Ethnographic Research Project

Human Behaviors As Observed in a Shopping Mall

Christopher Janney

1/23/2011

1

ANTH 105

Student: Christopher Janney

Ethnographic Research Project: Human Behaviors As Observed in a Shopping Mall

Introduction

In this project I was directed to conduct a participant observation of a population within a

location of my choosing. The time frame recommended to obtain an accurate data set was a

minimum of three hours. I chose to conduct two sessions which totaled close to 2.5 hours.

Initially a third observation period was scheduled, but I found that the patterns that presented

themselves were so exact from one period to the next that I felt it unnecessary. My original

location of choice posed a problem due to time and distance, so as a fan of movies such as Mall

Rats and Bad Santa I decided to follow my second choice of shopping malls. As a teen I

personally spent an inordinate amount of time at malls in my area as a way to engage socially

with peers, and now as an adult I always find myself “people watching” while at malls and

curious to know more about the people I see. The mall I selected for this project was The Mall

in Columbia in part due to the proximity to my home, but further due to the stereotypical

format of the mall itself. While Arundel Mills Mall is slightly closer in physical distance I found

that it represents more of the outlet mall style versus the typical suburban mall. One of the

main factors I used to differentiate between an outlet mall and a typical suburban mall is the

lack or inclusion of department stores, which The Mall in Columbia has and Arundel Mills does

not.

2

The time of day chosen for my observations was similar, around 12:50 PM. My first observation

took place on Saturday, January 15th, 2011 and the second took place on Friday, January 21st,

2011. Something I felt was important in conducting this project was to compare observations

collected on a weekend and on a weekday. My assumption was there would be glaring

differences in behavior between the two, although I had no expectations of what those

differences would be.

The location within the mall that I chose to observe from was the same both times and is

indicated in Figure 1.0 (General Growth Properties, 2011). Further detail of the area where I

was observing from is provided in Figure 1.1 as I recorded it in my notes. From the vantage

point chosen I was afforded a clear view of the immediate upper level, further into the upper

level, as well as the lower level. It was also a fortunate position due to being positioned

between multiple department stores and exits, as well as central to the flow of traffic.

3

(Open to Lower Level) (Open to Lower Level)

Banana Republic

Bakers Empty The Body Shop

Anne Taylor

Abercrombie & Fitch

Figure 1.0

Figure 1.1

4

Observations

As I stated previously I came into this project with no specific expectations for the outcome. I

was not surprised to see a larger ratio of females to males (approximately 3 to 1) however

there were other trends and patterns that were certainly surprising and interesting. In total I

had eight major patterns that became apparent and that I was able to quantify (Figure 2.0),

which I have grouped in to 4 major themes and an “Other” category. Along with the measured

data that I collected were certain trends that I was unable to quantify, but took notes on

nonetheless which make up the “Other” category. One thing I found interesting was that most

behaviors were readily apparent and could be easily observed during each observation period

with a few noted exceptions.

Theme 1

The first major theme that became apparent was the use, or rather lack thereof cell phones. I

first took notice of this after a woman sat down next to me on the bench while on her cell

phone discussing personal and family matters, including financial issues that some other family

members were dealing with and her own decision to go back to work after being without a job

for a period of time. Prior to her sitting next to me talking on her phone I had not even thought

about looking at phone use. Once I began to actively look for this behavior, I found the number

of mall patrons walking around compared to the number using their phones was surprisingly

low. On Saturday it was approximately 5% (1 in 20) of people, while on the following Friday it

was only approximately 1.43% (1 in 70) of people. It was also observed that in general those on

cell phones were walking alone rather than with others.

5

Theme 2

The second theme observed involved people carrying things. As observed, relatively few

people actually traveled around the mall with food and/or drinks. On Saturday it was only

approximately 1.5% (1 in 65) and on Friday not much higher with approximately 2% (1 in 50).

This measurement was based strictly on those who were visibly carrying a cup, bag, or food

item in their hands. The comparison of men to women with food is not represented, however

it was observed as being essentially even.

