Talking to strangers while social distancing
A pandemic is probably the worst time to try and encourage people to talk to strangers. This is this turned out to be the assigned task for the term project in Doyle Srader’s Communication 450 persuasion class in 2020. The plan was to conduct a scientific study to determine if scientific based facts given to a group of test subjects who are low conversationalists, and see if the new scientific information encouraged them to be more outgoing and talk with strangers. The same goal was also sought for a second group of test subjects but with Biblical based facts. . At the end of the study, the Test subjects would be questioned to see if the new information encouraged them to be more of a conversationalist to strangers. I would then take the data and determine if the scientific or Biblical information was more persuasive in encouraging people to be more outgoing. The Carona Virus pandemic swept across the world, so in the middle of the experiment, I started to receive negative feedback from my participants about being in close enough contact with strangers to have a conversation with them. They were very skeptical about doing this in the middle of government and every media outlet advising them to stay home and “social distance” I was sup to try and convince people to be more sociable and talk to strangers. I would then remind them, this experiment was designed to test your willingness to talk to strangers, rather than if you actually do it or nlt. So, an added element to the experiment was convincing my test subjects there were not going to be in any danger by continuing with my experiment. Do to this and other complications, this experiment is still underway. Results will be available when it is finished.
COMM 450, Persuasion
Doyle Srader
11:30 AM – Noon
Join the Zoom discussion afterward. The presenter and faculty advisor both have the password.