Starbucks Observation Paper

Words: 943
Pages: 4

The interesting things our bodies say is quite interesting, and I saw this in my observations. For my project I decided to conduct an observational study in one of the biggest coffee franchises in the world, Starbucks. Everyday Starbucks serves millions of customers of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, making it a house of diversity. When deciding on what to do for my experiment, I knew that many of my participants would be Americanized (individualistic) and I would see some interesting results. Here is how I did it...In order to get the best possible observations I positioned myself in an area where I had a full sight of view. I spent a little over three hours at Starbucks, and noticed a number of things.
While conducting my observations I
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I am assuming (I could be wrong) these individuals lied in order to get another drink, thus their involuntary microexpression of contempt and slight satisfaction.According to Andersen (2011), there are 6 universal microexpressions across cultures. According to the Blakemore and Jennett (2001), "Most modern studies of body language are based on the assumption that gesture is not a universal or natural language, but the product of social and cultural contexts", but this is not the case with microexpressions and most facial expressions. Facial expressions have been shown to provide reliable information in regards to approval, disapproval, and disbelief (Hickson, 2010). Due to the study being nonintrusive I am not able to ask the customers how true my observations may have been. About one hour into my observation, I came to the realization that the majority of the customers were using credit cards or gift cards versus cash, I found this interesting from a financial standpoint; why would such a high number not pay with cash? Is Starbucks too expensive, if so why buy coffee there? Of the customers who used their credit cards or gift cards a number of them (12) got refills;