i

An experiment of taking intimate pictures with strangers:

Hsioa-Jou Chu

Deportment of English

Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages

Abstract

The study was inspired by Richard Renaldi's project "touching strangers" and Kurt Tang's

friendship experiment. Both projects had raised a similar issue of the modern society that

people in the contemporary society tend to be less concerned of their surroundings. The sense

indifference made people more and more alienated. Owing to those two projects, the

researcher came up with a similar experiment, but the subjects of the study was focusing on

the university students. Therefore, three questions were asked in the research: (1)Can the

experiment arouse students' attention of their surrounds, (2) after building up a short term

relationship with those in the experiment, will it make students concern about other people, (3)

can people dissolve distrust and suspicion between people in a short time?

The study utilized a mixed-methods design which combined both experiments and

face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Since the grounded theory had been used in the

experiment, the researcher had to participate in the study. In addition, the study was

investigating the reaction of people, the nonverbal communication was reviewed in the

literature part. It was found that more than half of the subjects had shown the answer with

positive attitude. Additionally, the result not only prove the event can let the students become

awareness to their surrounds, also it was easy to dissolve the distrust and suspicion in a short

time.

Keywords: stranger, intimate pictures

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Contents

Abstract .............................................................................................................. 錯誤! 尚未定義書籤。

Contents ................................................................................................................................................... i

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 1

Literature review ..................................................................................................................................... 5

Nonverbal communication .................................................................................................................. 5

Facial expression ............................................................................................................................. 5

Gestures........................................................................................................................................... 6

Proxemics........................................................................................................................................ 6

Grounded theory ................................................................................................................................. 7

Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 9

Participants ......................................................................................................................................... 9

Materials ........................................................................................................................................... 10

Design ............................................................................................................................................... 10

Procedure.......................................................................................................................................... 12

Advance preparation ..................................................................................................................... 12

Experimental procedure ................................................................................................................ 13

Interview ....................................................................................................................................... 13

Data analysis ......................................................................................................................................... 14

The first psychological feelings of taking intimate pictures with stranger ....................................... 15

The reaction and feeling during the experiment ............................................................................... 15

The most embarrassing section during the experiment ................................................................. 16

Swap the second section into firs section...................................................................................... 17

The passive and initiative situation ............................................................................................... 18

The unconcerned modern university students ................................................................................... 18

Phubbing ....................................................................................................................................... 20

Education ...................................................................................................................................... 20
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The actions will you do in the future ................................................................................................. 21

The juncture of interaction with strangers .................................................................................... 21

Attend the experiment again ......................................................................................................... 21

Maintaining the friendships .......................................................................................................... 22

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 22

Result ................................................................................................................................................ 22

Suggestion and limitation ................................................................................................................. 23

Works Cited .......................................................................................................................................... 24

 1

Hsiao-Jou Chu

Professor Li-ying Wu

Research Writing

21 May 2014

Introduction

When I was an exchange student in University of Hradec Králové in Czech Republic, I

had attended an English Communication course. In that course, there was a lecture topic

which was about how the people interact with others. Our professor came up with a short

YouTube video which was about a creative and adventurous photographer who started a

project named “Touching Strangers.” This bizarre project has been started from 2007 in the

U.S.A. The photographer of this special works is Richard Renaldi who majored in

photography. There were two objectives of this unique project Renaldi had been noted “to

introduce an unpredictable variable into a traditional photographic formula and to create

spontaneous, fleeting relationships between complete strangers"(Stauffer ,2014). In Renaldi's

point of view, this project did create a chance for people to reduce their overt self-protection

and to think beyond racial and ethnic divisions.

Based on the previous project See American By Bus he did in 2003, Renalidi came up

with the Touching Strangers project. The project was carried out through randomly asking

strangers, who walking on the street, and inviting them to take some pictures with another

stranger. It sounds simple, but the project was a highly-challenging task for the photographer.

The most difficult thing is people had to find strangers who were willing to cooperate with

both the photographer and other strangers. For this project, there were two reasons that

explained why this was considered was a difficult project.

