Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Avoiding or Avoided
I was walking around town yesterday evening when I decided I would only walk in straight lines. This meant that every time I came to another pedestrian walking they had to move around me. I have to say most people start to steer clear well in advance, but then there are other people that must expect you to avoid them. For those people it seemed like an old fashion game of chicken ensued, who will turn first? I have to say I definitely rubbed a couple shoulders. It was tough at times to hold in my laughter when other people would not change their course. They were going straight also and there was nothing (perhaps only a light post) that would stop them. I am sure if we got psychology involved we could from this simple experiment perceive something about how that person, to some extent, interact with others. Next time you are walking around lets see if you are always the one avoiding or being avoided.
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7 comments:
Jonny...I have tried this experiment before. It is difficult to hold my course when I feel like I might hit someone. For interest, were there any correlations between not moving & gender?
That's a funny experiment. You should try walking backwards around town next time and see how people perceive you. That'd I'd like to hear about.
It seems that I have much more testing to do in response to gender and possible perceptions if I were walking backwords. I'll keep the world posted.
jon jon. i may be in halifax this weekend. lets hang. fr erin
Jon,
I found something similar to this last winter when Dawn and I were taking dance lessons through Dance PEI. Besides us, there were about 8 other couples in a fair sized empty classroom practicing our moves for 60 solid minutes/week. I found myself usually being the one to move whenever another couple got within our radar, so much so that at one point Dawn actually had to say to me "stop moving for everybody else." I think she was a little annoyed that we were always the ones that moved to suit the other couples. I'm glad you are helping to balance out the universe.
With the amount of painstaking research I have put into this field of study I do believe the universe should be well balanced for years to follow.
I think you should apply for a government grant :)
Till then Noel
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