Since the location chosen involved shopping the presence of shopping bags was expected and I

decided to track the number of people carrying shopping bags. On Saturday the number of

people was almost 63% (5 in 8). Interestingly on Friday that number dropped to just over 37%

(3 in 8). This measurement does not differentiate between male and female, nor does it define

a difference between carrying one bag, multiple bags, or the number from any one brand. In

general there were more women than men with bags.

Theme 3

Theme 3 began looking at the largest population seen at the mall in more detail: women. As

they were the greatest number of mall patrons it was easiest to collect detailed information

relating to them. The two specific areas observed were women carrying purses and women

wearing jewelry. On Saturday almost all women were carrying purses (95% or 19 in 20). This

number was reduced by almost 25% on Friday to 75% (3 in 4). Of those women carrying purses

the majority of women carried them on their shoulder, specifically represented by 83.33% (5 in

6) on Saturday and 66.67% (2 in 3) on Friday.

6

The second trend observed was the wearing of jewelry by women. For my intents and

purposes jewelry included earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces, and watches. No differentiation

was made between obvious costume jewelry versus high-end jewelry. On both days that

observation took place the number of women wearing some type of jewelry was the same with

approximately 88.89% (8 in 9).

Theme 4

The final theme observed involved families. For this study a family was defined as a nuclear

family of a mother, father, and at least one child. It was decided to use this definition as it was

difficult to determine whether two women or two men together were in a relationship or

simply friends. It was observed that many families used strollers to transport their children in

the mall. Of those families using strollers on Saturday 87.5% (7 in 8) of the men were the ones

pushing the strollers. I was unable to measure this on Friday due to a lack of nuclear families

walking around.

The second observation was made due to a question received by a family member while

discussing the project and results from the Saturday observation. The question posed was,

“How many people with strollers are carrying their children or letting them walk?” As I had

already completed the initial observation, I have no data for that day in regards to this

question. I decided to track this during my Friday observation and found that about 37.5% (3 in

8) people with children and a stroller were either carrying the child or allowing them to walk.

7

Other

Amongst the quantifiable data there were other notable observations that were not calculated

in terms of percentages, but that I still feel were of note. One of these includes the observation

that the most common color of clothing seen on both days of observation was some form of

black, which includes gray and charcoal.

I also found it interesting that although the temperature in the mall was a comfortable

temperature of approximately 70-75 degrees, the majority of people continued to wear their

coats and scarves while walking around. The major exception to this was children.

Another notable observation involved the movement of people in to stores. I observed many

people walking by stores, and while they would look at them at times, they would generally

continue walking by without entering them. It appeared as though most people entering a

store were going to that store on purpose and not simply enticed to enter as they passed.

The final “other” observation was probably the most interesting to me. It was observed that

traffic in the mall travels in nearly regular waves, and that these waves were made up of

strangers traveling in a pack without conscious decision to do so. An even more fascinating

point is that certain characteristics of these waves were apparent such as some waves would be

predominantly male, some would be predominantly female, some would be primarily of one

ethnicity, and some would be constructed of primarily families.

8

On Phone (Te

xting o

r Talk

ing)

With Fo

od or Drin

k in Han

d

People

with at

least

one Shopping B

ag

Ladies

Carryin

g a Purse

Ladies

Carryin

g Purse

on Shoulder

Women W

earing J

ewelr

y

Men Push

ing Stro

ller

Parent w

/Stro

ller, C

arryin

g Child

or Child

Walk

ing

0.00%10.00%20.00%30.00%40.00%50.00%60.00%70.00%80.00%90.00%

100.00%

5.00%1.54%

62.50%

95.24%

83.33% 88.89%87.50%

0.00%

1.43% 2.00%

37.50%

75.00%

66.67%

88.89%

0.00%

37.50%

Saturday, January 15th, 2011 Friday, January 21st, 2012

9

Figure 2.0

Discussion

Theme 1

It is a fact that almost 70% of the world’s population owns a cell phone of some type

