Friday, September 8, 2017

Territorial Bananas

I took a picture of this banana today. There's nothing particularly special about it, but I thought its speckles were really pretty and I was kind of sad to peel it. It was a very pretty banana.


I also need to mention a psychological fact I learned in one of my classes awhile ago. Apparently, when there's another car waiting for their parking space, people take longer to leave the spot because "the instinct to defend one's territory is stronger" than just... basic human decency. Also, men left a lot faster when the car waiting for them was a car of higher status than when it was a lower one.

While interesting to hear, I'm not sure I agree. I thought about it, and I think I always pick up the pace when I see someone is waiting for a public thing that I am using if I'm finished with it. While I guess I don't have too many memories about waiting in a car for someone else to back out so I can take their spot, since usually there are other places to park, I don't remember ever thinking that the person was taking an unusually long time to leave. But then again, my thought processes have always seemed a bit out of sync with the rest of society, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if I differ from most people on this point too.

I did some research on my own to see if I could find the source of this research. Apparently the study in question is from 1997, so it may be outdated by now. It seems that it took an average of 27 seconds to leave if there was no one waiting for the spot, and an average of 31 to leave if someone was. Doesn't seem like a significant difference to me. Also, after checking a few more articles that mentioned this study, I found a comment that researchers admitted the extra time taken may be due to people wanting to make sure that when they backed out, they wouldn't get in an accident.

Either way, it was a curious fact to learn about.