Amateur sociology

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Ryan Chirnomas

Living in the warm glow of academia has given me a hunger for learning of any kind. Why should I be excluded from the world of sociological experimentation just because I don't have a "degree," "academic credentials" or "approval from an ethics board?"

Over the past years and months, I have, with the help of a few notable associates, managed to develop a few compelling sociological experiments.

First, let us examine what I call "The Box Experiment," developed when I was a wee freshman living in the dorms. Being the perpetually philanthropic chaps that they are, Residence Life put a box in the lobby of my quaint little dorm in order to collect food and clothing for the less fortunate. I suppose Residence Life thought quite highly of our charitable tendencies, because the box was large enough to have originally housed a La-Z-Boy chair, a big screen TV or a Buick. Naturally, I thought what any '50s-era-telephone-booth-packing gent would have thought - "I wonder how many people we can fit into that thing?"

I jumped in there, dragging along a co-experimenter and we coaxed, begged and pleaded for any fellow dorm-dwellers to join us. As you might expect, the reaction was somewhat, well, negative. Strange looks and mumbled comments did nothing to dissuade our quest for knowledge. Eventually, we got a few folks in the box. The more people we fit in, the more everyone wanted to be in it. A classic model of peer pressure. I think we ended up getting 14 people to fit snugly in the box.

So I talked 13 friends into jumping into a cardboard box. Big deal. The crux of sociology lies in experimentation on strangers, right? Right. Read on.

Picture it: Denny's. 2 a.m. Mid-summer. The perfect laboratory for experiment No. 2. Armed with a portable stereo, a lack of rhythm and a Gloria Estefan cut on the Party Mix '98 CD, myself and an elite group of amateur sociologists set out to make a grease-pit dance. Simple enough theory, conga in, dance with strangers, conga out. Like the SWAT team, but less coordinated.

Once again, puzzled looks, whispers, and giggles aplenty, but this time, the peer pressure wasn't quite strong enough to get truck drivers and Goths to dance. Disappointing, but failure is a key part of experimentation.

All right, so public humiliation isn't exactly your thing. Fear not, prospective amateur sociologist, I've still got one more trick up my sleeve, and a quite practical one at that. How many times have you been sitting around with your friends, trying to decide upon a place to go out to eat? Why ponder for hours when you have thousands of friends and neighbors who would be glad to help? Next time you're dying for a bit to eat, pick up your phone, close your eyes, press some buttons and ask away. That's right, make a random cold-call for a restaurant recommendation.

Use a line like this: "Hi there, you don't know me, but I'm visiting from out of town, and I was wondering if you could recommend a good, moderately-priced restaurant in the university area." You'll really confuse the hell out of people, but once they discover that you're not trying to sell them long distance service, they'll be glad to share their culinary wisdom. While success rates may vary, I managed to get two recommendations in as many tries: Caruso's and Casa Molina.

My courses in biology and chemistry have taught me thoroughly about scientific discovery through experimentation. But you don't have to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist to join in on the fun of research. So, my fellow amateur sociologists, I encourage you to devise a hypothesis and try it out on society at large. Lab reports are due in my box next Monday.

Ryan Chirnomas is a molecular and cellular biology senior and can be reached via e-mail at Ryan.Chirnomas@wildcat.arizona.edu. His column, In Hasselhoff We Trust, appears every Monday.