In 1973, John Darley and Daniel Batson conducted the Good Samaritan experiment at Princeton University’s Theological Seminary, where participants were studying to become religious leaders.
The parable of the Good Samaritan is about a traveler who is beaten and robbed and left half dead alongside the road. Two separate religious leaders pass by and avoid the man, ignoring his requests for help. A Samaritan arrives, ignores his cultural antagonism to the man’s tribe, and helps him. The story is told by Jesus in response to a question offered by a lawyer who asked for clarification on the commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
The 40 students in the Princeton Seminary Good Samaritan experiment had been studying the parable of the Good Samaritan.
The experiment consisted of instructing the students to deliver a presentation on the Good Samaritan. One-third of the students were given the locations of their presentations and told that they had plenty of time to get there. Another third were given the locations of their presentations and told that they had barely enough time to get there. The final third were given the locations of their presentations and told that they were late and would need to hurry to arrive in time to present.
As the students traveled individually along the university hallways to their respective destinations, they encountered a stranger who had fallen and was coughing and moaning, signaling that they needed help.
Of the students with plenty of time, 63% stopped to help. Of the students with just enough time, 40% stopped to help. Of the students who were late, only 10% stopped to help.
At the end of the day, the majority of the students studying the parable of the Good Samaritan were so focused on giving their presentations on the Good Samaritan that they passed up the opportunity to serve a neighbor in need.
The experiment’s results are disheartening, to say the least, but the experimenters have a more generous appraisal of them. They propose that the participants who ignored the person in need did so due to conflicting obligations rather than cruelty and because they were focused on their objective.
The story of the Princeton Seminary Good Samaritan experiment resonates with me because last week, I participated in a meeting of a statewide Housing and homelessness advocacy group with approximately 80 participants representing the State of Vermont, NGOs, and for-profit developers.
The meeting opened with a review of the current legislation related to the homeless situation in Vermont, the number of hotel vouchers available, and advocates’ efforts to increase the number and length of vouchers. I raised my online hand and countered that the housing shortage narrative was not accurate and that the focus should be on permanent housing for those in need, not temporary housing in motels. I offered as support for my contention the fact that I had nine vacant units ready for their clients and I shared my digital application in the chat.
As the founder of Partners in Housing, I spoke on behalf of other Housers who have vacant units but are not getting agency action in housing those in need and then supporting them with services necessary to keep them housed.
At this point, Erhard Mahnke, founder of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition, shut me down; after all, I wasn’t on the agenda! From my perspective, when 80 housing and homeless advocates get in the room to talk about the current housing crisis in Vermont, the appearance of a Houser with vacant housing units would warrant an interruption or a revision to the agenda. But we know how the Good Samaritan experiment turned out. There is nothing more powerful than a commitment to a task, obligation, agenda, process, or journey.
At the end of the meeting, I had received no applications. A week later, the number remains zero. At the meeting, I contended that the process of housing those in need was cumbersome and needed revision and refinement, but…the agenda took over, and I was out.
Martin Luther King Jr. often spoke of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and he went a little farther than simply indicting the robbers and those who ignored the victim. He went further than celebrating the Samaritan’s selfless actions. King extended the call for neighborly assistance to society at large, calling for the focus to be on making the road to Jericho safe for all.
King would apply the parable of the Good Samaritan to Vermont and call for us to focus on providing housing for all.
But…we have that agenda! It’s time to invest in rigorous performance management, not more meetings, to plan the meetings and prepare the agenda for the next meeting.
It’s time to put competent managers in charge of systemic change, which evaluates spending to produce actual outcomes with long-term sustainability. It’s time to invest in a highly trained workforce and to hold agencies and authorities accountable for results.
