Note on Students' Reactions to “Streakers” and “Streaking”

Abstract

The process by which act becomes defined as has been subject of numerous commentaries. Kitsuse (2 ) has summarized: Forms of behavior per se do not differentiate deviants; it is responses of conventional and conforming members of society who identify and interpret behavior as deviant which sociologically transforms into deviants (p. 248). During spring 1974 phenomenon of (running nude in public) spread across at least 123 colleges in Uniied States (1 ) . Was streaking considered behavior? To answer that question, as it applied to one college population, a questionnaire was administered to a 1 % random sample of 212 of Louisiana State Universiry undergraduate students immediately following a March 1974 episode of streaking on that campus. The sample was drawn from student directory; none of respondents had been streakers but all were aware of or had observed episode. Only 9 % of respondents labeled streakers as or as similarly negative types (exhibitionists, vulgar persons, perverts, etc.). The rest of respondents characterized streakers in such terms as funseekers, faddists, bored looking for diver!jon, people liking attention, with nothing else to do, carefree, uninhibif~d. Over 80% of respondents felt that streaking had taken place because of fad, tensjon release, springtime fun, the search for novelty, or an escape from exam pressure. Of 84 hypotheses concerning relation of social variables (socio-economic status, sex, age, religion, major, grade point average, political orientation, place of birth, degree of authoritarianism) to judgments concerning streaking, only three relationships attained statistical significance (males, respondents whose fathers had higher incomes, and respondents with higher grade point averages tended more often to label streakers as ordinary peo le). strezing was not seen as deviant behavior, nor streakers as deviant by nearly all of respondents. Rather, streaking was assessed to be a diversion or fad. Sociologically defined, a fad is an exceptional preoccupation with a single viewpoint, object of interest, or a single line of behavior, and is of limited duration. Fads arise unpredictably, seem somewhat bizarre, and are concerned with items of culture, often material or linguistic, which seem superficial, ornamental, and generally harmless (3, p. 207 ) . Streaking, therefore, takes its place alongside such other historical fads as gold-fish swallowing, booth stuffing, Volkswagen stuffing, bath-tub racing, wheeled-bed racing, panty raiipt:: The near absence of influence of social background influences on attitudes of respondents toward streaking supports argument for heterogeneity of persons responding similarly to episodes of fadism. Attitudes toward fads can be relatively independent of those influences, keyed primarily by thrill of event, perceived innocuousness of event, and need for or acceptance of diversion. Persons in populations other than college students might, of course, have seen streaking less as a fad and more as a act.