First, it was a time-consuming job for the people who attended the project because it was

difficult for the photographer to find two or more than two people on the street in a short time.
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There was also a chance that you would happen to invite people who were friends. In other

words, the participants probably would know each other before. The second reason was that

the participants were not merely taking some pictures, they had to physically touch each other

and acted intimately. In this situation, the strangers must try their best to push themselves out

from their comfort zone in a short period of time. For the reason that they had to give up their

own prejudice, negotiate with emotion, break the awkwardness, and finally cooperate with

each other, "Renaldi used the method of touching, and the power of photography to melt

away the cultural boundaries in human society." (Ibsen, 2013)

In 2013, Renaldi's works had been successfully funded by the Kickstarter’s which is a

company focusing on bringing creative projects to life and offering a crowd-funding platform

for the artists. Thanks to the Aperture Foundation, a non-profit foundation that Renaldi's had

worked with them in 2006, the Touching Strangers project also caught the executive director

Chris Boot's attention too. He thought that those great photographs had something positive to

say about human connections. Owing to the idea of Touching Strangers being similar to

Kickstarter philosophy, the project got the opportunity to be placed on the Kickstarter’s

E-platform. The Aperture Foundation started putting Renaldi's ideas on the platform not only

to touch the strangers, but even more willingly to give help about bringing the Touching

Strangers to the world.

During the exchange time, I had done investigation on this topic in order to investigate

whether there were similar projects done by other people. I found that there was a Chinese

photographer named Kurt Tang who had done a similar project in 2013. The project took

place in Canton only for six days and the name of the project is Friendship Experiment. The

motivation for Kurt to start this project was that he had discovered a phenomenon in China:

The alienation. Two reasons caused this phenomenon. First, urbanization not only caused

more and more people to migrate to the metropolis, but it also intensified the alienation

between people. Furthermore, the outsiders, whose hometown was in the countryside, have
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been separated with their family and lovers as a result of working in the City, which was

another reason for alienation increasingly.

After heaving discovered the reason of alienation, he came up with an interesting idea of

letting the strangers to take pictures together. All that he wanted to prove was that

establishing friendship between strangers and creating happiness was not as difficult as

people thought. His aim was breaking the city's sense of loneliness and eliminating the

distrust and suspicion in a short time between people. From the project, Kurt had found out

one interesting result. He said "Lots of strangers, especially the young generation, were

willing to exchange their contact information and became friends in the future.", Moreover, in

his photograph exhibition of the Friendship Experiment he mentioned that as long as there are

people willing to participate in this experiment, the seeds of joy would be created in the

society. (My own translation in Chinese. Den, 2013).He hoped that through this photograph

exhibition will allow us to re-experience the value of friendship. He also said that he wanted

to extend this idea of creativity to other cities in China, such as Shanghai or Beijing, in the

future.

I was inspired by both Renalidi and Kurt's idea to engage in a similar project and

decided to combine both of their points of views of finding strangers to take pictures together.

Moreover, as a result of that there has been very little practical hypothesis for this kinds of

project as well as that there is limited literature about this experiment, I had decided to use

grounded theory to support my research methods. The theory, therefore, will appear along the

process and in the end, after finishing the experiment of taking pictures and data analysis.

My project was conducted at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. The reason for

focusing on the student group was that I also discovered a phenomenon of alienation for

university students, of which it was different from Kurt's urbanization. Of course urbanization

had played a role in alienation too, but it was only one factor which happened in university

students. The new phenomenon I had observed was that the internet addiction disorder was
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another factor making people alienated from each other in the real life. In my research, I not

only asked students to participate in taking pictures experiment, but after the activity I had a

short interview with all of the participants. I had added three new elements into the

experiment which Renalidi and Kurt's didn't have in their projects. Instead of taking one

picture, I had eight pictures taken for each group in the event. Moreover, I had asked the

participants to think about the intimate postures by themselves. For the most special element

which I added was that the participants had to use the flip out LCD screen digital camera

taking pictures by themselves.

The purpose for adding those new elements in my project experiment is to consider the

difference between Western and Eastern culture from Renaldi's project. As we know that

Eastern cultures, especially northeast Asia cultures, do not favor physical contact among

people and be intimate with people who you do not know because of Confucianism. There is

a proverb in The Mencius that says "it is improper for men and women to touch each other's

hand in passing objects." This concept influences our value about not being too intimate with

others who are not your friends or family. In particularly being to close with the opposite

gender is kind of taboo in Chinese culture. In this circumstance, taking photo with a stranger

will become a challenging task.

There are three questions to which I would like to know answers from. First, whether or

not this event can help students arouse their attention to their surroundings. The second

question is that after having the short relationship with people, whom you only meet for a few

minutes, will this make students become sensitive and be willing to show their concern about

other people. Last, I would like to know whether the distrust and suspicion between people

could be dissolve in a short time.

