Koh Ke Mian
Different Preferences of Temperature and Sizes of Drinks between Males and Females
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In this era of globalization and urbanization, the need of intake caffeine is getting common. Most people have the need of drinking a cup of coffee or others beverage which contain caffeine before going to work or school. According to Mayo Clinic Staff (2011), healthy adults take moderate amount of caffeine, it is around two to four cups of brewed coffee or 200 to 300 milligrams (mg) will not cause harm. In contrast, healthy adults have to limit their intake of daily caffeine to 400 milligrams (Garriguet, 2008). However, consumption too much of caffeine will cause biological effects, such as insomnia, restlessness, muscle tremors, nervousness, abnormal heart rhythms and anxiety (Garriguet, 2008; Mayo Clinic Staff, 2011). Therefore, in my observational study, I had focused on different genders, temperature and sizes of their preference of drinks in the age ranges of 18 to 35 years old. Furthermore, the central research question of my observational study is “What are the different preference drinks of temperature and sizes between male and female in the age range of 18 to 35 years old?” According to Garriguet (2008), the peak consumption of caffeine drinks was at the ages of 31 to 50. Furthermore, the amount of consumption of caffeine which recommended was 400 milligrams per day, while there are more than 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women in the age range of 31 to 70 had exceed the amount of recommendation (Garriguet, 2008). The reason I conducted this observational research because most of the time, human do not notice about caffeine that are influencing their biological self and will unknowingly ignore those things that they are not interested in. According to Geertz (1973), observation can defined as “thick description”, and it provides rich qualitative data. Observational study is not only focus on looking and listening, it will be more than that (Geertz, 1973).
Method
Setting
This observational study was taken place at Starbucks which is located at Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Furthermore, this coffee shop was located at the ground floor, G1.12 & OB.K4C in Sunway Pyramid. In the observation, I was sitting at the nearest seat that faces the cashier desks to help me observed the preferences of those customers easier (Refer to Appendix A). Moreover, this observation was conducted on 6th February 2014 (Thursday), from 1.30pm to 4.40pm. It was taken three hours and 10 minutes to run this observation. The reason that I chose that time slots to observe those customers in Starbucks because 1.30pm is the peak hour and I can collect more data from that period of time.
Subjects
The participants that had been including in my observational study were the temperature and sizes of different preference of drinks between male and female customers in Starbucks. There is no special characteristic but I will focus only on Starbucks’ customers. On the other hand, the total number of the customers in my study is 81 people and there are male and female customers. The ratio of the male and female customers that had been observed in my study is 41:40. In addition, the age ranges of male and female customers are from 18 to 35 years old.
Procedures/Data Collection
I conducted my observational study on 6th February 2014 (Thursday), at 1.30pm. However, I went to the Starbucks earlier to pretend as a customer and I bought a cup of drink before I found a seat. In addition I was looking around to look through the layout of the coffee shop and try to find a seat that had broader my view to help me observed customers’ choice of drinks and methods of payment. Therefore, I had chosen a seat that was the nearest to the cashier desks. I tried to limit the extent of my personal influence during and throughout the observation by practicing the complete participants which conceals the role as an observer to immerse into the observation environment. The reason that I immersed into the observation environment because I have to make sure that the natural activities went smooth and was not disrupted by outsiders.
Validity/Reliability
To build the validity and reliability in this observational study, as an observer, I had limited my observational biases through take notes of everything that I had observed to prevent the selective attention and to minimize the possibility of paying attention to some unique things. Furthermore, it also helps me to prevent the possibility of selective memory and to avoid the delay of the observational process. On the other hand, I had taken down all the things that I had observed when I ran this observational study which helps me to get validity and reliability.
Results
My observational study had done in the Starbucks that located at Sunway Pyramid. The themes shown in my observational study are genders, beverages contain caffeine, size of the beverages and temperature of the beverages. The total numbers of the participants which were the customers who bought the drinks in Starbucks at 1.30pm to 4.40pm were 81 people and there had been categorized into male and female.
Table 1
The different genders, temperature and sizes of preference drinks contain caffeine in the age ranges of 18 to 35 years old.
Themes
Behaviours
Frequency
Gender
Male
41
Female
40
Beverages
Coffee
44
contain caffeine
Chocolate
26
Green Tea
11
Size of the
Tall (12oz) (Starbucks Coffee Company, 2013)
6
beverages
Grande (16oz) (Starbucks Coffee Company, 2013)
41
Venti (20oz/24oz) (Starbucks Coffee Company, 2013)
34
Temperature of
Hot
30
the beverages
Cold
51
Table 2
Preference of beverages between males and females.
