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Introduction

As I guide you through the storyboard of my project, it all started when I noticed that the patterns of avoidant communication I noticed in my generation didn't match older romantic comedies I watched growing up. To test whether the patterns I noticed are mere observations or supported by an actual generational change in communication, I have centered my research around a romantic comedy film study grouped by decade. 

Progress

Nevertheless, it is imperative to examine whether my research has illuminated any generational shifts, and though I have yet to watch more recent films, so far I have not noticed a correlation between year and dominant confrontation style, for some early films favor the competing style while some favor the avoidant style. Rather, the confrontational style present seems to be more reflective of plot elements. For instance, When Harry Met Sally... favors the competing style because that is the basis of Harry and Sally's relationship: they become friends but constantly quarrel. Comparatively, in While You Were Sleeping, Lucy and Jack avoidantly handle issues because Jack suspects Lucy of lying about her engagement but beats around the bush rather than directly confronting her. In this case, although both films are produced within the span of ten years, they feature divergent confrontation styles. Initially, I had hypothesized that the confrontation style employed would be reflected of the time period in which it was made and theorized that more recent films would be avoidant. While this may still be true, at this point in my research, I have not been able to substantiate my original hypothesis. Finally, the films I have watched have produced a large sample size, featuring many confrontational scenes for me to be able to recognize both the dominant style along with variations in styles over the duration of a single film.

Challenges & Obstacles

Regarding my research, the greatest challenge has been trying to use objective analysis to classify confrontational scenes as either avoidant, competing, accommodating, collaborating, or compromising and, especially, differentiating between collaborating and compromising styles. Furthermore, differentiating between whether to measure timestamps by the entire scene or by time only spent in the confrontation has been difficult. For example, a conversation may not start off as confrontational but may build up to a confrontation, which is why it is difficult to decide what actually constitutes a confrontation. Lastly, deciding whether two confrontations that happen in close spatiotemporal proximity to one another complicates whether these count as one or two confrontations. Above all, balancing the research process with outside commitments, namely scholarship and honors college applications, has been the most challenging component of my research process.

Collected Data Highlights

I have been collecting data in a notebook, but I have linked a spreadsheet representation of a sample film below.

I would have hypothesized that When Harry Met Sally... would see the competing style dominate, but this is more because of the dynamic that the characters have than reflective of the time period. So far, I have noticed that every film I have watched sees a mix of confrontational styles, and some, like When Harry Met Sally... feature all five styles on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. Therefore, the dominating confrontation style seems to be more reflective of the plot than the time period.

Visual Documentation

Reflection

Overall, I have learned that even though I am interested in humanities subjects, conducting a subjective content analysis is difficult for me because I find it easier to interpret objective, quantitative data. Additionally, I knew when I started the research process that I came into my topic with preconceived notions and a prediction of what my data was going to reveal, but so far, my results have been far from what I originally estimated would be true. Therefore, I now know that throughout the research topics, it's absolutely true that your results will not necessarily be what you expect, but this can provide exciting opportunities for data analysis.