A Question

On April 10, 1971, The New York Times reported about two academics at Princeton: Prof. John M. Darley, who teaches psychology at the university, and C. Daniel Batson, a Doctor of Theology doing graduate work in psychology there while teaching at the Princeton Theological Seminary, ...recruited 40 volunteers from the seminary. Explaining that they were studying the vocational placement of seminarians, Dr. Batson and Professor Darley asked each to record a brief talk on a given text. To half the volunteers they presented a text on job opportunities; the other half got a text of the Good Samaritan parable. (Which talks about people refusing to help an injured man on the side of the road - C.S.)......One by one the volunteers were then told to proceed from Green Hall to record their talk in the Annex....The volunteers were dispatched at 15-minute intervals....and there - lying in a doorway in the alley - was a young man coughing and groaning and possibly in pain. The “victim” had been put there by Dr. Batson and Professor Darley to see if the seminarians would play the role of the Good Samaritan - or pass him by......Of the 40, a total of 16 stopped to help. Twenty-four did not swerve from their path. One even stepped over the “victim” to get through the doorway he had mistaken for the one he wanted. What determined whether a man stopped to help - or passed by? The simple answer turned out to be not the personality or character of the seminarian, but simply whether he was in a hurry. Of those in the “low hurry” condition,63 percent stopped to help. In the “intermediate hurry” condition, 45 percent stopped. In “high hurry ,” only 10 percent stopped to offer help. This response would be shocking, except that it’s not. The seminary students should know better, but they forgot everything in pursuit of arriving on time; and so does everyone. 

It does not take much to be human but it takes effort to be humane.