My Experiment On The Correlation Between Emotions And Reactions

Prior to conducting this experiment, my hypothesis was that I was going to offend all of the people involved, so I prepared myself mentally for the backlash and negative feedback. Surprisingly, there was a range of emotions and reactions to me breaking this folkway. Emotions ranged from being completely offended and disgusted to finding it hysterical. The reactions from the people fluctuate from being angry and notifying the manager to asking me to join them for dinner. The experiment was conducted at least two times in both the bar and restaurant section, except for Sunday the 18th. The responses I chose to write about were the ones that gave me the most feedback about my experiment.
On Thursday September 8th, the first day of my experiment …show more content…
This couple surprised me because instead of getting angry when I took food from their plate, they offered to buy me a meal if I would join them for dinner. It caught me off guard, but I did decided to join them. They called the waiter over and asked him to get whatever I would like. I ordered a meal (with intentions of paying for the bill) and enjoyed dinner with an amazing couple. During the dinner I did explain what I was doing and asked them why did they want me join them for dinner and how come they were not angry with me taking food off their plate? The older gentlemen explained that he thought I was hungry and could not afford a meal and wanted to help me out. He went on to explain that back when he was in Vietnam he was in a situation and it was a random stranger’s act of kindness that helped him out of the situation. He said that since then he has vowed to always help those who appeared to be in need of help. His wife said that God would not want his children to go hungry and that we should always give back to those less fortunate than us. I was truly touched by this couples act of kindness that I offered to pay for the whole bill, but they would not let me because they said that even though I was not a person who could not afford a meal, it was their way of helping me out with my experiment. All they asked was that one day I return the favor to …show more content…
Once the food they ordered arrived to the table, I took my fork and enjoyed some spaghetti off the fathers’ plate. I think they were shocked because no one said anything for a moment, so I made my way towards the mother’s plate, but she picked it up and moved it. The father uttered “what the heck”, while the mother started looking around the room as if she was looking for something or someone, and their son was laughing. I decided to take it upon myself to tell them that I was going to sample all their food and then decide what I should order for myself. The boy handed me his plate and said “here you can have mine, I am not that hungry anyway”, the father said “no” and took the plate that the boy gave me away, and the mother said she is going to get the manager. The mother ended up walking away before I could stop her and explain the situation. So without the mother present I started to debrief the father and the son, but once the mother returned with the manager I explained to all of them that this was an experiment and I apologize if I disrupted their meal. The manager informed the family that they will order a new spaghetti for the father, since I ate off of it. After the manager left I sat down with the family to discuss their feelings further. The son thought the whole situation was hysterical because he never encountered someone doing this, while the mother