(International Telecommunication Union, 2010). For most, including myself, there is a general

feeling that people spend quite a bit of time on their cell phones. While this may be true in

many cases it appears that while at the mall that behavior, while not completely removed, is to

some degree reduced. Observing such a low use of cell phones was quite a shock to me. My

hypothesis upon observing this pattern of behavior was that people generally become socially

removed or closed off when on the phone and therefore by not using the phone they are

behaving in a more social manner. I conducted some further research to determine if there

were any studies related to cell phone use in public places and/or the relation to social

interaction in relation to cell phone usage. The best example I came upon was an article in The

Open Communication Journal from 2008 (O. Banjo, 2008). In the study cell phone usage is

“defined as any application of the cell phone as a tool, including talking, text messaging, game

playing, or the sheer accessibility of the instrument.” (O. Banjo, 2008, p. 127) For my purposes I

did not include the accessibility of the device.

In support of my hypothesis relating to the use of cell phones reducing social connection and

interaction, and thus the reduced use in the mall being affected by this I found that Banjo, Hu,

and Shyam Sundar cited two different works in stating that “Although observational research

shows that most cell phone users retreat from social settings when they are using the cell

phone in a public place (Ling, 1999b), findings also suggest that cell phone users use the cell

phone in public spaces as a form of exclusion (Bugeja, 2005; Ling, 2002). According to

10

observational studies, cell phone users have been seen to acknowledge the presence of

strangers, by glancing or gazing, but, by their body language, appear closed to the idea of

pursuing any interaction (Ling, 1999b).” Based on this information it would seem plausible that

people consider the mall to represent a social setting and therefore would prefer to reduce the

amount of cell phone usage as appropriate.

Theme 2

I was unable to find any documented research on people eating in the mall including eating in

the food court versus carrying around their food. In my own experience I know that I tend to

eat in the food court if choose to eat mall food, and in general I will discard the cup or bottle of

drink. In large part throwing away the cup or bottle is to reduce the amount of stuff that I am

carrying so that my hands are free to look at merchandise in stores, and so that I don’t have to

worry about entering stores that frown upon shopping in them with drinks and food. I believe

if I were to conduct interviews with patrons in the mall the responses would support the

reasoning of not carrying food and drink.

My observation of the volume of people carrying shopping bags was surprising to say the least.

In large part my surprise comes from the economic downturn that we have experienced over

the last 2 to 3 years. My expectation was that there would be a minimum of patrons that were

actually purchasing merchandise. I believe that this is an expectation that many people would

have as is shown by Randy White in his paper The Grounded Consumer: Changing the Paradigm

of Shopping Center Entertainment (Randy White, 2009). While we would like to believe that

the overwhelming majority of the population has been affected by the recession and changed

11

their behaviors (Randy White, 2009), the concept of “conspicuous consumption” is very much

alive and well. Also of note is that even though the outlook on shopping malls as a whole has

been bleak for a few years now (Dokoupil, 2008) it would appear that they are still thriving.

A final note on the observation relating to people carrying shopping bags that I think is

important is the difference between results on Saturday and Friday. It appeared as though

more of the people visiting the mall on Friday were there for food, socializing, or some other

reason than shopping. I believe this hypothesis is clearly evident in the difference of almost half

as many people with bags on Friday as on Saturday.

Theme 3

The finding that most women carry purses was not all-together surprising. In a report from

CNNMoney.com and Fortune Magazine it was found that “Ninety-five percent of women aged

18 to 64 carry a purse every day.” (Boyle, 2007) The second observation concerning women

carrying their purse on their shoulder didn’t seem baffling either. Initially my assumption was

that it simply keeps it out of the way and is more convenient. As a male who does not carry a

purse I knew that my experience in this area would be limited. After digging further for

information I found that women tend to carry large quantities of stuff in their purses, which has

steadily increased over the years causing the need for larger bags as well. (Shrager, 2010) The

extra weight associated with these larger, more full purses creates a need to find an easier way

to carry them, leading to putting them over the shoulder to bear the extra weight comfortably.

