills. Since this, the first experiment that I have ever undertaken of this kind, I chose to pick only one skill that I want to improve throughout the week. For this social experiment, I set out to change the non-verbal communication of eye contact based on the information that my sister gave me in the previous assignment. I chose eye contact because it is the first step in establishing communication with someone else. My avoidance of eye contact could have other underlying issues such as fear of scrutiny. Based on the research conducted by Schneier et al., (2011), my lack of eye contact could signal the presence of social anxiety disorder (SAD). According to Schneier et al., (2011) the avoidance of gaze appears to have social relevance to SAD. However, whether it is related to SAD or not, there is a need to learn how to establish eye contact not just for purposes of socializing but also improving my employment prospects. Burgoon, Guerrero, and Floyd (2016) say that eye contact will make a good impression on the employer, influence a group and, keep the conversation going. The objective of the study is to establish the number of times I avoid eye contact during a conversation or interaction with someone else. It also seeks to determine the duration of eye contact when interacting with other people.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Methodology

As a social experiment, the observation was the chosen research methodology. I carried out random conversations with classmates, members of the teaching staff as well friends and family. I used the blinding method to prevent bias. Informing them about my social experiment would have caused them to behave differently. To guarantee the accuracy of the results I had to make sure that they act as they usually do while communicating with me. The instruments that I used for the research included a stopwatch, pen, and paper. I was not entirely possible to conduct such an experiment by myself so sought the help of a close friend to assist me with the research. His work was to observe the conversations that I have and record the number of times I avoided eye contact during conversations with other people. He was also supposed to include the time of the interview and the place that the meeting was taking place. He also recorded the duration of each conversation and the duration that I managed to maintain eye contact. He did the observation during classroom breaks where I was more likely to engage other people or get involved in a conversation. The experiment took place throughout five days, and he was supposed to withhold the information until the end of the trial. To make sure that the information he provides was accurate, I contracted three other people to do the same thing. I would later compare the three results from each person.

Results

The results from the social experiment indicated that for every two minutes of conversation that I have with someone I spend an average of 1 minute looking at the other person's eye. Interestingly, for the remaining one minutes, my eye is usually moving around my immediate environment. Ranging from the other people that pass close by to the dress code of the person that I am conversing with. That was an improvement from the previous trait where I would spend the most time looking at my hands rather than establishing eye contact. Furthermore, the results also indicate that the duration of eye contact is also dependent on the gender and age of the other person. The 1 minute for every two minutes of conversation only applies to older people such as teachers and people from the opposite gender who I am likely to have an emotional attraction towards them. As for my age mates and younger people, the eye contact lasted for 1 minute to 1.5 minutes for every 2 minutes of conversation. The variation is what Burgoon et al., (2016) describes as expressing real or desired identities. According to Burgoon et al., (2016), eye contact is one of the functions that humans use to signal others to think who they are and how they would like them to consider who they are. That means when holding a conversation with teachers I want to project a particularly desired identity that I think will make me come out as a more likable person to them. Also, avoiding looking at my hands helped improve my non-verbal communication. The hand was my comfort zone, and that is why I would spend most times looking at it. By avoiding looking at my hands, I forced myself to move out of my comfort zone and confront my fears hence enabling me to establish eye contact. The duration of the eye contact reflected the people who I was comfortable with and those that made me uncomfortable. People such as teachers that provided a challenge while my classmates that I was familiar with got the most eye contact.

Implications and Future Research

The results have indicated a suitable frequency in the eye contact that I establish during communication. The main weakness of the research was the lack of background studies that would have enabled me to compare the results to the previous ones. It is therefore not possible to determine whether the results are an improvement of the prior communication or that maybe that was the case before the last assignment exercise. The research will provide a background to conduct other research on my colleagues and myself. Future research studies will have a chance to draw a comparison to mark the improvement in research studies. The data obtained in regards to the difference in communication between various people could give insight into my perception of other people. One of the implications of the research is that I am now more aware of eye contact during non-verbal communication. The study was the first step towards becoming a better communicator. I made many discoveries too. Some of the results also confirm what I was told in an earlier study. For example, my low duration of eye contact with people that I am unfamiliar with is because of my need to project a specific image. That shows that I focus more on the other people rather than myself when having a conversation with someone. I would try to shift the focus from other people to myself as I am trying to converse with them. The future results should also incorporate verbal communication such as finding the correlation between my eye movement and the message that I am trying to communicate. That is achievable using mini microphones, which will allow the people who are observing my conversations to hear my communication during research.

References

Burgoon, J. K., Guerrero, L. K., & Floyd, K. (2016). Nonverbal communication. Routledge.

Schneier, F. R., Rodebaugh, T. L., Blanco, C., Lewin, H., & Liebowitz, M. R. (2011). Fear and avoidance of eye contact in social anxiety disorder - comprehensive Psychiatry, 52(1), 81-87.