13 September 2012
I talk alot about psychological experiments. Mostly because I find human behaviour so fascinating.
So here goes...again.
I'm sure many of you have read or atleast skimmed through the bible. Even if you have'nt you're no doubt familiar with the story of the good samaritan.
In short, the story is about a male traveller who is set upon, robbed and severely beaten.
Now some people may argue that this man was Jewish, but that's debatable. I'll get to the relevance of him being Jewish in a minute, although it's not really relevant to what I'm talking about.
So this man is left for dead at the side of the road. A couple of people walk by and ignore him. Until a samaritan spots him and decides to help.
*the relevance of the man "possibly" being Jewish, is that it was believed that samaritans and jews had a general distaste for eachother.
Anywho, that's the jist of the story which you've probably heard followed by Jesus' pleas to "love thy neighbour".
If you want to read it, I think it's somewhere in the new testament...Luke maybe? I forget. So google it (other search engines are available).
Ok...
So I was walking through a busy london street today purposefully slow in an attempt to avoid being early for a meeting.
A child...or probably teenager is a better word, passed by me on a bicycle and rode off into the distance. Shortly after I saw him hit the curb at an awkward angle and go flying off of his bike and fall face first onto the cold and weathered pavement.
I kept my slow pace expecting one of the many people infront of me to help this guy out. But they all purposefully veered away from him.
I looked to a man who was walking to my side and he gave me a smirk and said "idiots on fackin bicycles"
(no I'm not misspelling the Fword, that's how he said it).
Anywho, I quickened my pace and helped this injured guy up and let him use my phone to call his parents. And long story short, he was'nt badly hurt. Praise Jebus. (yes I am purposefully misspelling Jesus).
I'm by no means the good samaritan in this story. In fact, I make it my life's purpose to mind my own business and get along. But if I'd fallen off of a bike like this young fellow did, I'd want, and probably expect someone to at the very least ask me if I was ok.
On this busy street, I was the only one to stop...how peculiar.
Now I think about it, I'm reminded of yet another experiment I'm always banging on about, that relates to both the biblical story and the dude on the bike story I mentioned.
It was called...surpisingly, "the good samaritan experiment" of 1973.
In short, a couple of guys wanted to test the effects of religion on helpful behaviour.
They took a bunch of seminary students half who were told the story of the good samaritan, and half who were told about job opportunities.
They then asked each student to deliver a sermon in one of the lecture halls.
They were given various times so that some of the students would be in a hurry, whilst others would have plenty of time.
The set up?
As the students were on their way to deliver their sermons, they would come across an injured man in an alleyway.
Now, some people would expect the students who were told the good samaritan story to stop and help?
Well they stopped no more than the other group of students. Religion had no effect. In fact it was those who had time to spare who mostly stopped to help.
Just as I who was walking purposefully slow in an attempt to avoid being early, stopped to help.
Would I have stopped if I was running late, I'm quite certain I would have.
And besides, I was late anyway.
And "I was helping a guy who fell off of his bike"
Beats my last excuse of
"sorry, my solar powered watch does'nt work when it's cloudy".
Samaritan • Opuss № I