With regard to women wearing jewelry I was unable to find any sustainable references or

studies. It would appear, based on my observations, that many women use jewelry as simply

12

an extension of their outfit. In many cases it was apparent that there was a mix of costume and

high-end jewelry being worn. My assumption would be that for many there are items of value

that have meaning behind them on a personal level and are worn for that reason, while the

fashion or costume jewelry is often worn as a way to add detail to the outfit. I believe in order

to test this hypothesis it would require a study all by itself.

Theme 4

As a parent, and even more so as a father, I was not completely surprised by the finding that in

general men were seen pushing the stroller. Based on my research it appears that this is a

trend that has been changing since the 80’s as evidenced by two articles in the journal Sex

Roles. The first article was written in 1989 and presents information relating to female and

male attention to toddlers while at the zoo. (A. L. Burns, 1989) In this article it was shown that

women were more likely to be the caretakers and to push the stroller. (A. L. Burns, 1989) In the

second article, only three years later in 1992, it was shown that women would be “more likely

to push empty strollers” (G. Mitchell, 1992), while men would be “more likely to carry

toddlers.” (G. Mitchell, 1992) It is my belief that since then the trend has continued to evolve

and change to present day when it is considered normal for a father to have a larger role in the

life of his children. The observations made during this project support this theory strongly in

my opinion.

With regard for the observation of people with strollers having their children walk or carrying

them I was unable to find any related research or statistics. I can speak from personal

experience however in stating that as my son gets older, the more he wants to get out of the

13

stroller and move on his own. I would tend to believe that this is the case for many other

parents as well.

Other

As stated before, these observations were things that I felt were important enough to be

included but that did not have quantifiable data to be placed in their own themes. Even though

I did not have a tremendous amount of data to go on I still conducted research to support the

findings that I presented in this section. The color of clothing was something that interested me

because I truly didn’t expect to see such a lack of color among clothing. After further research I

found an article that describes black in this way: “Black is the color of authority and power. It is

popular in fashion because it makes people appear thinner. It is also stylish and timeless.”

(Johnson, 2007) Statements such as this could potentially give some reason for such a large

population wearing so much black.

One of the more random events that took place during my research project was a chance

encounter with some of the undercover security personnel. On my first day of observation I

noticed approximately 3 people whose movement in and out of stores, as well as around the

mall, did not match with the general movement of the general population. At the same time I

noticed that they seemed almost hyper-aware of the environment around them in comparison

to the majority of people walking around. At one point they walked away and one of the

females circled back to come and sit down on the bench beside me for a few minutes. The

male of the group showed up after approximately 15 minutes and they left together, only to

both return and sit down after another 15 minutes. As I listened to the conversation between

14

the two I quickly learned that they were watching people as well. I asked them if they were

“people watching” and they replied that yes they were, to catch people stealing. “Jack” and

“Jill” asked me exactly what I was doing, and when I explained my project they asked what

trends I had spotted thus far. I shared some of the patterns I had picked up on so far, including

the observation about most people continuing to wear their coats and scarves regardless of the

comfortable temperature. Jack told me that as he is training new people for the job, one of the

first lessons he teaches is to always dress as though you just came in from outside, which I

believe validates my observation. I was not able to find any further research or statistics

relating to this topic.

Amazingly I was unable to find any research to substantiate my observation relating to people

entering stores intentionally versus randomly, so again I will fall back on my own experience as

well as observation. Personally as I travel through the mall it is rare for me to stop and enter a

store simply by walking past it. Generally speaking I have some idea of what I am looking for

and where I want to go when I make a trip to the mall. Something else that I noticed as I sat

outside of the Abercrombie & Fitch store on Friday was that even as the music blared in a very

party type atmosphere, and the employees danced and acted goofy just inside the doors,

patrons would look at them, smile, and possibly make comments but not enter. I found it

interesting that even when obviously entertained patrons seemed no more likely to stop

without having already been intentionally heading to a specific store.

