Social experiment

Social experiments write up

The question that we set out to answer was is if someone looked respectable and had a relevant plea would they receive money from begging. This experiment was intended to look at what might trigger sympathy. We can see of no consequences from leaving this question unresolved. This was an exploratory project. Some of the variables considered were the people who were giving the money to me and my ability to effectively pan handle. A second subject posing as a normal bum I think would be the best way to gage my success comparatively and would lead to more conclusive data make for a better experiment over all. The hypothesis behind our experiment was that a well-dressed individual with a reasonable plea would be very successful at pan handling. This would look at the basis of sympathy from strangers through monetary acknowledgement. From the parameters of the experiment I think that the respectable individual would make a good deal of money because people would feel safer, empathy and understanding with giving money. The method of research was experimental participant observation witch fit the essential question perfectly and offered deliberation on the hypothesis. I pan handled for approximately 30 min accumulating 8 dollars and some odd cents, making that an hourly wage of 16 dollars. I received money about every third set of car at the stop light where I was pan handling. In those sets were about 4 to 8 cars. This could be conducted on the sidewalk in the city where there might be more contact leading to more response.

From this experiment it became apparent that there is a direct relationship between the presentation of the panhandler and their success as one through the sympathy of others. The way I was dressed was business attire clean cut and well composed. The sign I used to ask for money with read “Lost it all in recession wife & baby need help god bless.” Those words were chosen to play on the ethos and pathos having the most impact in order to create sympathy, understanding as well as moral obligation. From the results of the experiment it seems to have achieved what was theorized. I think if this experiment model would to be conducted with a second panhandler for comparison and in a more densely populated setting the results would be much clearer.