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Literature review

Nonverbal communication

According to Free Online English Dictionary, "nonverbal communication" has been defined

as:

Communication without the use of spoken language. Nonverbal

communication includes gestures, facial expressions, and body positions

(known collectively as “body language”), as well as unspoken understandings

and presuppositions, and cultural and environmental conditions that may affect

any encounter between people. (2014)

The nonverbal communication history had been mentioned the book written by Allen

Pease (1984). In 1872, nonverbal communication started to be researched by Charles Darwin.

In his book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, the facial expressions and

body language had been analyzed. The study of nonverbal communication began in 1960s

and Albert Mehrabian and Birdwhistell, were greatly contributing to the nonverbal

communication field. As for the contribution of Albert Mehrabian, he founded the

communications model whose impact of message is about 7% words and 38% voice of tone

and 55% nonverbal communication that takes place amongst humans. As for Birdwhistell, the

kinesics was named by him.

Pertaining to this study about intimate interacting with strangers, the nonverbal

communication would be only reviewed in four types, they were facial expression, gestures,

posture and, proxemics.

Facial expression

When talking about the facial expression, the pioneer, Dr. Paul Ekman was the one who first

studied the relation between emotions and facial expressions. According to Aleix Martinez's

research, the study indicated that human can make more than twenty-one facial expressions.
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In other words, facial expressions show the inner thoughts easily. As the book What Ever

Body Is Saying said that, "When it comes to emotions, our faces are the mind's canvas"(Joe

Navarro and Marvin Karlins 2008 p.165).

Gestures

From the study of Krauss, Chen, and Chawla(2000) there are three main types of gestures:

adaptors, symbolic, and conversational.

The meaning of the adaptors in gestures is "touching behaviors and movements that

indicate internal states typically related to arousal or anxiety"(2014). As the symbolic, which

also can be the emblems, is the gestures have specific or conventionalized meaning.

Moreover, the symbolic of gestures would have different meaning in different culture. For the

conversational gesture, it is a gesture accompanying speech which can be used to illustrate

the verbal message.

Proxemics

The concept of proxemics was developed by Edward T. Hall. The word proxemics means

"the study of the cultural, behavioral, and sociological aspects of spatial distances between

individuals"(2014). Below is the Diagram 1, which was designed by Edward T. Hall's,

showing the space distance for people. There are four types of space distance which wer

developed by Edward T. Hall's.

1.Intimate distance (between15 and 46 centimeters)

This is the most inviolable space distance. "Only those who are emotionally close to that

person guards as if it were his own property"(Allen Pease, 1984). Such as spouse, parents and,

children can be in this close.

2.Personal distance (between15 and 46 centimeters)

"Physical distance at this level usually occurs between people who are family members or

close friends. The closer the people can comfortably stand while interacting can be an

indicator of the intimacy of the relationship"(Kendra Cherry 2014).

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3.Social distance (between15 and 46 centimeters)

The distance for strangers or other people who are not so close to you, such as the shopkeeper

or the person who you only see once a month.

4.Public distance (between15 and 46 centimeters)

The distance whenever we are in the public speaking situation or facing a large group of

people, such as attending a performance in public place.

Diagram 1

Grounded theory

Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss defined the grounded theory as "how the discovery of the

theory from data－systematically obtained and analyzed in social research－can be furthered

"( Glaser and Strauss 2007). Moreover, at the begin of the web page Grounded Theory Online;

supporting GT researchers it had mention that, "Grounded Theory is a research tool which

enables you to seek out and conceptualize the latent social patterns and structures of your

area of interest through the process of constant comparison" (Helen Scott 2014). Furthermore,

the theory pays attention to the function of the study results because the development of the

grounded theory is based on pragmatism and symbolic interactionism. In addition, grounded

theory is “ideal for exploring integral social relationships and the behavior of groups where

there has been little exploration of the contextual factors that affect individual’s lives". As
 8

Dey said "the grounded theory likes an open mind not an empty head", therefore, grounded

theory is the area for further study not the area for you to prove the theory which had already

been proved. Through the process of systematic data collection and the phenomenon

generalization, it explore the new theories reflect to the social phenomena built from the top

to the bottom.(Calma, 2014)

Antony Bryant and Kathy Charmaz (2013) had talked about the history of the grounded

theory which was discovered in 1960s, by two sociologists, Barney G. Glaser and Anselm L.

