Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I was just wondering if anyone (an adult reccomended) can look at my project design and see if its okay in both the science method and in grammar & spelling, and please do not steal it. Thank you...

How Does Fashion Affect The Behavior Of Others Around Us?

Problem:
The purpose of this project is to see whether randomly selected people at a shopping mall respond differently when asked the time by someone dressed up as a different social stereotype such as the the "tomboy" and the "young lady.
Hypothesis:
I hypothesize that the participants are more likely to comply with the request from someone who wore the same types of clothes than from smeone who wore different clothes from them.

Review of Literature:
Fashion is a means of self-expression that allows people to try on many roles in life. Whether you prefer hip-hop or Chanel-chic, fashion accommodates the chameleon in all of us. It's a way of celebrating the diversity and variety of the world in which we live. Fashion is about change which is necessary to keep life interesting. It's also a mirror of sorts on society. It's a way of measuring a mood that can be useful in many aspects, culturally, socially even psychologically. At the same time, fashion shouldn't be taken too seriously or you lose the fun of it. (Cynthia Durcanin)

Fashion is revealing. Clothes reveal what groups people are in. In high school, groups have names: "goths, skaters, preps, herbs." Styles show who you are, but they also create stereotypes and distance between groups. Acceptance or rejection of a style is a reaction to the society we live in.

There are many reasons we wear what we wear:
Protection from cold, rain and snow: mountain climbers wear high-tech outerwear to avoid frostbite and over-exposure.
Physical attraction: many styles are worn to inspire "chemistry."
Emotions: we dress "up" when we're happy and "down" when we're upset.
Religious expression: Orthodox Jewish men wear long black suits and Islamic women cover every part of their body except their eyes.
Identification and tradition: judges wear robes, people in the military wear uniforms, brides wear long white dresses. (PBS)

At any given time, we may be sending aspirational non-verbal cues -- from President George W. Bush's frequent use of manly cowboy wear to an intern's employment of serious suits -- to express upward mobility. Or we may consciously manipulate fashion to send clear and conscious messages, such as a stern pinstriped pantsuit paired with a lacy shell underneath that unequivocally states the wearer is "all-business on the outside; all woman on the inside." (Cynthia Nelis)

Research shows that clues in the nonverbal "channels" of communication (how something is said) are often more important than words alone (what is said). There are many different "channels" of nonverbal communication: facial expressions, the clues in our voices "vocal paralanguage", hand gestures, body movements "kinesics", touch "haptics", and personal space. (UCSC)

Fashion can suggest or signal status in a social group. Groups with high cultural status like to keep 'in fashion' to display their position; people who do not keep 'in fashion' within a so-called "style tribe" can risk shunning. Because keeping 'in fashion' often requires considerable amounts of money, fashion can be used to show off wealth. Adherence to fashion trends can thus form an index of social affluence and an indicator of social mobility.

Fashion can help attract a partner. As well as showing certain features of a person's personality that appeal to prospective mates, keeping up with fashion can advertise a person's status to such candidates. Perhaps even more importantly, it sends a signal of superiority to potential competitors of the same gender, who are frequently better informed about what's fashionable than the potential mates are. Conversely, a person who exhibits a fashion style that rejects or deliberately tries to offend the current trend may also have an advantage in finding other like-minded individuals.

"Fashion sense" consists of the ability to tell what clothing and/or accessories look good and what doesn't. Since the entire notion of fashion depends on subjectivity, so does the question of who possesses "fashion sense". (Wikipedia.com)

(Kaiser) introduced an interdisciplinary and conceptual framework using symbolic interaction theory and cognitive social psychology for studying clothing and appearance as a form of communication. Symbolic interaction involved with interactions among individuals (i.e., interpretations of clothing symbols between a wearer and a perceiver) whereas cognitive social psychology regards clothing cues as items that might be selected by perceivers to initiate inference processes about wearers.

Materials:
Digital Camera with a movie recording capability
"Tomboy" volunteer
"Young lady" volunteer
Subjects for testing
Parental permission form

Procedure:
1. Create a parental permission form to give to the desired volunteers, who are going to impersonate the different stereotypes and wait for their response to see if they are allowed. Make sure to include what exactly are they going to do, where its going to take place, when it will be finished.
2. Select a location to intercept a random sampling of people. Make sure that you conduct the experiment with the other volunteer at the same place at the same time.
3. At the desired location, instruct the "tomboy" volunteer to go to a female random subject that seems suitable to ask what time is it.
4. Relocate yourself to a location that has a good view of the both of them, and by the time the "tomboy" volunteer arrives in front of the random subject, start recording them until it is entirely over.
5. After the conversation has fininshed, go to the the random subject, explain to them the purpose of what happened earlier, and ask if they currently wear the same type of clothes the volunteer was just wearing,or if they worn it before.
6. Repeat steps 3, 4, and 5 with 2 more female subjects and 3 more male subjects.
7. Repeat steps 3, 4, 5, and 6 with the "young lady" volunteer.
8. Review the recorded movies, note down your results, and analyze the data.

