Thanksgiving holiday is one of the few holidays that we do not have in Thailand. I never understood the significance of this holiday apart from its two-day school break until I traveled on Thanksgiving eve this past holiday. A taxi driver who drove me to the airport hinted about its importance by saying that, “Tonight is one of the busiest travel periods of the year.” I did not completely comprehend his claim until I saw how crowded the airport was. It seemed to me that everyone headed home to celebrate Thanksgiving with his or her family. However, what was most amusing that night was a scene of tens or even hundreds of people waiting for their family members at arrival gate. I was not clear why there were lots of people so I decided to do ethnography on these people to help me understand the reasons behind their actions.
The social behavior that I specifically observed is the phenomenon of an enormous amount of people congregating and waiting at the airport on Thanksgiving eve compared to an average day. Although some may doubt the significance of this phenomenon as airports always seem to be busy, they may have not considered other constraints associated with Thanksgiving Eve such as traffic jams and huge crowds. Possible explanations for this phenomenon is due to peer pressure from the parents’ neighbors, or an economical reason such that it may be faster for parents to pick up their kids as opposed to public transportation that night.
I used ethnography to answer this question instead of quantitative analysis or experiments because of several reasons. First, variables for quantitative analysis must have numbers; without numbers we cannot use any statistical techniques. Possible quantitative variables for the question are the...
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...tions and truly make sense of the phenomenon.
To summarize, by performing an ethnographic study on those who waited at the airport on Thanksgiving eve, I discovered that these people, despite the traffic and crowds on Thanksgiving eve, still come to the airport because of their desire to demonstrate their love to the arriving person. In terms of generalization, while we can generalize our finding to different airports on the same night, we cannot generalize it to every airport waiting situation such as when parents come pick up their kids on other days because the situation is different due to traffic and crowds. Therefore, our finding is bounded by a specific period of time. Lastly, this study indicates that the loveliest moment of Thanksgiving is not a big fancy dinner on Thursday, but the first time we reunite with each other at the airport on Thanksgiving eve.
So many people complain about how little attention society pays to Thanksgiving. Every year for as long as can be remembered, the public has been gradually minimizing the amount of time that is spent celebrating this day of thanks and gratitude. This is simply because the whole country is more interested in the more important holiday that follows it: Black Friday. In fact, Black Friday is not only more important than Thanksgiving; it is without a doubt the most important holiday of the year. Only in America do people devote an entire day (now two days in some parts of the country) to fighting each other over department store sales less than one day after proclaiming their thankfulness for the things they already have.
Chain stores, such as K-Mart and Wal-Mart swing their doors wide for all deal seekers at around 6 a.m. Individuals will wake up earlier than necessary, drive to these stores, and camp out prior to the stores opening, if only just to ensure they get the best spot in line. Also near this time, various online deals begin. This means before many people wake up on Thanksgiving morning, sales have already started both in store and online. By this standard, the day’s workers have to get to the store hours before it opens to prepare the store for the surplus of people and the chaos that will soon enfold. People should be getting rest or preparing food for their lunches or dinners, but instead they are shopping or working. Retailers place priority on shopping from the moment people wake up until they go to sleep. There is never an emphasis on family throughout the entire day in these chain stores. The madness occurs throughout the entirety of both days, causing lack of family time in both days of the holiday for patrons and
In response to the question set, I will go into detail of the study, consisting of the background, main hypotheses, as well the aims, procedure and results gathered from the study; explaining the four research methods chosen to investigate, furthering into the three methods actually tested.
Cialdini, Robert B, & Trost, Melanie R. (1998). Social Influence: Social Norms, Conformity, & Compliance. Interpersonal Phenomena. Retrieved from: angel.elmira.edu/section/default.asp?id=w114_PSY3010_01.
