Psychology of a good Samaritan

Today at morning tea we started discussing how often people in need get ignored in large crowds.

It is often reported in the media:

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2006/s1585925.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3701848.stm

This reminded me of the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a Rabbi and a Levite ignore an injured man and pass by, with a Samaritan being the only one to stop and help.

This bought to mind an experiment constructed by Darley and Batson in 1978.

In the experiment they selected religious studies students who were instructed to travel from one building to the next. Between the two buildings was a man lying on the ground, appearing to be injured and in need of assistance.

The first variable in this experiment was the amount of urgency perceived by the subjects, some were told that they were running late and needed to hurry, others were told that they had plenty of time to get there.

One group of people were told that when they arrived at the other building they would be giving lectures on procedures and the others were told that they would be giving a lecture about the Good Samaritan story.

Sadly, the results of the experiment showed that the relative haste of the subject was the overriding factor, not their belief system.

When the subject was not in a rush, nearly two thirds of people stopped to help the injured man. When the subject was in a rush, this dropped to one in ten.

People who were on the way to deliver a speech about helping others were nearly twice as likely to stop and help as those delivering other sermons.

It seems that the only major explanation for people failing to stop and help a victim is how worried about being late they were.

Even students going to speak about the Good Samaritan story were less likely to stop and offer assistance if they were rushing.

Would you stop?

See: http://www.experiment-resources.com/helping-behavior.html 

See an updated version of the experiment done by the ABC at: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/WhatWouldYouDo/Story?id=4420829&page=2