Strauss. The method was not named as such directly, instead, it was developed when Barney

Glaser and Anselm Strauss had collaborate research on dying hospital patients in the medical

school of the University of California. The first of the application of grounded theory was

used in their research Awareness of Dying. Two years later, they published a book about the

methodology they used. The name of the book is The Discovery of Grounded Theory.

As Anselm Strauss and Juliet Corbin (1998) had listed six characteristics in the Basics of

Qualitative Research: Second Edition: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded

Theory for people who want to use the grounded theory as the method:

1. The ability to step back and critically analyze situations.

2. The ability to recognize the tendency toward bias.

3. The ability to think abstractly

4. The ability to be flexible and open to helpful criticism.

5. Sensitivity to the words and actions of respondents.

6. A sense of absorption and devotion to the work process (Anselm Strauss and Juliet

Corbin 1998).

There are five analytic phases he identified: research design, data collection, data ordering,

data analysis and literature comparison. In the research design, he suggested two steps which

are reviewed of technical literature and selecting cases. In other words, the researcher has to

define the research question and select the subjects which are more theoretically useful. As
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the data collection, he also had two steps in this phase. There are developing rigorous data

collection protocols which mean collecting the data with interview, questionnaire,

observation, or multiple data collection methods. Another step of this phase is entering the

field. In the phase of data ordering, it means organizing notes and arranging events

chronologically that can help the next phase become easier. There are three steps in data

analysis. The first step is analyzing data relating to the first case by using the open coding,

axial coding, and selective

coding. Next step is theoretical sampling that means forming a preliminary theory. The last

step is when the theoretical is saturated you reaching closure. For the last phase, literature

comparison is to compare the conflicting or similar theory being discovered. (Pandit,1996).

Methodology

As said in the introduction chapter, this piece of research was inspired by both Richard

Renaldi's project Touching Strangers and Kurt Tang's Friendship Experiment. Basically, the

whole research process was based on those two projects with a few changes. This

experimental study utilized a mixed-methods design. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews

were used. In this chapter, methodological considerations of participants, materials, design,

and procedure were described.

Participants

There were eighteen participants taking part in the experiment. Except the researcher,

seventeen of the participants have been interviewed. According to the grounded theory used

in the research, the researcher had to attend the experiment herself. Moreover, considering

that the gender would influence the parameter of the data, the subjects included both female

and male participants. There were nine people in both genders. As for the part about finding

suitable participants, I used two way to find eligible participants: (1) asking my classmates

and (2)inviting my friends' friends to take part in the project. In order to narrow down the
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scope of the study and form a similar socio-economic background, the selection of the

participants had to be qualified in the following three qualifications. Firstly, the participants

had to be students at Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. Secondly, the participants

must major in language studies. More specifically, half of the participants were my

classmates who major in English. As the other half of the participants major in Chinese,

French, German, and Japanese. The last qualification is the age of the students which must be

similar. Based on the above mentioned rationale, the participants were not randomly selected;

on the contrary, they were chosen on purpose. For avoiding the participants to know each

other before the experiment, they had been asked whether they knew each other or not.

Materials

The experiment took place outdoors, so there were different equipment been used in

experimental study and face-to-face semi-structured interviews. During the experiment,

digital video and digital camera with flip-out LCD screen have been used. Apart from the

researcher, there were only two participants in the experiment. In this case, the tripod had

been used to set the digital video in order to record the whole process. The reason for

recording all the process was to facilitate the researcher to group plentiful information and

examine the accurate data after finishing the experiment. In addition, there were two items

the video focus on which were the verbal language and non-verbal language. In other words,

the video was about the interaction between two participants, such as what kind of the

subjects they talked and what kind of the action they acted.

After the experiment, the participants were asked to do the interview immediately.

However, in the face-to-face interviews, only smartphone was used as the equipment to

record the interview content. The participants have been recording there non-verbal language

in the experiment part, so there was no need for the researcher to video the interview section

again. For the semi-structured interviews, the interview questions were prepared beforehand.
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Design

The research had been designed in two parts: the experiment and interview. Both the

experiment and the interview took place in Wenzao Ursuline University of Languages. The

participants were asked to gather either in front of the Zhengqi Hall or on the basement of the

Administration Building. There were two reasons for choosing school as the place for the

research. First, to prevent the participants gettinh lost and wasting time in finding the

assembly point, it was more convenient for them to meet in the school. The other reason was

to create a comfortable and relaxed environment. In the circumstance of a familiar place, the

participants could be reduced of stress and uncomfortableness.

