What would you do?
"No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same."
-Viktor Emil Frankl
As a species, one of our greatest flaws is the inability to put ourselves in another person's shoes and see how big of a role the circumstances we find ourselves in affects our character.
We all like to tell ourselves "oh if that was me I wouldn't have done that..." or... " I would have done this..."
But how do we know?
In the 1970's Princeton social psychologists John Darley and Dan Batson experimented on time pressure and helpful behaviour.
Students of the Princeton Theological Seminary were told to deliver a sermon on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
This sermon was to be delivered in a studio across campus and would be graded.
The researchers wanted to see if time pressure would affect the students’ helpful nature. Being future clergy the assumption would naturally be that the students would be compassionate and helpful whenever they had the opportunity.
Before being sent across campus to deliver their sermon the researchers introduced an element of time constraint upon them by giving them one of three instructions:
1. the high-hurry condition.
“You’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago…You’d better hurry. It shouldn’t take but just a minute.”
2. the intermediate-hurry condition.
“The (studio) assistant is ready for you, so please go right over.”
3. the low-hurry condition.
“It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over. If you have to wait over there, it shouldn’t be long.”
Each student walked by themself from the classroom to the studio where they were to speak on the parable.
Along the way, they would encounter a ‘victim’ in a deserted alleyway just like the wounded traveller in the parable of the Good Samaritan. This victim (arranged by the researchers) appeared to be in immediate need of assistance giving the students a chance to practice what they were about to preach.
Would the imposed time pressure affect the student's response to a distressed stranger?
The answer was yes.
Only 10% of the students in the high-hurry situation stopped to help the victim.
45% of the students in the intermediate-hurry.
63% of the students in the low-hurry situations helped the victim.
The experiment found that a person not in a hurry may stop and offer help. A person in a hurry is more likely to keep going, Ironically, even if they are hurrying to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan.
In light of their training and calling, the student's failure to stop and help is probably not due to callousness, indifference, or contempt. Their failure is instead due to the conditions of the situation.
The conclusion is that circumstances play a bigger role in our behaviour than we give credit and we never really know how we will react in a situation until we've been through it. In this case, the situation was being in a rush.
Does this mean we are doomed to a life of reacting rather than acting and that we have no control over whether we are good or bad?
Of course not.
Awareness and preparation can prevent a multitude of problems.
There is an ancient stoic practice of starting each day by meditating on all the things that can go wrong. Whether it is mistakes you might make, like not helping someone because you're in a hurry, or whether it's a customer blowing up on you without cause.
The point of this isn't to start your day in a bad mood. The point is to achieve that awareness and be prepared for what you might encounter.
If you start your day fully aware of how being rushed can prevent you from doing a good deed and you've spent time in the past weighing the cost of the good deed vs. The cost of being late you might increase your chance of doing the good deed. If you haven't prepared then you may rush past completely blind to the missed opportunity to help.
This is by no means foolproof and there is no possible way to predict every situation you may find yourself in. But you can with most certainty prepare for the people you deal with being meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, surly.... More importantly, you can do your best not to judge others for the situations they find themselves in. Their circumstances are not yours and you may never know how you’d react if the tables were turned.
-Jason Brown
