Ms. Donahue
AP Psychology
B Channel
Naturalistic Observation Assignment
Over the past few decades, socially unacceptable behavior has become more acceptable. People have become so lazy that they put little to no effort in their appearance and don’t even care what anyone else thinks of it. The most common thing people do to prove how lazy and shameless they are is go out in their pajamas. Forty years ago, any woman wouldn't be caught dead at a supermarket in her nightgown. Yet now, more often than not people shop in the middle of the day in their pajamas. A study was conducted to figure out just how many people would shop in sleepwear. The people entering Walmart in the middle of the day were checked to see if they were wearing pajamas. The operational definition of sleepwear is anything that is marketed specifically for sleeping. This includes patterned/graphic pajama bottoms, patterned/graphic pajama shirts, flannel bottoms, and slippers. The hypothesis is, more than a third of the people who walk into Walmart will be wearing some form of sleepwear. From 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm on a Saturday afternoon people were observed walking into Walmart. Out of the 43 men, women, and children who came in the entrance, 17 people were wearing sleepwear. 4 people wore graphic pajama shirts, 12 people wore patterned/flannel pajama pants, and 1 person wore slippers. More than one third of the people who walked into a supermarket thought it was acceptable to be wearing pajamas. People are really that lazy, that they didn't bother to get dressed for the day or really that shameless, that they just did not care about being seen in public in sleepwear in the middle of the day. The shame factor of this study poses more questions. Could the same amount of people be found in a Target between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00pm in their pajamas? Is there a separation of class between these two stores? Is wearing pajamas in public socially accepted not by all, but