Greeting Behavior of College Students

Bode

Alex Bode

Ms. Robinson

English 201

18 May, 1999

Greeting Behavior of College Students

I never thought that the topic, “Greeting Behavior of College Students” could be such a diverse and widespread theme as it is; the more I thought about it, the larger and more diverse the topic grew. First of all there is the definition of greeting, which I define as the act of a friendly saluting. I define behavior biologically, by the way of a learned pattern of reactions to a stimulus.

What is included in the greeting behavior? Is it the first eye contact or is it only the learned pattern of a friendly exchange of words? In the greeting included is the first eye contact, the first unconscious measurement of the opponent. So posture, body size, social rank, clothing, the individual mood, culture and sex are very important to the greeting behavior that follows. The cultural roots play a very important role in the greeting pattern, as I observed that North Americans, for example, greet far more than

Germans usually do.

As I do not have enough time for a good research and a long-term observation, I am only able to scratch the topic. I am only able to describe what I have seen and observed in my personal surroundings and how I have interpreted the different situations.

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Germans usually do.

The average greeting pattern of students in the student union of ISU looks like the following example: The two opponents walk toward each other, recognize the opponent as somebody known and the first signal is usually a smile flushing over the faces of the opponents. The greeting procedure itself is mostly practiced by a “Hello, how are ya”, or a “What's up?” Sometimes, if the opponents know each other better, they shake hands or even embrace each other, accompanied by a clap on the back. A small talk may follow.

What I observed are the differences in this pattern. For example, I found that females are more likely to show a bigger smile and to show more teeth than males do. Males show sometimes a big smile sometimes they do not show any face expression at all. When the two opponents walk toward each other, I often observed that they drive their hands through their hair, before or after they shaked hands. Another observation was that many students showed nervousness through touching their faces, smoothing beards, taking their hair out of the face or forehead and scratching their cheeks. I observed that males move more when they are confronted with a female opponent. They tend to rock their upper body , or they are more likely to move their hands. Males tend even more to look into different directions, they seem to observe and secure the territory while or after they shake hands.

As I said in the introduction, I am only able to scratch the surface of the topic and show some patterns of the greeting behavior of college students, I am only able to give an idea about the diversity and the enormous extend of the topic. The diversity of the greeting rituals of students on the campus of ISU shows, how much our behavior is guided and influenced by subconscious patterns through all of our everyday life. If we all tried to observe our behavior a little closer, like a behavioral scientist would do, which is not always easy, but we would come to the most interesting conclusions about ourselves.