NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION AND REACTIVITY
Naturalistic Observation and Reactivity
Esteban Suero
Southern New Hampshire University
NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION AND REACTIVITY
For this observational study, I decided to go to our local park on a beautiful Friday
afternoon. There isn’t much to do other than the mall and these parks, so I thought going to our
most popular one would be best. The weather turned out to be beautiful so the park was packed
with families and college students running around for the afternoon. I sat on one of the benches
overlooking the pond and most of the park area for the children. I am not very comfortable in
social situations that need me to be, or do something, out of the norm, so this observation was a
little more difficult than normal. However, the reactions that I observed, and some of the people
and their opinions on what I was doing, were not what I thought they were going to be.
When I arrived at the park, I immediately planted myself on one of the benches near the
pond, which overlooks the majority of the park. I had brought a bigger bag with me, so I pulled
my notebook and stopwatch out of the bag and started clicking the watch and pretending to take
notes. At this point, I received a few stares from parents and some glares from concerned-looking
parents. They were probably thinking I was doing some unnatural observation of their children
and I can understand their concern for their children’s well-being. After about 7 minutes, I actually
had one parent approach me and ask what I was doing with a stopwatch. He said the notebook is
normal, as we live in an artistic community, but the stopwatch was making him feel uncomfortable.
I explained the nature of my being there and observing everyone and he seemed to calm down
quite a bit and actually asked me some questions to see if there was anything he could help me
with. I explained to him that he should act normal and not tell anyone the nature of my being there
as it could disturb my study. He understood and left back to his family. It was quite some time
before anyone else decided to approach me to ask what I was doing. It wasn’t until I was at about
26 minutes until I had some children run up to me and ask why I had brought a stopwatch to the
park. In the entire 30-35 minutes that I sat in that park, only 7 people came up to talk to me, 6 of
NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION AND REACTIVITY
which were children. Most of the individuals there only glanced at me for a few seconds and then
went on their way. However, the majority of people that I observed at that park ignored me
completely. I even, at one point, tried to be super obvious, but no one gave me any attention. I feel
as if these behaviors are not what I was expecting. I thought that I would be approached more and
maybe anger some people because I was observing their families as they enjoyed the day outside.
On the other hand, knowing that we have become a generation of less-observant and lessinteractive people, these reactions, and the lack-there-of, really do not surprise me in this situation.
Naturalistic observation is defined as: “A type of observational research that involves
recording ongoing behavior in an organism or individual without attempting to change it”
(Sullivan, 2009). Naturalistic observational studies are used by researchers everywhere in order to
observe the behavior of an individual in its natural environment. This is often the first step in
conducting an experiment in a laboratory environment. “Research progresses from naturalistic
observation to laboratory observation, where psychologists aim to rule out sources of confounding
[variables] that may occur in the original naturalistic setting” (Sullivan, 2009). This type of
observational study is most appropriate when researcher(s) want to observe a natural environment
and then apply that to an experiment in a controlled setting. Naturalistic observation is the oldest
known form of observation, dating back to Darwin, and has even been observed in cave paintings
(Naturalistic Observation, 2004). Being the oldest known form of observation has come with a few
critic and disbelievers about how the observer can actually disrupt the natural environment that
they are observing. There are many methods that one must take in order to make the study as
natural as possible without disrupting the environment around them. “It is clear that naturalistic
observation methods have gained legitimacy among academic disciplines. The search for
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naturalistic conditions or environments even in the context of experimental designs (Gibbons,
Wyers, Waters, & Menzel, 1994) is an illustration” (Naturalistic Observation, 2004).
Going into this study, I did not know what to expect. The park in question does not have
security, but because many families frequent that park, the city police do patrol every hour. I was
worried that someone was going to think I was doing something illegal or watching their children
like some pedophile. However, in my observations, most people weren’t curious as to why I was
holding a stopwatch and clicking it every so often and then taking some notes along with it. Many
of the people in attendance that day did nothing out of the ordinary when it came to my actions; I
was ignored almost the entire time. This observational study actually turned out to be quite a bit
of fun and I cannot wait to do another one.
NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION AND REACTIVITY
References
Gibbons, E.F., Jr., Wyers, E.J., Waters, E., & Menzel, E.W. (Eds.). Naturalistic environments in
captivity for animal behavior research. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Naturalistic observation. (2004). In The concise Corsini encyclopedia of psychology and
behavioral science. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?qurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.credoreference.com.ezproxy
.snhu.edu%2Fcontent%2Fentry%2Fwileypsych%2Fnaturalistic_observation%2F0
Sullivan, L.E. (2009). The SAGE Glossary of the Social and Behavioral Sciences. London:
SAGE Publications, Inc.