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Win, bid, and sell, the game is ours! An ethnographic exploration of the trivia culture. Kakali Bhattacharya. Try the following questions. Whose parents were Lord and Lady Graystone? What human sense is the last to go before a person dies?
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Win, bid, and sell, the game is ours!An ethnographic exploration of the trivia culture Kakali Bhattacharya
Try the following questions • Whose parents were Lord and Lady Graystone? • What human sense is the last to go before a person dies? • What was the first product in USA to have a bar code?
The Question • How do small groups make decisions when playing trivia? • What are some of the roles people play when they are in a trivia culture?
The Literature • Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) • Participation Pattern • Status and power • Conflict negotiation
Social Identity • (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) Humans derive extended self-concepts from their group memberships • Brewer (1991) humans have two primary social needs or drives, for assimilation and for differentiation
Participation Pattern • Solicit contribution • Determine usefulness • Sense of belonging • Collective self esteem, identification with group
Status and power • Majority consensus affords high social status and positive social identity (Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) • Differential amounts of influence • Contingency model of leadership • Ignore irrelevant social support • Extravert, agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience
Conflict negotiation • Distributive bargaining • objective of distributive bargaining is the maximization of unilateral gains • Integrative bargaining • Cooperative, interest-based, agreement-oriented approach
Subjectivity • Differential treatment of women • Everyone liked each other • Sexual stereotypes
Implications of subjectivity • Extra attention to data in areas of subjectivity, triangulation • Silence of data – does it really speak towards gender relations? • Wait, gather,confirm before making conclusions • Consider rival possibilities • Look beyond subjectivities
Context of Study • Local sports bar conducting trivia every Tuesday night • Participants – mostly mid to late 20s, male, students or working professionals • Bar also 70-30 male female ratio, not too visibly multicultural • Prizes ($50, $25, $15, merchandise)
Themes • Winning is important at any cost almost! • The power of the pen – hierarchy of power • Selling your correct answer is critical for active membership • Arrogance, confidence, pride in winning
Implications • Decisions are made through integrative bargaining process with the power holders influencing the outcomes • Experience of belonging in the group can happen through the game, banter, and conversations
Implications • Active membership in the group requires useful contributions that assist the group in winning • Leadership is widely accepted when the leader can consistently meet the group objective of winning the game