[Propertalk] “Good Samaritan” research

[Joe Parrish]

Remember the famous “Good Samaritan” research done by some researchers at Princeton University back in the 1970s. In this study, a group of theology students was told that they were to go across campus to deliver a sermon on the topic of the Good Samaritan. As part of the research, some of these students were told that they were late and needed to hurry up. They believed people would be waiting for them to arrive. 
Along the route these seminarians traveled across campus to the chapel, the researchers had hired an actor to play the role of a “victim” who was lying on the ground, coughing and suffering. Here is the amazing thing that came out of this research: ninety percent of the seminarians who were to deliver a sermon on the Good Samaritan ignored the needs of the suffering person right in front of them in their haste to get across campus. Indeed, on several occasions, the seminary students literally stepped over the victim as they hurried on their way! (3) That would be funny if it were not so sad!

3. Darley & Batson. Cited by Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (New York, NY: Hyperion, 2007), p. 102.

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