As for grouping the participants, the experiment had been designed with consideration

of gender differences. There were nine pairs in three groups in the experiment: The male and

male group, the male and female group, and the female and female group. The reason for that

was based on considering that the result would have a few divergences based on the gender.

In order to create the passive and initiative situation for comparison in the experiment,

the project had been designed in two major parts. First part, the participants had to do the

postures asked by the researcher. The purpose for doing this was helping the participants to

reduce the nervousness and let them know each other's baseline. To the second part, the

participants had to think about the postures by themselves. In that case, there were two things

which the researcher had planned to analyze. To find how they would act when there were no

external factors and to test how intimate the participants could cooperative and coordinate.

Moreover, the participants were not making the pictures immediately; instead, in each part

they had five minutes before the experiment started. The reason for doing this was also for

reducing the stress and observing how they solved the awkward situation. Besides, , there

were two sections in both parts which were selfie and letting the researcher take the pictures

for them. In terms of selfie, the researcher tried to create an awkward atmosphere. As for the

part of taking the pictures by the researcher, the function about it was making a wide space
 12

for the participants to interact with each other. During the whole experiment, participants

would have eight photos, which means in each section they were required to take two photos.

The point about making plenty of pictures was to let the participants feel how they looked in

these four situations and give the researcher the information for analysis. The whole

experiment took about seven to thirty minutes depending on how the participants interacting

with each other.

In order to gather accurate information, the participants were asked to be interviewed

immediately after finishing the experiment. To avoid misunderstandings, the interviews were

conducted in Mandarin Chinese, which is the native language of the researcher and the

interviewees. The time of the interview was controlled at seven minutes to half an hour. There

were four themes that the interview questions were based. The research questions in the

qualitative study were:

1. The first impression of the experiment and the person you meet.

2. The feeling during the experiment.

3. The opinion about the modern society.

4. The action you will do in the future.

Procedure

Advance preparation

It took about two weeks to finish this preparation. The first step of this section was finding

seventeen qualified participants. Then the participants were randomly paired into three big

groups which were the male to male group, the male to female group, and the female to

female group. After assigning the participants into different groups, the next step would be

arranging the time with each pair. In this step, it was possible that grouping could be

rearranged because the participants must not have known each other before the experiment.

In order to validate the data, the experiment participant- interviewees were not informed of

the detail of the experiment beforehand. If the participants asked what the experiment would
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be, the conservative answer would be merely, "it was an experiment which you had to take

several intimate pictures with a stranger." If the participants still wanted to have more

information, I would simply say that it is "concerned about data collection. There is one thing

that can be promised which is the pictures are only be used in the present research."

Experimental procedure

For the experimental procedure, it took three weeks to finish the experiment with nine groups.

After making an appointment with each pair, the experiment began. The video recording

started from the time of the participants met each other till the experiment ended. Before

starting the experiment, the researcher had to give the detail of how the experiment would be

going. There were four things which the researcher had to mention. First, the researcher had

to reconfirm whether the participants knew each other or not. Second, the participants needed

to be informed that the whole experiment was recorded for collecting data. Third, the

participants needed to be ensured that the pictures and the video, which was recorded in the

experiment, would only be used for research. Last, the process of the experiment was then

introduced. After the participants agreed about all the things mentioned and know the process

of the experiment, five minutes for a short conversation were given. During the time of

conversation, the researcher could timely raise some topics only in the case of the participants

asking the researcher for help. After they finished the conversation, the experiment started.

Certainly, while taking pictures, the participants were allowed to speak with each other. As

mentioned above, The participants had to do the postures which were asked by the researcher.

They had to use the digital camera with flip-out LCD screen selfie two pictures until each

other satisfied. In the time the participants were looking at the photos, the researcher had to

take note of the participants' reaction, for example, their facial expressions. In addition, there

was no time limit when they took the pictures. After selfieing, the control of the digital

camera would be in the hand of the researcher. Similar to the step of selfie for the participants,

the researcher had to take two photos and asked whether or not the participants were satisfied
 14

with those pictures. In addition, the participants were allowed to look at the pictures which

they took in both two sections. In order to compare the difference, the researcher had to ask

the participants of what they thought and had to write down the words they said. Before

moving to the second part of the experiment, the participants were asked to have a

five-minute short conversation again. When they finished the talk, it was the time to begin the

second part of the experiment: thinking about the posture by themselves. In the second part,

the researcher gave the participants space to do what they preferred. Of course, the researcher

could give some suggestion of what they could do, but the decision was on the participants.

