1. Urinal Selection Predictability
Kyle Saunders

2. Theory
According to Em Griffin- A set of systematic, informed hunches about the way things work.
Theories function to explain and predict unusual events, and they are applied constantly in our day to day life.
3. My objective theory:
Mens public restroom urination predictability theory
4. Mens public restroom urination predictability theory
When using a public restroom, men are often presented with many options in terms of which urinal they will use.Despite the abundance of options, men tend to pick specific urinals for every state of occupancy the restroom is experiencing.
5. If men selected urinals randomly, we would expect to find each urinal used roughly the same amount of times in a given day.
However this is not the case!Urinal # 5 was by far the most popular,
The second most popular urinal was urinal # 1
6. But why?
7. 0 Occupants
Using the restroom is a private matter and it can be said that men generally like their privacy respected, especially in the restroom.
That said, upon entering an empty restroom, men significantly tend to use the urinal farthest from the door.I term this the door rule.
This is likely due to the wall protecting a mans privacy from the right side, while at the same time maintaining as much distance from the door as possible.
8. 1 Occupant
Well, upon entering a public restroom with 1 other person present, the situation completely changes.The door rule no longer applies, instead, men place as many possible stalls between himself and the other male.This I term the male space rule.
9. 2 Occupants
When a man enters a public restroom and there are 2 other occupants
already present, the man generally uses urinal #3.Thisis again an application
of the male space rule maximizing privacy by keeping a 1 urinal buffer between
himself and the other men.
10. 3 Occupants
When a man enters a public restroomwith 3 other occupants present, the 1 urinal buffer option is no longer available.He thus falls back onto the door rule, in which he selects urinal # 4, optimizing all potential privacy.
11. This theory all began at Arizona Stadium during a Wildcats football game.I went to use the restroom and was surprised to see they had installed automatic sensors to flush the urinals, and even better, each urinal was equipped with a flush counter, giving a readout of the number of times it had been flushed.
Interested, I checked out all the counters on the urinals and was surprised at how much they varied.
12. The urinal counters displayed the following numbers:
13. So I had an unusual event that needed explaining.Why did urinal #5 flush nearly twice as much as urinals #2 and #4?All the urinals were completely equal in quality so what led to the differences?
From here I began thinking of my own preferences, noting which urinals I used and considering why I made the decision.After much contemplation and field studies in public restrooms across the county, I finalized the theory.
14. The theory revolves around the idea that mens restrooms are private areas, and that men using these facilities try to maximize the privacy they have.
With that in mind, the theory unfolds, door rule taking form.I recall numerous occasions in badly designed bar restrooms in which I, forced to take the urinal closest to the door, had to make awkward eye contact with everyone in the bar every time the door swung open.
From experiences such as these, I think men tend to shy away from urinal # 1 and instead when presented with an empty bathroom, head for the far urinal.
15. The next step was figuring out what most men do when there is another man present.
For this step I just put myself in the restroom patrons shoes.You couldnt just go take the stall right next to the other male.It would be an unnecessary breech of privacy.Instead, I make claim that most men would pick the urinal farthest from the current patron.
The idea of a personal bubble is common in our society.
16. Scientific Standard 1: Explanation of Data
Mens public restroom urination predictability theory is a product of data.The theory was born from the flush counters on automatic urinals.
The unusual event was the amount of variance in flushes between the different toilettes.
The theory looks to explain how those numbers came to be.
17. Scientific Standard 2:Prediction of Future Events
Mens public restroom urination predictability theory predicts future behavior very accurately.Since it is a data based theory, it can be applied to predict future events.The flush counters provide the number of times each urinal has been flushed in the past and that data can be used to gleam insight into future usage.The theory allows one to know with good certainty which urinal someone is going to use, thus predicting that event.
18. Scientific Standard 3: Relative Simplicity
Mens public restroom urination predictability theory is fairly simple.It consists of 2 rules which men tend to follow in their selection of urinals, with the male space rule being dominant of the two.

Male Space Rule

19. Door Rule