Tashiana Hill
Tmh2012@yahoo.com
Social Psychology PSYC321
Social Psychology of Nightclubs
The Locker Room

For my observation for this project I chose to observe a nightclub, called The Locker Room. This club is located in Marietta, Ohio. I recently visited Ohio Valley University, which is a college I attended last year and this is a club we would go to on the weekends. Being from PG County, Maryland and going to this club in Ohio was a different scene. Nightclubs in general are a universal part of my generation and also culture. Nightclubs are social venues and attract all genders, races, and ethnicities. Nightclubs are a place where you can meet friends or make friends, a place where you could dance, a place where you could enjoy the newest and hottest music. For some nightclubs are where they meet prospective dates, and nightclubs are aware of this, which is why they keep it all in mind when they are being designed. I have two goals for this observation my first goal is to see how the club goers interact with one another, which gender approaches the other more often? Also does the race of an individual play a role in how other interact with them? Second, I hope to investigate how club employees interact and treat the club goers, again based on race and gender. In this observation I hope to reveal hoe club goers interact and are treated while in nightclubs. I have three Research questions I posed during this observation. Does the gender of the individual have any affect on how they are treated while attending the club? Which gender is more likely to approach the other? Lastly, how does the club (employees, managers, bouncers, etc.) treat the genders and races? With these questions I hope to reveal my goals, which are stated above.

Abstracts

Buford May, R. A., & Chaplin, K. S. (2006). Black Males, Dress codes, Tastes and Nightclub Access: A Matter of Race or Class?. Conference Papers -- American Sociological Association, 1.

Using ethnographic data collected in the downtown party scene of Athens, Georgia, we examine how individuals negotiate urban public space. In particular, we explore whether the use of nightclub dress codes is a matter of race or class to black males who are disproportionately affected by these codes. We examine black males' interpretive responses to being rejected from the nightclubs. We find that, although there is no definitive evidence that the nightclub owners are being racially discriminatory in their enforcement of dress codes, black males' responses are generally rooted in race. We conclude that despite a complex relationship between race and class for blacks, ultimately dress codes represent a matter of taste grounded in social class experience rather than race.
There is no argument in saying that majority of black males and white males have a different style of dress. Especially when attending nightclubs. This journal shows how the black males are treated differently than white males. Being turned away from clubs because black males where more of an urban style which may not be inappropriate to the least, but because it doesn’t fit the clubs “atmosphere” they are turned away.

Glenwick, D. S., Jason, L. A., & Elman, D. (1978). PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND SOCIAL CONTACT IN THE SINGLES BAR. Journal Of Social Psychology, 105(2), 311.

The present field study tested the relevance of previous research conclusions to the natural setting of the singles bar. A much-frequented night spot for persons from about 18 to 35, the singles bar offers the opportunity to meet members of the opposite sex, dance, and consume alcoholic beverages. An "idealistic" strategy predicts more attractive women would receive more frequent approaches by men in a singles bar than would less attractive women. The matching hypothesis, though, suggests men may adopt a more "realistic" strategy, taking into account the perceived probability of being rejected as a function of a woman's attractiveness. With this strategy, little correlation would be expected between a woman's attractiveness and her frequency of being approached.

This journal spoke on what gender is more likely to approach the other. In this study the males were more likely to approach the females. But the attractiveness of the females played a role in this. Females who were really attractive were not approached as frequent because the males feared the rejection.

Leland, J. (2003, March 9). Clubgoers Still Enter At Their Own Risk. New York Times. p. 1.

At many nightclubs, the crush of bodies, the potential for anarchy and the sense of exceeding limits are not obscure elements of the experience. In many ways, they are what you step over, psychologically, to get in the door. From the frisking by security guards to the overcrowded dance floor to the often-blocked exit doors inside, clubs submit their customers to a level of discomfort and abuse that they would not accept anywhere else. But in a club, the crush and discomfort are, paradoxically, part of the experience.

This article spoke on club conditions and how they affect the club. Such conditions like elevated security, security on the dance floor, security blocking back door exits, security frisking at the front door. All of the security would make one reconsider coming to the club because if that much security is needed is there something wrong with the club?

Reingle, J., Thombs, D., Weiler, R., Dodd, V., O'Mara, R., & Pokorny, S. (2009). An exploratory study of bar and nightclub expectancies. Journal Of American College Health, 57(6), 629-637 9p. doi:10.3200/JACH.57.6.629-638

The authors identified the principal components of bar and nightclub expectancy in college students and the associations between these factors and the risk behavior of night clubbing. Participants: A total of 4,384 undergraduates enrolled at a large, public university participated. Methods: In the first phase (July-September 2007), the authors collected preliminary data from a convenience sample. In the second phase (March 2008), the authors collected data from a separate probability sample. Results: A principal components analysis revealed 4 reliable and distinct expectancy factors. Regression analyses revealed that after adjusting for the effects of alcohol and demographic variables, expectancies explained a significant proportion of variance in bar/nightclub attendance. Different expectancy profiles distinguished high-frequency night clubbers from the most common bar attendance practice and no monogamous night clubbers from monogamous night clubbers. Conclusions: From a developmental perspective, nightclubbing appears to assist young adults with establishing and maintaining social networks, romantic and sexual relationships, and collegiate acculturation.

