The Good Samaritan

In her sermon today spoke about the parable of the Good Samaritan.   One of the questions of course is why did the Samaritan stop when the regular clergy did not.  The other question I ask myself of course is, would I have stopped?

In the sermon,  our pastor referenced a study at the Seminary at Princeton university where students were tested to see if they would stop to offer help to someone who appeared to need help.

They varied the amount of urgency they told the subjects before sending them to the other building, and the task they would do when they got there. One task was to prepare a talk about seminary jobs, and the other about the story of the Good Samaritan. In one condition they told the subject they were late for the next task, in the other they said they had a few minutes but they should head on over anyway.

It would seem like the students who were thinking about the story of the Good Samaritan would of course be more likely to stop and help.  The results were pretty surprising.

 Check out Darley, J. M., and Batson, C.D., "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior". JPSP, 1973, 27, 100-108 for the details.