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Sydney Broderick and Elsie Duininck

Dr. Langan

Nonverbal Communication

29 November 2022

Nonverbal Observation: Shoe Choice in Relation to Self and Identity

In our nonverbal communication research, we chose to look at how individuals present

themselves by the shoes they wear. In our particular settings, we spent time observing and

recording the gender, type of shoe, and main shoe colors of the subjects passing by. Going into

our research, we were curious as to how much of people’s shoe choice depends on the purpose

they serve – in other words, are they wearing a shoe to fit an activity they are doing? Although it

is not possible to truly find the answer to this without personally speaking with the individuals,

we were able to use context clues in order to come to conclusions about the patterns we saw.

In looking at shoes, we decided to observe from different locations – the Saga cafeteria at

Wheaton and an airplane headed from Minneapolis to Chicago. We each watched for 30 minutes

in the afternoon which enabled us to record enough data to be able to find patterns in our

findings. One of the general patterns we noticed was that we were both looking at primarily

college-age people – students passing through the dining hall and students headed back to

college after their respective Thanksgiving break. In the cafeteria, the genders, shoe types, and

shoe colors of roughly 60 people were recorded, and on the airplane, approximately 50.

In both our observations, most shoes were neutral colors, generally white, black, or some

other solid color. Regarding types of footwear, there were a lot of sneakers, boots, running shoes,

and various slip-on shoes. Of the shoes we observed, we noticed some recurring patterns.

Saga (Sydney)
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Many of the shoes worn in the dining hall seemed to be for practical purposes – for

example, I observed on a cold and snowy day, so it only makes sense that I recorded a large

number of boots and other closed-toed shoes. The large amount of tennis shoes also fits the

functional purpose as I was looking at mostly college students entering the cafeteria for a quick

bite to eat in between walking to and fro classes and potentially even exercising during the day.

Additionally, a good amount of the sneakers worn were also popular sneakers and other “trendy”

shoes. For instance, I noticed some Birkenstock slip-ons which are both functional in the cold

weather, easy to slip on and walk around in as a student, and also are popular right now amongst

college-aged kids.

Airplane (Elsie)

Many of the individuals boarding were college students wearing sneakers. Those who

were older were wearing different brands than those who were younger. The young adults had

more uniformity in what brand of shoe they were wearing while the older adults had diversity in

brands, type and color of their sneaker/running shoe. 37 of the 46 recorded shoes were sneakers,

running shoes, or slip-on athletic shoes. This implies many people were going for a shoe that was

practical for travel and navigating an airport on their feet. This is considered functional rather

than structural because people seem to be wearing them more for a specific purpose. I also

noticed there was not much diversity in colors. This may be explained by the time of year, as it

was all plain colors rather than bright or neon colors. Bright and neon colors tend to be worn in

summer. Black, white and brown represented in the results seem to fit winter. All the boots I

observed were brown or tan. No other colors were represented by those who wore boots.

Saga (Sydney)
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Although we were unable to properly answer why people were wearing the shoes they

were, I think it is safe to assume that most of the individuals we observed wore their specific

type of shoe for functional reasons, some with an added layer of trendiness. Since the reasoning

behind people’s outfit choices is not possible to 100% know without asking the person, I think I

would slightly alter my observations in the future. For a future study, I think it would be

interesting and helpful to not only observe the items people are wearing, but to also survey them

and ask more details about the shoes they are wearing and for what purpose to get a greater

understanding as to why people wear the shoes they do. People can communicate many things

through what they wear, and people will always make assumptions, even those in observation.

That is why I think it is important to get the perspective of individuals firsthand as much as

possible after observing in order to learn the most about their nonverbal behavior and be as

accurate as possible in our conclusions.

Airplane (Elsie)

I learned that the geographical location of where you are observing plays a role in what

you see nonverbally. I believe I would see different shoes if this plane was headed to Florida

rather than a city in the midwest like Chicago. I also was in very close proximity to those

boarding and felt a bit awkward staring at their feet and then looking up to record their gender. I

would prefer to observe from afar. I think the airplane was overall a fascinating place to do this

observation because I had the knowledge of where all the passengers were headed and clearly

many were college age coming back to school after Thanksgiving break. For a future study, I

would also like to include their clothing and accessories in my field notes because these were the

indicators that these individuals were college students. Examples of this are backpacks and

school hoodies.
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