Joseph Moreira's Analysis

The Social psychology experiment of our group consisted of changing our money into pennies and then paying the cashiers at different stores with the different pennies. This experiment can fall into the category of violating social norms because the norm is paying with a dollar bill instead of 100 pennies. In this experiment we wanted to view each cashier's reaction towards the payment of pennies and why they reacted that certain way. The hypothesis was that the cashier would either end up angry or show a negative reaction for not having the patience of receiving the pennies as payment. For the cashier I had bought three pans and had to pay with one hundred and eight pennies ($1.08). At first she wasn't really mad that I had the pennies but began to become a little angry when she had to count all of the pennies. We later interviewed her and she responded that she was only angry when she had to count the pennies because she didn't care about the pennies since it was a ninety-nine cents store. This proves that her reaction was shown because of the environment because she really didn't get mad because it was a 99 cent store and that she deals with change everyday. Then we tried going to Dunkin Donuts where Aarsh had to pay for a doughnut with the pennies. The cashier tried to wait patiently but was aware of a line forming behind him with many angry customers. These customers were waiting on someone who was paying with pennies. The lady's reaction can be proven through the environment who began to startle her a little which then made her become a little angry towards the end although she remained amused. Then we had Anders go to a Halal food stand where he took a handful of pennies to pay for a drink but then the guy at the stand said, "we don't accept pennies." However his reaction can lead to conformity because the guy next to him looked at him like he shouldn't accept the pennies which made him conform into the action he took. Then finally Anders when to a deli where he paid for a bag of chips with 25 pennies where the guy gladly accepted them with a smile on his face. However the guy did not react through conformity or the environment since nobody was at the store pressuring the guy. The hypothesis was proven up to the three cashiers where they had a reaction we anticipated. In this experiment I have learned that people tend to be annoyed when going through long procedures as shown through the experiment. The results would be different with different age groups because teenagers wouldn't really care as opposed to older people who would probably tend to get angry because each person has a different perspective on an experience.