Rivera, L. (2010). Status Distinctions in Interaction: Social Selection and Exclusion at an Elite Nightclub. Qualitative Sociology, 33(3), 229-255. doi:10.1007/s11133-010-9152-2

Although social status plays a crucial role in the generation and maintenance of social inequalities, how status processes operate in naturalistic social contexts remains less clear. In the following article, I provide a case study of doormen—individuals who simultaneously represent status experts and status judges—at a highly exclusive nightclub to investigate how people draw status distinctions in micro-social settings. Using interview and ethnographic data, I analyze on what bases doormen evaluate the relative worth of patrons and confer the status prize of admission. I find that in making such decisions, doormen drew from a constellation of competence and esteem cues, which were informed by contextually specific status schemas about the relative material, moral, and symbolic worth of particular client groups. Moreover, the ways in which doormen used these cues and schema depended on the identity of the specific patron being evaluated. As such, I argue that processes of interpersonal evaluation and status conferral are contextually specific, culturally embedded, and interpersonally variable. Despite such variations, a patron’s perceived social connections seemed to outweigh other types of cues in admissions decisions. I conclude by discussing these findings in light of both status characteristics theory and Bourdieu’s work on the transubstantiation of capital to suggest that social capital is a powerful status cue that can, under certain conditions, be a more potent source of social distinction and status advantage, or hold a greater conversion value, in systems of stratification than other types of qualities.

Body

The Locker Room in Marietta, Ohio is a fairly small establishment. When first entering into the club the employees who check your id and mark your hand if you are not of drinking age meet you at the door. After, you walk past a bar and you are on the dance floor. There is also a little stage area, which is rarely used. When you walk around the corner of the club you see pool tables and tables where people can sit if they aren’t there to really dance but to enjoy the drinks and social atmosphere. In my first session of this setting it was my first time being in the club. There were a lot of white people there, which is different than what I am used to. When I walked in I was with a group of black females, and it seemed as if everyone’s eyes were stuck on us as we walked through the club to the dance floor. When we make our way to the dance floor we are the only ones on the floor for the moment, everyone else is at the bar drinking. While we are dancing we notice how people are drawn to the floor and begin to dance as well. The people there are hesitant to approach our group at first, but the guys soon approach the females of my group and are asking them to dance and give them drinks. During my second and third session of visiting the club I returned with more people this time there were black males in my group. During the second session there wasn’t much of a crowd there. Only thing that happened were people having drinks and talking during this time not much of any activity or anyone approaching anyone. During this final session, we had a little bit of a hassle when it came to the group I arrived with. The security at the club thought that our group was the one who were acting rowdy and loud. When it was actually the white group of males who were also at the club. They approached us before they approached anyone else, seeing that we were the only black people at the club may lead someone to believe it was because of our race. The results of this observation were that most of my questions were answered and I believe the goals were reached. My goal to see how the club goers interacted with one another where reached. I saw that the club being predominately white they were shocked to see a group of black people enter the club. It took them a minute adjust to us and us to them as well. The Conformity theory can be applied to this observation because both races had to adjust to one another’s presence. Also our group seemed to have influence on how the others I the club acting, for example coming to dance with us and also like us. Also I saw how the males, although white, would approach the black females in my group. I don’t know if this can be counted as “liquid courage” but the males approached the females more that females approached males. As far as the research questions most of them had clear answers. For the first question asking does gender affect how the individual is treated in the club? It did, the females were treated better while in the club, the males in the club would buy them drinks, it wasn’t much of a hassle to get in the club, where the males had more of struggle dealing with the security in the clubs. For the second question, does one gender approach the other more than another, for my sessions I saw more males approach females than females approach males. Also I noticed how the white males would approach the black females and the black males would approach the white females. My last question, does the club (employees, managers, security, etc.) treat individuals differently? I can answer yes, As I spoke on in my session summary, it seemed that we were more so singled out than the other patrons of the club which wasn’t very comforting.

References:

Buford May, R. A., & Chaplin, K. S. (2006). Black Males, Dress codes, Tastes and Nightclub Access: A Matter of Race or Class?. Conference Papers -- American Sociological Association, 1.

Glenwick, D. S., Jason, L. A., & Elman, D. (1978). PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND SOCIAL CONTACT IN THE SINGLES BAR. Journal Of Social Psychology, 105(2), 311.

Leland, J. (2003, March 9). Clubgoers Still Enter At Their Own Risk. New York Times. p. 1.

Reingle, J., Thombs, D., Weiler, R., Dodd, V., O'Mara, R., & Pokorny, S. (2009). An exploratory study of bar and nightclub expectancies. Journal Of American College Health, 57(6), 629-637 9p. doi:10.3200/JACH.57.6.629-638

Rivera, L. (2010). Status Distinctions in Interaction: Social Selection and Exclusion at an Elite Nightclub. Qualitative Sociology, 33(3), 229-255. doi:10.1007/s11133-010-9152-2