Observation Assignment; 4 observation
Othman88
OBSERVATIONMODEL.rtfPrimary Focus: Body (posture, gesture, facial, eye, touch)
Subjects: One woman 40’s, one girl late teens to early 20’s
Context: A little after noon at a fast-food sandwich shop in the food court of a shopping mall. Subjects were seated opposite each other in a booth. Because both subjects had shopping bags with them, I assumed they were out on a shopping trip together.
Nonverbal Communication Cues Observed: The girl sat sideways in the booth with her feet on the bench and pointed to the outside. Her left arm was resting on the seatback and she kept turning her head away from the woman toward the window only occasionally making brief eye contact. The woman sat facing the table and kept both her hands in her lap most of the time. She did a lot of leaning forward looking at the girl the whole time. The woman’s face was very animated; the girl’s was not. She had a stony look. The girl kept fidgeting with a soda straw and would periodically chew on it. At one point both had stopped speaking and the girl took a big sigh, turned to face the woman, and put her feet under the table. She then started talking in a low voice, so I couldn’t hear the words, but at one point in the talking she reached over and touched the woman’s arm which, by this time, was resting on the table. The woman responded immediately to the touch and gave her hand to the girl and smiled for the first time. They were holding hands across the table when I left. The girl’s face looked more relaxed and almost smiling.
Interpretation of Cues Supported by Textbook & J ournal R eadings:
That the woman was seeking to communicate was clear from her using immediacy cues to engage the girl. The evidence is in the forward lean and sustained eye contact. The girl was resisting by showing non-immediacy cues such as not facing the woman, avoiding eye contact, and perhaps neutralizing her emotions with the stony face. The girl’s chewing on the soda straw was a perfect textbook example of an adaptor behavior that suggests nervousness.
The situation changed when the girl turned to face the woman and give more eye contact. The girl’s immediacy increased. The girl initiated the arm touch and the woman reciprocated with the same kind of touch. This reciprocal behavior on the part of the woman supports the idea that the girl’s touch was welcomed.
The woman’s face was far more expressive during the whole observation. When the girl was turned away, the woman’s face at times displayed the textbook description of sadness, fear, and at least briefly, the face of anger, but this lasted only seconds. The girl appeared to be trying to put on a neutral face, but there were several moments where I saw a flicker of anger. The woman’s face changed the most at a point after the girl turned to face her. Near the end of the observation her face appeared more relaxed. For a moment, the smile of real warmth or humor came through because there was evidence in the upper half of the face; I could see the crow’s feet around the eyes in conjunction with a toothy smile.
Other: Because the food court was noisy I heard very few of the words spoken by the two. Based on all the nonverbal cues I observed, I assumed that there had been some disagreement between the two that got resolved by the end of my observation. Because there was some similarity between the two in facial features I guessed that they were mother and daughter, but I have no other evidence to support this.
