Trying something different

Hey everyone!

For the Participant Observer Blog I decided to be a different person for a day! I actually ended up drawing from a several experiences over a few days in order to maximize the types of and number of situations I could try acting differently.

For this experience I decided to generally be more friendly! This trait manifested itself in a number of ways such as me generally being more talkative, using friendly body language, and looking for opportunities to help others. I choose this not because I think I'm unfriendly but because I am generally pretty shy unless I know a person pretty well and I think I could benefit from being more outgoing.

Before I launch into my behaviors and experience, I'd like to introduce some concepts relevant to this social experiment. First off is the self-concept which was proposed by Hazel Markus (1977) and refers an individual's beliefs about themselves. Essentially the self-concept is made up of self-schemas (referred to simply as schemas) which are these beliefs that determine how one interprets information relevant to themselves (Markus, 1977). Traits that matter a lot to the identity of the individual, such as shyness for myself, are referred to as schematic and traits or characteristics that the individual considers irrelevant about themselves are referred to as aschematic (Markus, Hamill, & Sentis, 1987).

With this in mind, it was important for me to change a schematic trait in order to produce an effect that would be the most meaningful to me. In other words, I wanted to try to change a characteristic that mattered a lot to my personal identity in order to get a better idea of what it would be like to have a different trait and behave differently.

My experience over the few days had a ton of relevant examples but I can only talk about a few in depth. One situation where I was really able to try to behave differently was at my restaurant job where I work once a week as a server. Usually at work I tend to hang back and get my work done and only really talk to one or two people for extended periods of time during my shift. For this shift however, I struck up conversations with many other servers and throughout the shift tried to be helpful in small but noticeable ways (like taking drinks or food out). Towards the end of the night I talked at length with a few coworkers, more than I ever had before, and found that I really enjoyed it. Because a lot of this behavior (especially being so talkative) was so different from how I normally acted, I found it very difficult to keep it up just because it was always on my mind that I needed to engaging others in conversations when I had the opportunity. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy talking to others and had fun conversing with them, it was just so at odds with my normal behavior that it was really draining to keep it up for so long. My coworkers really enjoyed me talking more however and definitely joked with me a lot more than usual during the shift. One of them even commented that she noticed that I was in a really good mood that night.

A second example happened immediately that night after work was when I came back to campus and there was a party going on at a friend's apartment. These are definitely not my usual scene as they are filled with people who I vaguely know but I went to this one on a mission, to talk to (at length) at least one person who I don't know. During the party I talked to a few people who I don't know as well and surprised myself by talking to two people who I had never talked to before for a pretty long time. While talking to them I really tried to talk to them for awhile (whereas normally I would probably move onto someone who I know better after a short period of time). In this situation, I really enjoyed talking to some new people for a long period of time and was glad I made the effort to do so.

Another good example was on a later day when I was volunteering for a organization. I was tabling and selling t-shirts for the organization, which is an activity that I wouldn't ever want to do anyways but I did it regardless. I volunteered with another psych major who I didn't know that well but who I had met before and resolved that during volunteering I would talk a lot. During volunteering I talked to her a lot about her internship and job experience as well as my own. During this interaction (and during other interactions where I was trying to be more friendly) I really worked on and was cognizant of my body language. When talking to her, I tried to look at her often and nodded to let her know I was listening. I also smiled and leaned forward, again trying to show an engaged and interested attitude. Normally, in a situation like this, I would not inquire or so easily share so much about myself but I really wanted to try to have positive interactions with the other volunteer. Although something like this could easily be a fluke, I think that the other volunteer really enjoyed talking to me and I think my behavior influenced how she acted (e.g. I encouraged talking and showed my interest in her professional experiences). Again, this was difficult because I making an effort to be very friendly, definitely more so than usual and the experience was a little draining however, positive.

There were a lot of other small examples of friendliness such as me just asking how people were doing and getting smiles in return or making a joke with a HEB cashier but I think these three examples show more of how my behavior affected my day. In each of these three examples I had to ignore or inhibit my natural tendency, which is to be shy and reserved, for a significant period of time but instead make a conscious effort to be friendly, sociable, and interactive. I'm not normally really boring or anything, I just had to make the effort to step out of my comfort zone to see what would happen.

Before each time I was going to enter a situation (such as the three already described) I was pretty anxious as I knew I was going to have to act different from usual. During each event it was usually pretty fun although also fairly exhausting as I wasn't used to acting that way and had to work hard to act differently from usual. Afterward, I was generally pretty happy with how things went as my interactions were all positive and enjoyable (go figure). In sum, even though each experience was somewhat draining, it was definitely rewarding!

Overall, I did like the change in my behavior because I think it produced positive interactions and led to productive discussions. Because my natural inclination is usually more towards the quiet side it was fun to let some of my social inhibitions go and just be more sociable for a little while (and I could always tell myself that I needed to do this for a class which was alright encouragement).

Although, I have only discussed that I was affecting my internal view of myself, I was also clearly affecting my behavior which relates to self-presentation. Self-presentation is an active effort to change or affect behavior in order to influence what other people think of you (Schlenker, 2003). This theory was inspired by Goffman (1959) who said that individuals act out roles and behave as if in a play where we have a certain face that we desire to and make an active effort to maintain. Therefore, this process was largely influenced by my changing this face that I was putting on in social situations. Essentially, I was trying to change how I acted and therefore how other people saw me by behaving in a more friendly manner.

Even though changing my behavior was an active effort, it was clear that both self-concept and self-presentation are very self constructed and the possibility to change them exists. It is certainly not easy to change these things as they have been stable (and generally people are pretty happy with how they have been) for a good amount of time. For me, I had to actively consider how I would normally act, how I desired to act in the upcoming situation, and then (during the situation) act appropriately. However, it was possible to effectively change my behavior.

Going along with the fact that these are changeable attributes, even though they seem so central and innate, I would like to continue working on being more confident in my social interactions with people who I don't know. This was a pretty fun social experiment and overall I was pretty happy with how each experience turned out! Most importantly I'm glad I tried to affect my self-presentation heavily by choosing a trait that was more central to my self-concept, and by doing so, producing the greatest and most meaningful effect.

(Word count: 1550)

Goffman, E. (1959) The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City: Doubleday.



Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of and Social Psychology, 35, 63-78.

Markus, H., Hamill, R., & Sentis, K. P. (1987). Thinking fat: Self-schemas for body weight and the processing of weight relevant information. Journal Of Applied Social Psychology, 17(1), 50-71.

Schlenker, B. R. (2003). Self-presentation. In M. R. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 492-518). New York: Guilford.