Person 1:
This girl seems to me to be young, maybe a freshman at the University. When I look at her I see tight clothes, bright colors, Greek letters, and very straight brown shiny hair. I believe her values and beliefs that are demonstrated by her dressing have to go along with some aspect of a sorority lifestyle. From her dressing and the amount of makeup she wears I feel that she probably values her appearance and takes a lot of pride in the way she look. She also may believe in some aspect of fitness because she is wearing bright Nike tennis shoes and workout pants. Which leads me to the assumption that she may exercise later in the day. From the way she is dressed I feel like she must come from a wealthy background with a healthy family lifestyle that encourages fitness. I believe I am able to relate to this girl in the same aspect of fitness but the fact that I notice how much makeup she is wearing makes me feel that I do not hold external appearances on the same value level as she does. I think that the way I view this girl says a lot about my values and that from her Greek letters I am assuming she holds all the same values as “sorority girls”, and my values are much different. But I know that not everybody in the Greek community is alike and I could be very similar to this girl if I talked to her.
Person 2:
The next person I observed was male of maybe the age of 22. He was wearing semi- tight black jeans, a plaid flannel shirt, a beanie hat, and all black creative recreation shoes. I believe that from the way he is dressing he enjoys a laidback or relaxed lifestyle. He probably isn’t somebody who worries about a lot of little things and just goes with the flow of life. In my opinion he probably doesn’t take his health into as much consideration as I would, but that is clearly just an assumption I am making from his dressing and I could be completely wrong. I would say that may he doesn’t come from an extremely wealthy family, but a well-off one. This is because I know the clothes he is wearing cost a good amount of money, but they also have some good wear to them. I think the fact that I know his clothes are of good quality and can notice the brand of shoes he is wearing says that I pay close attention to guys like this and he resembles a good amount of the friends I have. This leads me to believe that I may share a good amount of similar values with this person.
Person 3:
The last person I observed was a girl who looked to be about 23 years old. She looked shorter than me, but I was sitting down. She was very skinny with dark red hair, and was wearing lipstick and lots of jewelry. She was wearing tight black skinny leggings, high socks, and boots. She had on a Free People lacey dark green top with a sweater over it and a puffy grey scarf. In my opinion this girl is probably very interested in fashion, cares a lot about her appearance and lives a lavish lifestyle. I would assume that she comes from a wealthy supporting family because I know that Free People clothing is extremely expensive, and her boots also look of high quality. From her clothing and adornment I believe I might consider her a ‘hipster’ and she would take values that people of that genre hold. I feel like she might be a confident person because of the bold colors and fashion statements she is making. I think that since I am able to tell she is wearing a Free People shirt must mean that we have a similar interest in that sort of clothing area, as I do own a few Free People items in my closet. I believe we would hold different values though since I classified her as a part of a ‘hipster’ community and I do not hold a lot of the same values to a lot of people like that that I know. It is interesting to see how much I do assume from just the appearance of one person to another and really points out to me how important it is to get to know people before we truly know what values they hold.
I like how you presented your observations on the first girl. I’m a male and I used to be in a fraternity, and today of course as a senior I know a ton of people in Greek life, mostly females. It seems that at some of the sorority houses, girls seemed to be held to unreasonable standards with their appearance, as they can make almost overnight changes with their clothing and makeup as soon as they pledge. I wouldn’t consider it a bad thing, but I wouldn’t say that it helps the image of them to people that don’t know better. Most girls in Greek life I meet here, personality wise, aren’t any different from non-Greek’s, but that doesn’t stop people from putting them in a box and labeling them in a negative way. I like that you realize that and choose to ignore it, it speaks well about your personality 🙂
As I completed the people watching assignment this week I was also surprised at how many assumptions I make about a person solely based on how they appear. I also share a lot of the same opinions about the way a person looks and how this correlates with a person’s beliefs. I hadn’t thought to look at the color of a person’s clothing to suggest whether the person is confident or not, but I find your connection of bold colors and confidence very interesting. You have a point that it takes someone with a certain amount of confidence to pull of bold colors and certain fashion statements.