The study involved an examination of the influences of several personality and situational variables on assisting behavior in an emergency situation as the one depicted by the parable of the Good Samaritan. The authors of the article note “helping those in distress is one of the characteristics of an ethical act”. An ethical act refers to proceedings governed by principled norms and precepts taught to young ones in church, school and home environments. The different personality theories result to differences in internalization of the said standards that would result to differences between individuals in the event in which they would help others. Studies in the last four decades did not reveal personality determinants of helping behavior, personality variables were not predictive of helping either nor did the presentation of a helping situation produce significant changes in the rates of helping behavior (Darley and Batson, 1973). These findings brought to mind another study conducted in 1928 by May and Hartshorne who reached the conclusion that resistance to temptation did not seem to be an individual’s fixed characteristic. These findings enhanced the need for a different perspective on likely predictors of assisting and likely situations in which to test them. Using the parable, it was evident that personality and situational variables are important to lending a hand.
Psychologists suggest a personality and situational difference between a helpful Samaritan, Levite and a non-helpful priest. First, the thoughts of the three individuals suggest situational variables whereby the priest and Levite were in a hurry since they are important people in the society going to serve people while the Samaritan who was an outcast did not have a specific place to be at in a specific time. Personality factors suggested are that there is a difference between types of religiosity whereby the priest and Levite are extremely religious but not ethical while the Samaritan on the other hand is religious though contrasted with the religiosity of the priest and Levite and also ethical. The experiment procedure involved enrollment of seminary students for a study on religious education who completed a personality questionnaire regarding their religion and later did the experiment in one building and proceeded to the next building to perform a different task whereby during their transition they encountered a man slumped in a pathway (Darley and Batson, 1973). The research findings indicate that the level of being in a hurry induced in a subject influenced the helping behavior while the task variable did not. Forty percent of the subjects examined offered to help the victim. However, there was no correlation between helping behavior and types of religion. The only variable that indicated some influence was religion as a quest whereby for subjects that helped; those who viewed religion as a quest did not offer substantial help compared to their counterparts regarding the statement.
Reference
Darley, J. M., and Batson, C.D. (1973). "From Jerusalem to Jericho": A study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior". JPSP , 27, pp 100-108.