The process was thesame as the first part. The whole experiment took seven to thirty minutes

which depended on how the participants interacted with each other.

Interview

After taking eight pictures, the participants were immediately asked to have a

face-to-face, semi-structured interview. In order not to influence the validity of the data, the

interviewees were interviewed individually. Also, , the smartphone had been used to

recording the contact from the beginning to the end. At the beginning of the interview, the

interviewee had been requested to read the questions. There was no time limit for reading the

questions, but the interview part was controlled in seven minutes to half an hour. To avoid

misunderstandings, the main language in the interview was in Mandarin Chinese, which was

the native language of both the researcher and the interviewees. It was accepted for using

English in the interview when the interviewee needed. After the interviewee felt prepared to

be interviewed, he or she had been asked to give a brief introduce about their name, the major

of language, and the gender of the other person who they took pictures with. After

introducing themselves, the interviewees were asked questions. The questions were divided

into four parts in the interview: The first impression of the experiment and the person you

met, the feeling during the experiment, the opinion about the modern society, and the action

you will do in the future. There were totally sixteen questions in the whole interview. A
 15

procedure flow chart was presented in the following.

Data analysis

The first psychological feelings of taking intimate pictures with stranger

After finishing the experiment, the participants had been immediately asked to have an

interview. In the interview, the seventeen participants had been asked to describe the feeling

about how did they feel when hearing they had to take intimate pictures with a stranger.

Moreover, the participants were allowed to give more than one adjectives to expressive their

feeling of the experiment. The adjectives words would be presented in Table 1.

Interviewees
Adjective
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 P11 P12 P13 P14 P15 P16 P17 Total

Interesting            11

Embarrassing       6

Surprising     4

Nervous    3

Strange   2

Table 1. The feeling which participants had describe when they first heard the experiment.

Base on the Table 1, most of the participants felt that taking intimate pictures with

strangers was an interesting experiment. Six participants had said that the experiment

sounded attractive and special which aroused their curiosity and made them willing to

participate in the event. Moreover, all of the participants had never heard about this kind of

experiment which was the main reason that made them feel the experiment was an interesting

activity. Furthermore, four participants indicated that they felt surprising because they never

thought that there was a person would do such research. The same reason was given by the

participants who thought the experiment was strange, too. Also, "it is daring research on

observing the interaction between people by taking intimate pictures with a stranger " said by
 16

Participant 17.

Owing to the individual differences, the personality had played an important part of

expressing the feeling of the experiment. Five participants had emphasized their outgoing

character which let them feel the experiment was not a task. In contrast, four participants had

mentioned that they were introverted persons which would make them feel embarrassed and

nervous when having an intimate action with a stranger. As Participants 1and 5 said, "I do not

feel embarrassed, but I am afraid that the other participant would be embarrassed when taking

part in the experiment."

The reaction and feeling during the experiment

This part presents how the participants felt during the experiment byanswering four questions.

There was one multiple choice question which was about the most embarrassing section. Also,

one yes-no question was required of the participant to give the reason. As for the rest of the

questions, there were also open-ended questions which allow the participants to express their

opinions.

The most embarrassing section during the experiment

In this question, the participants had been asked to choose the most embarrassing section

during the experiment. The result would be present in Table 2.

Table 2. The most embarrassing section during the experiment

Section The request Number of people
First Selfie and the postures were assigned by the researcher. 9
Photo taken by the researcher and the postures were
Second 2
assigned by the researcher.

Selfie and Photo taken by the researcher and the

Third 1
posture were though by the participants.
Photo taken by the researcher and the posture were
Last 1
though by the participants.
None of them. 4
 17

As Table 2 Showed, half of the participants felt the most embarrassing is the first section.

There were two reasons. The first reason was that selfie had been considered as an intimate

action only happening between family members and friends. It was not easy for a person to

selfie with the other person who you met the first time and only had five minutes for

communication. The other reason was that the participants had no idea of the other

participant's bottom line which let them tend to be conservative in the first time.

