Lab 1: Observation of Behavior #251

For the second part of the lab I had to observe behavior of one of my classmates for one minute before and one minute after leaving and arriving home. I took photos of the whole thing and later I thought about obvious things I observed and then I looked at photos and picked up on other subtle observations, or things that reaffirmed my ideas in my initial observations. This is what I observed:

Arriving Home:

One minute before

My subject is walking home, looks neutral, nothing really worrying or exciting about it. He has a drink bottle in hand, its been drunk out of so I assume that he does a lot of walking or long time consuming travel which mean he doesn’t want to get thirsty, it’s also a pump bottle but is missing the leakage cap so I assume that its been refilled and is not new leading me to believe that the subject always carries around water. I notice that he has not got a key, he looks around his bag for what I assume is a key before getting the spare one from the secret location on the porch. Is this normal? Does he not remember where he put his key or did he forget it this morning?

One minute after

Once inside he takes his shoes off. I notice a large stack of shoes in shelves near the door, this is clearly a house rule. The shoes are also very worn meaning they’re probably the shoes used most or his favorite shoes, he cares for them by undoing the laces before taking them off. He goes upstairs, he puts his bag down on his bed and gets out a writing book, pen and ipod. It looks like he is going to do some uni work. He goes back downstairs and puts these on the table, there is no desk in the room so he doesn’t do work in his room, maybe he prefers the more sociable environment of the kitchen or dining area. It also seems very natural, like this is a daily routine. He then goes to the bathroom backing up my hypothesis that he drinks a lot of water and that his bottle is not new. 

Leaving Home:

One minute before

He closes up the back door, picks up the cat and shuts it in the kitchen, this looks like routine and is probably another house rule. He is also very caring towards the cat, patting it and gently carrying it into the kitchen, maybe its a fond childhood pet or old. He looks in a drawer for something, he’s looking at a bunch of keys, maybe looking for a house key? but cannot find what he’s looking for. he goes upstairs and looks in a different draw and still comes away empty handed. He goes into his room and looks in his bag, nothing of interest their either. He struggles to close the bag, its a bit full and the clips look a bit fiddly. He goes downstairs and puts on his shoes, the same shoes that he left near the door when he arrived, his bag keeps falling in the way, he takes it off but it catches on his hood, subject looks visibly frustrated as if this happens a lot. 

One minute after

He uses the key from the secret place again to lock the door, this reaffirms my belief that he was looking for a house key in the drawers before he left and cannot find his own. He begins walking He then readjusts his bag to a more convenient position, this may be to distribute the weight more effectively, or to put it in a place thats out of the way of his legs, it seems like it might not be the most efficient bag for what is in it on this particular day. He then walks down the street, its unhurried and casual in manner.