The “herd mentality” seen in my observations is well documented by many social psychologists

such as Freud, Jung, and Le Bon as well as philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. In

15

fact the commonality between the waves of people that I observed, some being more male,

more female, etc., is in fact at the very heart of the herd behavior. Gabriel Tarde, a French

sociologist and criminologist who challenged the sociological model of his time by Emile

Durkheim, began the study of the “group mind” which was furthered by Le Bon to the “herd

mentality.” While my observations were not groundbreaking, it is exciting to see that there is a

strongly accepted and supported scientific history of the observed behaviors.

Conclusion

During my observations I was stunned to see how obvious the patterns became so quickly.

Later I found an article from a UK publication, The Telegraph, from February 2010 that provides

the results from a study involving tracking movements and behaviors of people using data from

cell phones. In this article it states that the “location data from mobile phones has indicated

that 93 per cent of human movement is predictable.” (Warman, 2010) I completely agree with

this conclusion, and I believe that given more time and resources to conduct this research there

are even more specific results that could be derived and that would support this.

One of the major changes I would make if conducting further research would be to conduct

observations while utilizing a video recorder to make counting people and categorizing them

much easier. I attempted to track the number of males versus females, as well as the number

of people walking alone, in groups/families, and couples but the sheer volume and speed of

foot traffic made this task nearly impossible. The same problem presented itself when

attempting to track ethnicities as well.

16

Overall I was pleased with the information gathered, both in amount and quality. I was

disappointed at the lack of better quantitative data and would certainly work to improve that in

the future. I believe it might also be beneficial to conduct multiple random interviews as well

to gain a better, more qualitative, perspective on some of the observed behaviors such as the

wearing of black clothing, as well as the observations relating to women and families. The lack

of specific resources documenting some of the behaviors that I observed was frustrating, but

could be due in part to a lack of knowledge of where to look. All in all, I look forward to future

projects and to continuing to observe and study the creature that is Homo sapien, and the

many interesting behaviors that we represent.

BibliographyA. L. Burns, G. Mitchell, S. Obradovich (1989). Of Sex Roles and Strollers: Female and Male Attention to Toddlers at the Zoo. Sex Roles , 309-315.

Boyle, M. (2007, April 26). The power of the purse. Retrieved January 23, 2011, from CNNMoney.com: http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/25/magazines/fortune/pluggedin_Boyle_purses.fortune/index.htm

Dokoupil, T. (2008, November 12). Is The Mall Dead? Retrieved January 23, 2011, from Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/2008/11/11/is-the-mall-dead.html

G. Mitchell, S. Obradovich, F. Herring, C. Tromborg, A. L. Burns (1992). Reproducing Gender in Public Places: Adults' Attention to Toddlers in Three Public Locales. Sex Roles , 323-330.

General Growth Properties. (2011). Directory. Retrieved January 22, 2011, from The Mall in Columbia: http://www.themallincolumbia.com/directory

International Telecommunication Union. (2010, October 21). Market information and Statistics. Retrieved January 23, 2011, from International Telecommunication Union: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/KeyTelecom.html

Johnson, D. (2007). Color Psychology. Retrieved January 23, 2011, from Infoplease: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/colors1.html

O. Banjo, Y. Hu, S. Shyam Sundar (2008). Cell Phone Usage and Social Interaction with Proximate Others: Ringing in a Theoretical Model. The Open Communication Journal , 127-135.

17

White, R (2009). The Grounded Consumer: Changing the Paradigm of Shopping Center Entertainment. White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group.

Shrager, L. (2010, March 3). Heavy purses can be a real drag. Retrieved January 23, 2011, from StarTribune.com: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/style/86253782.html

Warmafn, M. (2010, February 24). Human behaviour '93 per cent predictable'. Retrieved January 2011, 23, from The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/7308674/Human-behaviour-93-per-cent-predictable.html

18