Standing Up in Restaurants: A Social Experiment

Nearly a decade ago, I was taking a course in sociology, the study of human culture and society. For the final project, our professor asked us each to conduct an experiment where we break a social norm, document the results, and draw conclusions about how others reacted and why they did so. I spent some time thinking about what social norms I could break without severely embarrassing myself or disrupting others, and after considering various ideas, I decided that I would break the social norm of sitting down while eating at a restaurant. I would stand up the entire time, eat my meals standing, pay the bill, and walk out without ever touching a seat. I recently came across my final paper and thought it would be interesting to share here with my reflections ten years later.

Planning the Project

I’ll briefly describe the goal planning process in terms of forward chaining and backward chaining, concepts I introduce in my book Method Matters: A Practical Guide to Achieving Your Goals Through Critical Thinking (you can read the first chapter for free here). The ultimate goal was to complete the sociology paper and receive an A+. The list below outlines the subgoals that drove the project:

1. To satisfy the ultimate goal, I would need to carefully follow the criteria provided by the professor – this is a simple example of backward chaining, where I worked backward directly from the ultimate goal to create a goal that is required to complete to achieve the ultimate goal.
2. To do this, I would need to determine the social norm to break, then create a plan of breaking it and observing reactions from others – this is also backward chaining.
3. To do this, I would need to brainstorm and think of what social norm to break that wouldn’t be embarrassing or disruptive – I consider this to be forward-chaining since the plan of execution and observation cannot be created until this is decided, but the goal in step #2 requires that plan.
4. Once I decide what social norm to break, I would need to create a plan: how would I break it in a way that I can make observations and possibly even take notes down? – forward chaining.

After working through the planning process, I created the following plan and rules of the experiment:

1. When I arrive at the restaurant, I will act normally until the host takes me to my table. At this point, I will remain standing, and the experiment will begin.
2. I will act as if nothing is out of the ordinary throughout the entire meal.
3. If the server asks me to sit down, I will try to remain standing without causing a disruption. If I cannot avoid it, I will sit down, but then stand up again after they leave.
4. I will not give any reason or make any excuses for why I am standing.
5. When the meal is over, I will tell my server that I was standing for the purpose of conducting research for my sociology project, then ask them a few questions on what they thought and how they felt during my visit.

To help me make observations, I included my dad in the project. We went to two restaurants, Applebee’s and Charlie Brown’s. At Applebee’s, my dad sat at a different table and didn’t interact so he could make observations from an outside perspective. At Charlie Brown’s, we both dined at the same table while standing. We would both look for how many people would glance at me, how often they would do so, how often people would talk about it and try to explain it away, if it made anyone uncomfortable, or if it led to anything else out of the ordinary. Essentially, we were looking for “ripple effects,” i.e. what disturbances would happen as a result of my own disturbance of social norms.

Standing Up at Applebee’s

My dad and I drove together, but I entered the restaurant first. I was given a table near the bar and my dad requested a table that would enable him to see me and others nearby. The list below summarizes the observations we made and the conclusions we drew:

• We both noticed that many people were taking quick glances at me, but when I looked in their direction, they would look away. We concluded that they wanted to see what I was doing but didn’t want me to notice. In other words, they wanted to observe without communicating any disapproval. However, this was still a form of nonverbal communication.
• Groups of people at each table were talking about me, but there was no inter-group communication. I overheard bits and pieces, but my dad overheard nearly full conversations (some people speak loudly at restaurants). We concluded that they felt the natural urge to explain why this unusual situation was occurring, partly because anything out of the norm is usually at least mildly interesting, and partly because unexplained phenomenon sometimes makes people uncomfortable.
• Nobody asked me why I was standing or asked me to have a seat. We concluded that my disruption served as a curiosity but didn’t cause any negative feelings so it wasn’t worth the discomfort of approaching me and asking me to change my behavior.

When I got the check, I let the server know why I was standing up. They reacted in a way that felt like a sigh of relief, then told me that the staff were talking about it and trying to figure out why I was behaving as I did. Some of the other guests joined the conversation, and everyone gave me a list of reasons why they thought I was standing, including:

• I was injured, possibly from military duty.
• I had claustrophobia.
• I was participating in a hidden camera show.
• I lost a bet or was dared to do it.
• It was simply a personal preference.

As different people offered their perspectives, it seemed to me that each possible explanation was related to each person’s own unique experiences and beliefs, which I found interesting.

Standing Up at Charlie Brown’s

This time, my dad directly participated in the project by standing up at the table with me. The experience was very similar to that of Applebee’s, so in the list below, I’ll only share observations and conclusions that differ:

• We had to wait about 10 minutes before the server came to ask us for drinks. They apologized for the wait and said that they waited a while because they weren’t sure if we were ready. We concluded that we implicitly broke this part of the normal dining procedure and caused confusion.
• From my perspective, I could see part of the entryway lobby. I saw the host and a few servers looking at us, talking, and even laughing at a few points. I was surprised by how brazen it was and concluded that they thought they were outside my field of view and could thus act freely.
• This time, about halfway through the meal, the server did ask why we were standing. I told them that “we just want to,” and they didn’t press the matter further. We concluded that they, and others, were too curious to do nothing, but didn’t want to risk offending us.

At the end of the meal, we told the server that this was part of my sociology project. They said that everybody was stumped and that all 15 servers working at the time were talking about it at one point or another and that we “made things interesting.”

After the two restaurant visit, I compiled all of the observations, reasoned through them, and made a series of conclusions about the experience, some of which I discussed above.

Assessing the Critical Thinking Process

Looking back at this nearly a decade later, I believe I did things reasonably well at the time, but there was definitely room for improvement. Speaking at a high level, I didn’t make a sufficiently-detailed plan of observation. In other words, I didn’t spend enough time considering what exactly I should look for, what I would expect to happen, and possibly what I would expect not to happen. When it comes to critical thinking, creating a plan of observation is crucial to the success of your projects and goals. Fortunately, I was able to work around this lack of planning by a combination of relying on my own intuitive, or automatic, observations, and by including my dad in the project to help catch things I may have missed.

Creating a Plan of Observation

In my book Method Matters, I introduce different methods of observation and discuss how to create plans of observation fine-tuned to your particular requirements. Different projects and goals require different plans of observations based on their own unique circumstances and your own unique experiences.