Gender
Preference of drink/sizes of drink
Tall (12oz)
Grande (16oz)
Venti (20oz)/
(24oz)
Total
Male
Hot
Coffee
0
7
8
15
Chocolate
0
1
1
2
Green Tea
0
0
0
0
Cold
Coffee
1
12
3
16
Chocolate
1
3
0
4
Green Tea
0
1
3
4
Female
Hot
Coffee
0
2
3
5
Chocolate
0
1
5
6
Green Tea
0
1
1
2
Cold
Coffee
1
5
2
8
Chocolate
3
7
4
14
Green Tea
0
1
4
5
According to Table 1, there were 41 males and 40 females had been observed in my observational study. In contrast, Cohen, Shani and Tifferet (2013) found that there were 85 percent of male will brought branded beverages compared to 64 percent of female. Furthermore, the researchers also stated that men showed choice of branded products because they had stronger need to signal their status (Cohen et al., 2013). Males will be more responsive to the caffeine stimulant effect compared to females due to they were prefer high quality coffee (Botella & Parra, 2003; Adan, Fabbri, Prat, & Sanchez-Turet, 2008, as cited in Cohen et al., 2013).
In addition, those subjects were all in the age ranges of 18 to 35 years old. Garriguet (2008) stated that the consumption of the beverages were depends on the gender differences and the ages. In addition, he also found that the consumption of drinking beverage of males will be higher than females, while the doses amount of caffeine by both genders will decline when grow older (Garriguet, 2008). The intake of caffeine for men in the ages of 31 to 50 is around 639 grams and the consumption of caffeine for women is 586 grams. (Garriguet, 2008) However, the ages of 70 and older will take less amount of caffeine in their daily life (Garriguet, 2008). Moreover, according to Table 2, total amount of males who had taken coffee was 31 people, whereas the total amount of females who taken coffee had only 13 people. Besides that, Starbucks Coffee Company (2013) stated that coffee, chocolate and green tea had contained different amount of caffeine.
Table 1 had stated that the most preferable beverage by the subjects were coffee which was 44 cups and follow by chocolate, 26 cups and green tea, 11 cups. From the table 1, it showed that the coffee had the highest need by the subjects and green tea had the lowest need. According to Adan, Fabbri, Prat and Sanchez-Turet (2008), males will be more sensitive to caffeine effects, whereas, female will be more sensitive to decaffeinated beverage. In addition, from Table 2, it showed the consumption of coffee by males were higher than female which was 31cups and 13cups. Albanes et al. (2008) reported there was some advantage consumed of coffee to prevent the risk of cerebral infarction. There were seven females who bought green tea, while only four males had bought green tea. The researchers had found that nonsmoking and nondrinking women who drank more than five cups of green tea in daily had lower percentage of got stroke compared to the women who drank less than five cups of green tea in daily (Albanes, Kontto, Larsson, Mannisto, Virtamo and Virtanen, 2008). However, Albanes et al. (2008) stated that the higher doses consumption of green tea will cause higher mortality from cerebral infarction. According to Table 2, chocolate drinks were the most preferable drink for the females which were 20cups. However, males had showed less interested on drinking chocolate because there had only six males bought it.
Besides that, Table 1 had showed that the grande, 16 ounce were the most preferable size for the subjects. On the other hand, the tall size of beverage was 12 ounce and there were only six people preferred to buy that sizes. In contrast, there were 34 people preferred to buy the venti size which was 20 ounce. Table 2 also showed that males were more preferred to buy grande size of beverage compared to tall and venti size. However, females showed they more preferred on the venti size of beverage. According to Starbucks Coffee Company (2013), grande size was also as 16 ounce of the beverage was 473 millilitres, while Garriguet (2008) had stated that the intake of the amount doses of coffee for the healthy adults could not exceed 400 grams. Furthermore, tall size (12 ounce) of Starbucks drinks was 354 millilitres and the venti size (20/24 ounce) was 591 millilitres for hot beverages and 709 millilitres for cold beverages (Starbucks Coffee Company, 2013). The venti size of beverages had highly exceeded the recommended amount of the intake of coffee.
In Table 1 had showed that there were 51 people preferred cold beverages and only 30 people preferred hot beverages. Table 2 stated that there had only a small different between males and females who prefer cold drinks, which were 24 for males and 27 for females. The weather can be a reason that most of the people more preferred cold drinks than hot drinks. On the other hand, the cold beverages not only increased the palatability, it also helps individual to reduce core body temperature (Burdon, Gifford, O’Connor & Shirreffs, 2010 as cited in Burdon, Chapman, Johnson & O’Connor, 2012). According to McMullen, Shine, Towell, Whitehouse and Whitton (2012), the hot beverages which contained caffeine will increase the blood pressure and heart rate. The present of somatosensory stimulation was causing by hot fluids and the hot fluids will increase the heart rate and blood pressure (McMullen et al., 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the general conclusion drawn from my observational study are the temperature and sizes of beverages that preferred by males were different with females. Males had showed more interested on consumed cold coffee with grande size than other types of beverage. In contrary, females had showed high interested on having cold chocolate drinks in grande size compared to tall and venti sizes. In addition, the researchers had showed that the maximum of daily consumption of the amount of caffeine was 400 milligrams and the exceeded of consumed coffee or caffeine will cause some effects (Garriguet, 2008). Furthermore, in this observational study, I had observed that there was no different between males and females on choice of branded products. Last but not least, both genders had the same temperature preferences of beverages, whereas, they had the different favor of beverages which males preferred coffee and females preferred chocolate.