As for the second section of the experiment, two participants pointed out that this was

the most embarrassing section of all the experiment. Owing to the first section for selfie, the

participants had more chance to know each other. But in the section, the control of the camera

was not in the hand of the participants which made them feel that they were being forced to

take pictures by other people. Also, they lacked common topics to communicate with each

other such as how to use the camera. This reason was the same as the participant who felt the

most embarrassing in the last section. The participant had indicated that selfie made her feel

more comfortable because she only had to care about one hand. Moreover, she said that

thinking of the postures was a hard job which intensified the awkwardness during the

experiments. She said, "It was hard to think of the postures in a short time. If you cannot

come up with any ideas, it seems like a bump on a log and stood there staring at the camera

without soul." In addition, the participant who thought that the third section was the most

embarrassing section, felt the same that thinking of the postures was the hardest work. But

the problem was not you could not come up with ideas, it was that you did not know whether

the postures you proposed would be liked by the other participant or not.

As for the rest four participants, they indicated that they did not feel any embarrassment

during the whole experiment. Four of them thought that the process was natural and smooth

because the postures were all within the acceptable range.

 18

Swap the second section into first section

The question was that if swapping the second section into firs section would make any

difference to the participant’s psychological feelings. The question was been decided that

whether or not the steps of the process would influence the participants’ feeling. In the Table

3, the result would be showed.

Table 3: If swap the second section into firs section, would make any difference to the

participants’ psychological feelings

Answer Yes No

Number of the person 12 5

Half of the participants answered that if the sections of the experiments had been

changed, it would help them reduce partialnervousness. Seven participants had mentioned

that selfie had to consider each other's feeling and they did not want to be the powerful

dominator to decide the postures. They preferred the postures was assigned by the

researcher because it would be an order by the third party. Therefore, they would have the

same target to follow which could create the topic for them to talk in the experiment.

Therefore, it was a safe way to avoid the conflicts.

As four participants who answer no, each of them gave different answers because of the

different personality. For the outgoing people, they said that before starting the experiment,

there was a time for the participants to communicate with each other . Moreover, the

experiment was based on that both participants did not know each other, so there was no

influence, if the step had been changed.

The passive and initiative situation

In this section, there was the comparison between the postures decided by the research or

by the participants. According to the interview, half of the participants said that it was
 19

easier for them just following the order. Moreover, it could avoid the conflicts between

each other who would not let the other side seem dominating the activity too often. Since

the second part of the experiment was that the participants must come up with their own

postures, the change made the participant feel troublesome, not knowing what to do, arouse

the embarrassment again, and even became more embarrassed.

However, in the second part of the experiment, half of the participants had addressed

that they felt relaxed and knew each other well because they had already exchanged

enough personal information, found consensus, and know the bottom line of each other.

They thought that the time was enough for them to know the person, especially when going

to the second part, the second round of communication played an important part to

promote the intimacy. After the second round of the communication, 2/3 participants came

up with the creative postures pleasurably. For the outgoing participants, it was a chance

to speak out their own idea which made the experiment more interesting. Although some

participants also wanted to share their postures with their partner, they still did not speak

out their thought owing to their introverted personality.

In addition, the assigned postures was in the acceptable range. Therefore, some of the

participants said that they would like to try more challenging postures in the second part.

It was interesting that no matter how embarrassed or nervous the participants were, they all

cared about whether they were perfect in the pictures or not.

There was only one participant who said that during the whole experiment, he felt that

his female partner was still in awkward situation. Even though he had tried his best to

reduce the embarrassment, it seemed not working. However, there was an opposite case

happening in one group which was the female-female group. The participant indicated that

she felt that her partner was friendly all the time so she did not feel any awkwardness

during the experiment.

 20

The unconcerned modern university students

Three participants thought that the unconcerned it was a normal phenomenon that happened

on the university students because they would not pay attention to the person who they did

not care about. However, more than half of the participants felt that it was true that the

university students have become unconcerned about their surroundings. And it was dangerous

if they kept ignoring their environment. Two reasons are presented in following subsections.

The reasons were based on the interview which the participants had answered.

Phubbing

Owing to the rapidly developing technology, smart phones allow the people to connect to the

Internet more conveniently. Based on the participants’ answers, over half of the interviewees

thought that the smart phone has played an important role in being unconcerned of the

surroundings. In other words, more and more mobile phone users who tend to do

"phubbing" in the modern society. Three participants said that it was easier to connect with

your friends or other people by using smart phone through the Wi-Fi. Also one participant

was worried about this kind of phenomenon. She said, "if we keep sticking to the smart

phone, the ability of face-to-face communication will deteriorate, then people will become

less and less concerned about their surroundings".

