Byeloth Hermanson

Cultural Anthropology
Field Technique Project

In our most vulnerable moments, when things are least certain and most discouraging,
when it feels as though the entire universe has somehow turned against us, the smallest gestures of
generosity and goodwill from strangers can be enough to restore our faith in humanity. Its easy to
spread ill will towards our fellow man but what defines a community and even the essence of a
human being is our ability to spread kindness and love without expecting recognition: the desire to
help for the sake of helping without hope of reimbursement.
Generosity can be found in the most unsuspecting places and much like a smile, many
people find it utterly contagious. My desire to learn about the extent of human generosity and its
chain reaction led me to the widely popular coffee franchise, Starbucks. I have been a Starbucks
customer for a relatively short amount of time and although I only find myself purchasing a handful
of beverages on a monthly basis, I have already experienced on multiple occasions the warmth of a
strangers generosity. Such kindness left me feeling compelled to commit an act of kindness myself
(though admittedly a slight sense of obligation did find itself aiding in my own generosity) and have
always made a general assumption that others must, to some extent, feel the same way I did. The act
of paying-it-forward is a well-known practice at coffee establishments that entails simply picking
up the bill of the person in line behind you, a reasonably small gesture that can leave a surprisingly
large impact.
Although my observations were second-hand, I did collect enough data to be able to
accurately analyze my findings. These observations consisted of contacting multiple Starbucks
locations and after requesting the highest authority available, stating my educational occupation and
conducting a brief interview. I set out to compile data regarding the chain reaction caused by one
persons generosity and most employees I spoke with were more than happy to take a moment to

chat, providing very useful information. My short interviews were fairly straightforward, usually
consisting of one or two questions depending on the responses of the employees, and very quickly I
noticed a very prominent trend in several local Starbucks locations.
I first focused solely on drive-through locations, as in the past I had only ever experienced
this phenomena when taking my coffee to go, and found that the average length of the cycle landed
somewhere between 4-7 customers (though some outliers reported average cycles as low as 1-4
customers). Much to my surprise, when asked if they had ever witnessed the same act of generosity
occur with walk-in customers the response was a unanimous and resounding no. I found this
information to be extremely interesting, could this suggest that people truly do perform random acts
of kindness without expectations of physical gratitude in return? This finding may even suggest that
people are more inclined to perform acts of generosity behind a veil of anonymity.
To further solidify these findings I made the decision to contact local walk-in only
branches of Starbucks as well. While there were existing reports of this phenomena taking place, it
seldom occurred more than a small handful of times per month and was usually spurred by someone
picking up the tab for a person in uniform (police, firefighters, military, etc.), delving into an entirely
separate genre of generosity. These findings suggest that it may take a special person or
circumstance in order for the veil of anonymity to be breached, something which I personally found
to be very interesting.
To finalize my observations, I decided to expand my reach outside the boundaries of
Vancouver and contacted drive-through Starbucks locations in Fremont, CA and New York, NY
hoping to discover contrast between different distinct areas of the country. My contact with the
Fremont location was a very pleasant one, I found the staff to be very helpful and friendly, even
more so than those of Vancouver locations. I was informed that not only is paying-it-forward

common practice in northern California but chains of ten or more customers exhibiting continual
generosity are not at all uncommon. This statistic also excludes the woman that routinely buys out
the entire line behind her on a daily basis, causing a chain of generosity having been known to last
up to three hours. New York on the other hand proved indisputably that not all communities value
random generosity or friendliness and when asked about the phenomena the less-than-friendly
manager bluntly stated, we dont do that here.
My observations not only uncovered the trends of generosity apparent in our community
today but also allowed me the opportunity to peek into a few other communities in distinctly
different areas of the country. In conclusion, I believe that while random acts of generosity are a
wonderful thing and many people in different communities certainly see the importance of spreading
goodwill, not everyone takes part in the same phenomena. Its bewildering to think that such a
simple yet impactful action could be so common on one side of the country while on the other, the
act of buying a strangers coffee could be a completely foreign concept.