I can't believe you guys weren't completely inspired by my hallway renditions last post. Well, I have something that will inspire everyone:
I finished my paper yesterday! In a seven hour writing extravaganza. I got back from class, brought a bean bag and my laptop into my bedroom, shut the door, and with the exception of three bathroom breaks and a Subway Melt, emerged seven hours later triumphant. So I only wrote 'til 12:30. And I need to add--this wasn't just the writing process. I did all of my research and material gathering and reading in that time as well. I read eight studies.
Ooh, ooh! I have a good one for you guys today. It's called the "Good Samaritan" study. I like the title of it: "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior. Basically, these guys Darley and Batson were trying to figure out why perfectly good people don't help someone out when they're in trouble. There's a whole big model they created, blah blah blah, but on their way to creating that model, they did all these studies to figure it out, and this is one of them.
Here's the great thing about this study: They recruited actual seminary students as participants. They randomly assigned the seminary students to go give a lecture in another building on either professional opportunies after seminary school, or on the good samaritan story. They further randomly assigned the participants to believe that they were either late to give the talk, or early, but should go on over anyways.
On the path between the two buildings, a confederate was slumped over in the hallway that the participants had to walk through, and as they passed by, he moaned and coughed, to be in obvious need of assistance. Whether they were giving the talk on professional opportunities or the good samaritan story did not affect the percentage that chose to try and help the man. What did affect it was how much of a hurry the person was in. 63% who weren't in a hurry helped him in some way, and 10% helped him who were in a hurry. Helping could even have been ignoring him but lettign someone know that there was a man in the hall who needed help. One of the participants actually had to step over the man to get by, and still didn't help. I find that funny.
Time for class. I'm celebrating my paper's completion with dinner and a movie tonight--yay! I love the weight that lifts after a paper is turned in.