Hi,

You have done an excellent job in your background research; this is a very important part of a science fair project. It's important to know what has been done before so you can design an original project, which you have done here. I like the fact that you are just testing one thing, whether or not the random subject will tell you what time it is.

I think your project is well designed and could result in a winning project. Here are some suggestions that you should consider before conducting the experiment:

1. You will need a consent form from your random subjects. When you ask the subject for more information after the test, you will need to inform the person that this is part of your science fair project and ask them permission to include their results. If the random subject will not sign your form, you can't include the data in your project.

2. One problem with working with humans is that it is difficult to control all of the parameters. There could be many reasons that someone would be willing/not willing to tell you what time it is. You will want to minimize variables as much as possible. You have already stated that you are going to conduct the trial at the same location and time of day. Here are some more ideas that will help you minimize variables:
a. Make sure the random subject has a watch on.
b. Select random subjects of the same gender/age range.
c. Use the same volunteer for all tests.
d. Make sure the volunteer uses the identical words each time a random subject is asked for the time.


I'm sure you can think of other things you can do.

3. How are you going to measure your results? One problem with human projects like this is that you really don't have a result that can be measured. You will have a certain number of subjects that will either tell you the time, or not, so you will have a percentage of "yes" and "no" answers. But, it's going to be difficult to prove that the volunteer's clothing affected the outcome. You are planning to videotape the random subject’s response to your inquiry. What additional information can you get from the videos?

4. Do a trial run. I would recommend dressing up in one of the proposed outfits and going to the mall this afternoon and ask about 20 people what time it is. Take notes. This will help you refine your project and perhaps design a better experiment. What will you do if everyone agrees to tell you what time it is? You need an experiment that will give you a statistically significant difference between the two test groups.


I hope these suggestions are helpful. Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Donna Hardy

How would you suppose how am I going to measure my results by recording them? I'm going to be recording each conversation...

Your work looks very thorough so far. My only suggestion in terms of the writeup is that you may want to work the wording on your hypothesis to make it more clear. This is the most important part of your project, so you want it to be crystal clear. I personally had to read it twice before I understood it. Sometimes splitting the hypothesis into two or more sentences can help the clarity.

Your project seems to lend itself to qualitative rather than quantitative data. You can record, for instance, whether the random participant simply gives the time without stopping or whether s/he stops, takes time to look at his/her watch and make eye contact with the volunteer. For quantitative data, you could record the time the interaction takes.

I was also wondering whether you would be recording the interaction between the volunteer and the random participant within earshot. If this is the case, you could record things like the tone of voice (gentle/brusque, for instance) or the exact words used by the random participant. If you are not within earshot, you might want to ask your volunteer to give you such details as objectively as possible.

At the moment your experiment deals with only twelve subjects (3 male, 3 female, for each volunteer). When working with humans, it is always best to record as many interactions as possible. However, it depends on how much time you and your volunteers have.

Finally, I would suggest avoiding people who look like they are in a great hurry, especially since you will want a few minutes with them afterward to explain your project.

Good luck!
Sonia

Here are the results I recorded:

If subject have worn/likes what the subject is wearing
If the subject takes the time to look at volunteer or doesn't stop
The tone of voice the subject used in response
Interaction/conversation time in seconds

How would you use it to support a conclusion and what kind of graph would you prefer?

P.S. I already made pie graphs.

Pie graphs are good to show percentages (how many people have worn/liked what the volunteer was wearing and how many didn't, for example). You might find some interesting trends if you compare multiple variables on the same graph. For instance, you could compare whether people who have worn/ liked what the volunteer was wearing also spent a longer time talking to the volunteer. You could make a bar graph showing the time of interaction for people who liked the volunteer's outfit and the time for people who didn't like it. Try exploring your variables this way.

You might also find a table effective to show results. You could have two categories across the top-- people who liked the outfit and people who didn't. Each row could show the number or percentage of people in each large category who took time to look at the volunteer, didn't look at the volunteer, spoke gently, and spoke brusquely.

Hope this helps!
Sonia