Research Paper

[droogievesch]

I have a 12 page anthropology research paper to write. It's open ended, we just have to observe people and answer whatever question it is we want to ask. For example, we could hypothesize that women wash their hands after using the restroom more than men do, and then observe the hand washing habits of people in the bathrooms. I, however, do not desire to spend 20+ hours in a bathroom so I was planning on going to the former Lee Watsen shows in Illinois (no longer run by Lee but by the Reptile Club? but they occur at least every other week). My problem is I don't know what question I want to answer. I was thinking:

1.) People buy the "upgraded" versions of animals in hopes of breeding them.

2.) People will buy more things than originally planned for once they see them (ie they will go planning on picking up one leopard gecko and they couldn't decide between 2 so they get them both).

Any other ideas?

Thanks!

[DrGonzo]

I am not sure what you mean with " upgraded" version , perhaps the same but I guess a good question would be:

"expense equals beauty": Percieved beauty of live animals and purchasing price.

Its certain people value something if it costs more, as well percieved value going up after purchase. Huge psychology literature on it. Thats why I would stick with beauty alone, not value as the question would be the answer. Researching this with live animals you could give it a little twist as well.

[Chicubswally]

Great idea. Taking this at a marketing angle You could do exit polls at shows. Or even ask on-line sellers to provide the contact info of a few sellers for interviewing.

[MunkE]

how much of the addiction this can become? lol

[droogievesch]

thank you.

Maybe I'll make a survey and ask people as they exit if they could fill it out. There could be a "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the appearance of your purchased animal" and then see if there is a correlation between price and appearance. I would probably stick to one species of animal and then ask the vendors what they think about the idea.

Time to e-mail my thoughts to the professor and see how he'd tweak them.

[slygecko]

Originally Posted by droogievesch

Maybe I'll make a survey and ask people as they exit if they could fill it out. There could be a "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the appearance of your purchased animal" and then see if there is a correlation between price and appearance. I would probably stick to one species of animal and then ask the vendors what they think about the idea.

Cool idea, but I'm not so sure it will work the way you intend. Who is going to say, 'hmm, this animal i just bought is only a 8 and not a 10'? People buy what is attractive to them, you know? So what I think you're going to end up with is high numbers across the board irrespective of price. Appearance and quality are so subjective. Well, maybe that would just be your working hypothesis? I don't really have other suggestions, but there are plenty of questions to ask, so I'm sure you'll find one that works.

Cheers,
Nick

[droogievesch]

Good point.

I was thinking of using Ball Pythons as my focus, so I'll study the sales of morphs and their prices, so I could study why people will pay 800 dollars more for an albino than a pastel even though they are both more exotic than the normal.

I have to develop controls to base my findings on.

I e-mailed my professor and a breeder to see their thoughts on the subject and to get more ideas.

[DrGonzo]

I have a BSc in psychology (MA in politics but that wont be of much help to you) and can only tell you how this research would be done in psychology, not anthropology:

we would show 2 pictures of the same animal/different morphs to participants which they rate on beauty and compare that to other participants seeing the same picture but also the price of the animal. Odds are, there will be significant difference between participants who know the price and those who dont. This would be the basic setup.

However, you cant really do this with people within the hobby as they would be able to guess the price anyway. And from what I understand you want to keep this within the hobby and, from what I understand within anthropology, you should study this within different subcultures in a more hands on approach. But I am sure you can adept this approach within your discipline, and within the study of the "reptile hobbyist" culture.

[droogievesch]

I finally got my topic okay'd by the professor and my proposal is written and turned in.

I finally settled on observing the interactions between vendor/vendor and vendor/customer at reptile shows. Basic human behavior says that if the vendors are paying for a table, spending their time, and "risking" the safety of their animals, then they should be out for a profit. Following this line of "logic" one would assume that vendor/vendor relations will be stuffy since everyone is out for themselves. On the flip side one would expect the vendors to do anything possible for a sale.

Now I've been to reptile shows, and I know that the above isn't true. The vendors seem to have a tight knit herping family, so I am looking for the different interactions (pre-show, show, and post-show).