In a continuing effort to make AP Psychology more experiential, we had a general class discussion about Norms (starting with the topic of choosing which urinal is acceptable to use) and then headed to the Student Center for a demonstration. One class came up with the idea of clapping for a student who passed through the Student Center, and seeing who else/ how many others would join in. This was a successful idea — as you can see and hear above, students did join in. The second class decided to gather in a circle and stare at something on the ground, and see who else/ how many others would get close to look also; far fewer students outside of our class were pulled into the behavior however.
I think, for next year, we need to choose a behavior that closer to what students would normally do. Hoping students would move closer to a tightly-knit cluster of 30 students, and even come into physical contact with them in order to see over their shoulders to the floor in the middle of the circle was too divergent a behavior — whereas simply joining in, clapping for a fellow student was more accessible.