Thanksgiving is undoubtedly a holiday to celebrate family. It also celebrates many other things, as the name suggests. Thanksgiving is a holiday to give thanks for the things that a person has rather than to wish for more things. Accomplishments and shiny cars are not part of the essence of Thanksgiving, as these do not have the inherent humbleness expected of the holiday. This air of humility and frugality, harkening back to the days of the pilgrims and Native Americans, is probably what lead Ellen Goodman to describe the holiday as a suppressing of individualism. However, the rift between individuality and family that Goodman describes in Thanksgiving is not as deep as she makes it seem, and Thanksgiving Day is hardly the only day of the
10). Other characteristics include a focus on the objective and quantifiable, emphasis on specific concepts, the researcher is an external, large sample, measured information, and includes statistical analysis (Polit & Beck, 2017). The use of quantitative methodology fits this study’s purpose because it asks specific questions about how frequently the phenomenon occurs, what factors are related to the stated phenomenon, and what is the underlying cause (Polit & Beck, 2017). It also asks what would happen if the phenomenon was altered, and can the occurrence be prevented (Polit & Beck,
Many stores across the country are open on Thanksgiving Day, which obviously means people are working that day instead of enjoying the holiday celebrations with their families. According to a study done by Airlines 4 America, an airline industry trade group, 25.3 million people were expected to travel during the days surrounding thanksgiving. This implies many people were attempting to visit friends and family for the holiday season. If people are working long, stressful hours
While trying to break the movie theater norm, it was difficult for me to pick movies with a different variety of people and movies that were a little older so less people would be attending them. I also had a little trouble when it came to answering the phone and waiting for the other person to talk first. The problem with this one was that I had to wait for people to actually call me, which doesn't happen that often in this day and age anymore. To conclude, these social norms forced people to be in uncomfortable situations and make a decision as to how they would react to it.
It was during Christmas time in New York when a plane landed at the airport with a special package. Many families anxiously waited for this moment since the day the packages left; they were absolutely ready to receive their packages again with open arms. Once they laid eyes on their special packages, tears of joy flowed and embraces quickly followed. These families have waited and finally saw their beloved relatives come back home from serving in the armed forces. Everything was perfect in the eyes of all the families at the airport.
Turkey. Mashed potatoes. Ham. Stuffing. Gravy. Pumpkin Pie. Friends. Love. Joy. Family. Laughter. What do all of these things bring to mind? Thanksgiving Day. The tradition of Thanksgiving began in the early 1600s shortly after pilgrims’ ships landed on American soil. To celebrate their arrival and all of their successful harvests, they feasted merrily and gave thanks for a time of such great fortune. From that point on, American people made it a point to honor the holiday around the same time each year. Since those times, however, Thanksgiving traditions have changed significantly. Today, Americans are more focused on getting to their stores early as possible before the much anticipated Black Friday begins. Businesses have recognized this
The authors of this article have outlined the purpose, aims, and objectives of the study. It also provides the methods used which is quantitative approach to collect the data, the results, conclusion of the study. It is important that the author should present the essential components of the study in the abstract because the abstract may be the only section that is read by readers to decide if the study is useful or not or to continue reading (Coughlan, Cronin, and Ryan, 2007; Ingham-Broomfield, 2008 p.104; Stockhausen and Conrick, 2002; Nieswiadomy, 2008 p.380).
Thailand is a country located in Southeast Asia with a population of approximately 65 million. It was once a European colony, but later freed itself to later become the Kingdom of Thailand. Majority of its people are Thai, while the rest from other countries of Asia and the world. Having a long coastal strip and warm tropical climate, it has managed to be a good tourist destination for people around the world (Leppert, 2001). The Thai people are often productive and hardworking as they believe that a person is supposed to enjoy his or her life. They too possess a cultural heritage which they are proud of.
The goal of quantitative research is to find relationships among variables which can be dependent or independent variables. Delıce (2010) categorizes the main efforts quantitative research to find reliability with generalizability to search and find these relationships among the independent or dependent variables depending on the type of multivariate statistics being performed. The goal is not force these variables into a relationship, but to openly receive the results and present representative statistics in select...
Bruns, Cynthia. "Empirical Research." Empirical Research. Paulina June & George Pollak Library at California State University, Fullerton, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2014.
Quantitative research methods include information having numeric meaning, also measuring. Focus in this research strategy is on measurement and the comprehension of the relationship amongst variables (Lincoln, 2003). Quantitative analysis consequently depends and builds on statistical trials, for example frequency, mode, median, quantity and arithmetical procedure.