Education

Moreover, two third of the participants mentioned that the education system made a student

only care about their grades. As one of the participants said, "This is the extreme competitive

generation, studying hard became the primary thing students would consider. But it made

them ignore things surrounding them." Two participants said that the tight schedules made

them unable to pay attention on their surroundings which they had passed.

In addition, two fifth of the participants indicated that some of the university students

had been shaped into a self-centered personality because of the competitive pressures. Two

participants shared a similar opinion of the self-centered personality of their own experience.
 21

They said, "everybody has their own life to live, why bother to care about the life which is

not your own."

The actions you will do in the future

Three questions are presented in this section, which are: (1) the action you will do for the

stranger who was in your surroundings, (2) will you attend the experiment next time, and (3)

if you met your partner in the future, will you greet them?

The juncture of interaction with strangers

Table 4.
Depending on the
Yes No
situation
Would you have an interaction with strangers
9 4 4
after the experiment?

Based on Table 4, nine participants would be willing to interact with strangers in the future.

Six participants thought that the experiment was the juncture for them to pay more attention

to their surroundings. One participant said if there was no interview after the experiment, she

would never think that the purpose of the experiment was to be aware of the strangers.

Moreover, two participants enjoyed and considered the experiment as a good experience

allowing them to be willing to interact with strangers in the future.

Two participants hold a conservative decision owing to their passive personality. They

gave the same reason in this question. They were afraid of disturbing the stranger and they

would make the decision depend on the strangers need. However, four participants gave the

negative answer. Two participants did not consider the experiment having relevance with

paying attention to the surroundings. The participants also said that they were concerned

about the surroundings. In contrast, two participants said they were not interested in caring

about other people.

Attend the experiment again

According to the interview, fourteen of the participants would be willing to do the experiment
 22

again with a new stranger. Most of them claimed the experience of the experiment was fun

and positive. Through the experiment, they could know more people and make more friends.

But three participants said that they would not take part in it again because the novelty was

gone. One participant said that she felt awkward from the beginning to the end of the

experiment which was an awful experience to her.

The participants had been asked if the gender of the experiment partner had been

changed, what would they react. In the male-male group, the participants mentioned that they

would be more cheerful but more nervous. As for the female-female group, they also thought

that they would be more nervous, but the male-male group actually was the most nervous one.

For the male-female group, they said it would be more relaxed with the same gender.

Maintaining the friendships

In this part, the participants were asked whether or not they would maintain friendship by

greeting the experiment partner. Only two participants showed that they would not because

they were not able to recognize their partner also it was not necessary. However, fifteen

participants would love to greet their partner provided that they could remember their

partner or their partner could identify them.

Conclusion

Result

After analyzing the interview data and the videos shot during the experiment, answers to the

three research questions were positive. Due to the experiment topic was fascinating enough,

it made the participants have high willingness to become the subjects. In addition, the process

of the experiment was pleasant and joyful which left a good impression on them. Although

the limited time restricted interaction between the participants, the experiment confirms the

truth of Kurt's belief that people could dissolve distrust and suspicion in a short time no

matter they were strangers or not. Moreover, the delightful experience let the participants
 23

understand the purpose of the experiment to stop phubbing and to look up at the world around

you. Also, there is still something more important than getting high grades in school.

Therefore, taking part in the experiment not only arouse the participants' attention to their

surroundings, but also improve their sensitivity and willingness to show their concerns to

other people.

Suggestion and limitation

Owing to the time limitation, the participants were from a similar background which was the

fourth grade student from the same university ; thus, the results cannot be generalized to

different grade and other university students. Further studies may include other grades of

students from the same or different universities. Even more, similar research could combine

different university students to participant in the experiment. In this case, the students whose

psychological feeling may change because the background of the participants is different,

they may spend more time to find a common topic. Additionally, it is recommended that the

experimental sites can be off campus and be in other public areas which could create a sense

of the unfamiliar. Thus, future studies may include the strangers, who are randomly invited in

the street, to compare the situation between university students and the general public. In

addition, the experiment was decided as a pair so there was only two direction

communication. The people for each group can change from a pair to a combination of three

or more people. Thence, the further studies of collecting the data of interaction with people

could have a comparison. Finally, owing to time constraints, there were only nine groups of

subjects. To explore more deeply, adding more groups for a similar experiment in the

research is recommended.
 24

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