Whats everyone talking about?

I won’t lie, as I currently creep around on facebook while people watching (instead of actually doing my homework) I can’t help but note that I am somehow partaking in unobtrusive research. In fact, I’m pretty sure I could get a Ph.D in unobtrusive research after all the observations I do in a day. Therefore, this week I will be taking a look at two of my classmates blog post that are centered on unobtrusive research.

First we are going to take a look at my classmate Sam Roman’s blog post on unobtrusive research. I have commented on Sam’s blog previously because I love the fashion theme and she seems to always find interesting articles or angels. Her post linked unobtrusive research to shoplifting, which is something I never considered using unobtrusive research for. Sam discussed that at her time working at a retail store she never once was allowed to go up to someone who she suspected was shoplifting. In fact, she then went onto find research that states 1 in every 11 people are shoplifters in the United States. You might be wondering how this relates to my PR class (besides the fact that at least 2 people in the class are statically shop lifters). Well the blog went on to explain a study where researchers observed customers in a store that had various shop lifters. The study found that shoplifters always walked away without a problem and if another shopper witnessed the theft, they almost never said anything to the offender or store personnel. I believe this topic was a perfect way to use unobtrusive research, and really backs up the fact that the U.S. lost $15 BILLION to shoplifters last year.

Another out of the ordinary blog post I found was written by Alyssa Chianese titled “Unobtrusive Research: Keeping it Natural.” Alyssa’s blog is focused around food, which is probably another one of my favorite things in the WORLD. Therefore, I was very excited that she has found a way to link high calorie fast food to unobtrusive research. Basically, Alyssa found a study which was being conducted on if consumers of fast food would select low-calorie meals if they wanted to. Therefore, researches sat inside a certain fast food store and recorded the types of wrappers that were left on each try after customers were done eating. In the end they found that most people still consumed the high calorie unhealthy meals rather than the healthy ones (which we have all been guilty of doing). I thought that this was a really neat study in terms of looking at individuals wrappers to discover what they actually ate.

So there you have it, a few examples of some interesting takes on conducting unobtrusive research. I’m sure throughout your week you will notice how you take part in unobtrusive research every day. Or who knows, maybe your actually being observed yourself (creepy if you really think about it, right?) However, no matter how strange it might seem sometimes, there is no doubt that this method of research is extremely important in the PR world and there are so many fascinating studies that are worth looking into!