1.0 Observation
I made observations while at KFC restaurant in Pasadena. I visit the place to have some fries and chicken. My visit happens at about noon. The location is a good and serene with well-decorated entrance through the lobby. Actually, the use of lights and art pieces makes it a place worth visiting repeatedly. While queuing, I was listening to soft jazz music playing at the background. This combined with the cool ambience made me feel so relaxed, and I could not even notice while my turn came. Most people at the restaurant were the middle and upper middle socioeconomic class. In terms of the gender, there was a balance between the males and females. Majority of the clients were middle-aged persons.
2.0 Social Norms
The two social norms that I observed at the restaurant were the model of queuing and conversation among couples at the table. First, during queuing, I realized that we were on a straight line with an estimated 1-meter distance between one person to other, yet no one was jumping the queue. I came to learn that the people gave each other the distance that they needed from each other. Notably, most Americans in this part of the city valued personal distance from each other as exemplified through the way the queue was formed and moved. This was strange to me compared to the many places I have been where people queue and stay close to each other.
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The second social norm that I observed was the seating patterns of the couples who had visited the restaurant. They sat on the tables facing each other. I saw a few tables and one would see that pattern. They would converse through light and low tones without causing too much attention. At least, I observed three couples seated on three separate tables that conversed looking at each other straight in the eyes. It was different from one of the African countries I visited where couples looked at each other in the public. In fact, the culture at the place I visited deemed a woman as disrespectful, for looking at a man straight in the eyes. Through comparison, and the foregoing experiences, I learnt that social norms vary from one social context to the other (Edmonds, 2014).
3.0 Concepts
The social norms I observed in the scene fit with sociological concepts and theories we have learned so far in class. For instance, the observation I made about the queuing pattern made me reflect on the issues of distance. The new age has come with increased advocacy for social distance between people. The new society advances for a culture of individualism where people focus on building their interest and not of others. Clearly, through the queuing pattern, it is clear that the people in that setting valued their space. They did not want too much contact with others unless the contact was necessary. This reflects the issues of social distance and attention covered in class.
The other issue that comes into play is that of gender and gender roles in families. Through the observations, I noted the ways couples sat and looked at each other in the tables, I came to realize gender, and gender roles do matter in behavior. Apparently, it became clear that there is equality between men and women in that social setting. They both sat at the table and would look at each other during the period of making conversations. This is as compared to the case I mentioned in Africa where women and men are considered to be of different status. For instance, in countries such as Saudi, women are treated differently from men (Hechter, 2001).
4.0 Reflection
Indeed, observing others through a sociological lens was different from when I have “watched people” in the past in the sense that the former made me get answers on why people to or act in a particular way and not the other. A sociologist can bring new perspectives to our understanding of everyday human behavior through explaining why people do act the way they act or make choices they continually make.
References
Hechter, M. (2001). Social Norms. Texas: Russell Sage Foundation.
Edmonds, B. (2014). The Complexity of Social Norms. Chicago: Springer.
