ARE PEOPLE WILLING TO AGREE TO GIVE THEIR TIME TO TALK TO A STRANGER?

Are people willing to agree to give their time to talk to a stranger?

(A Social Experiment by Khwaja Moinuddin)

What is a social experiment?

A social experiment is a type of research done in fields like psychology or sociology?to see how people behave in certain situations or how they respond to particular policies or programs. Informal, personal, and humorous experimentation, such as pranks, is sometimes also referred to as a social experiment.

Objective: To determine if people are willing to agree to give a few minutes of their time to talk to an unknown person

Setting: Near the entrance of an amusement park

Hypotheses: The researcher (Khwaja Moinuddin) had three hypotheses to test:

Hypothesis 1: Are people (in general) willing to give their time to talk to stranger in a public place?

Hypothesis 2: Are men more likely than women to agree to give a few minutes of their time to talk to a stranger (and answer a few questions) in a public place?

Hypothesis 3: Are younger people more likely than older people to agree to give a few minutes of their time to talk to a stranger (and answer a few questions) in a public place?

Sample size: 51 people randomly selected by the researcher (Khwaja Moinuddin) who were either entering the amusement park or exiting the amusement park

Date: The social experiment was conducted on 7th May 2022.

Process of the experiment: The researcher stood near the entrance of the amusement park and approached random people who were either with their families or friends or alone either entering the amusement park or exiting the amusement park.

The researcher was wearing a mask and when approaching the potential participants greeted them with a hi or a salaam-alaikum and asked if they had a few minutes to spare. If they said yes, he introduced himself and said he was conducting a research for his course and asked if it was ok to ask a few questions. The researcher asked for their age, country of origin and noted down their gender. The researcher asked the same set of 3 questions to everyone in the same order – what do you do in your free time/what are your hobbies, what is your favorite food and what is your dream destination and recorded the participants answers in front of them in his notebook. The researcher thanked the participants for their time after they had answered all the 3 questions.

Some of the participants said yes, some declined by saying no, some gave a reason for declining the researcher’s request and some completely ignored the researcher and walked away.

Analysis:

1.?????The gender wise split of participants is as follows:

2.?????53% of people agreed to give their time compared to 47% who declined

3.?????The gender wise split of participants who agreed to give their time: 19 men agreed to give their time vs 8 women who agreed to give their time

4.?????The gender wise split of participants who were not willing to agree to give their time: 21 men did not agree to give their time vs 3 women who did not agree to give their time

?5.?????Of the 24 people who declined,

a.?????4 of them declined because they did not speak English, and

b.?????2 of them gave other reasons for declining the request while walking away

c.??????14 of them just said No

d.?????4 of them completely ignored the researcher and walked away

6.?????The age groups of people (27) who agreed are as follows:

Statistical Analysis:

?A 2 sample t test was conducted to see if there is any statistically significant difference between people who were willing to agree to give their time vs. those who were not willing to give their time.

In addition, a chi-square test was also conducted and it confirmed the same results.

As we can see from the above statistical tests, there is no statistical difference between people (Men and Women) who were willing to give their time to talk to a stranger vs. people (Men and Women) who were not willing to give their time to talk to a stranger in a public place.

Results:

Hypothesis 1:

Are people (in general) willing to give their time to talk to stranger in a public place? There is a 50-50 chance approximately that people would be willing to agree to give their time to talk to a stranger in a public place.

Hypothesis 2:

Are men more likely than women to agree to give a few minutes of their time to talk to a stranger (and answer a few questions) in a public place?

There seems to be no statistically significant difference between Men and Women who are willing to give their time vs those who are not willing to give their time.

Hypothesis 3:

Are younger people more likely than older people to agree to give a few minutes of their time to talk to a stranger (and answer a few questions) in a public place?

There seems to be no statistically significant difference between age groups who are willing to give their time vs those who are not willing to give their time.

Limitations:

This social experiment is just a start.

The results and conclusions are based on a sample of randomly selected 51 people. For even better results and to determine the underlying causes of lack of prosocial behavior, this experiment needs to be replicated across many public places (perhaps even globally, to understand the many factors which influence prosocial behavior).?

Women are generally more conservative in middle east and this may have contributed to their lower participation.?

Discussion:

This social experiment demonstrates that almost 50% of us are not inclined to spare even a few minutes of our time to talk to an unknown person in a public place. It may be due to various reasons. Research has found that pace of life negatively predicts prosocial behavior in cities around the world, with the chronically time-constrained inhabitants of places such as New York being least likely to spend time helping strangers. We feel most of the times that we don’t have enough time or we need more time in a day or we should spend our precious time on things that matter to us most. People believe that time is scarce and this decreases their willingness to give time to others.

Research has indicated that spending time on others increases one’s feeling of time affluence. The impact of giving time on feelings of time affluence is driven by a boosted sense of self-efficacy. Consequently, giving time makes people more willing to commit to future engagements despite their busy schedules. This has wider implications for us all.

Very few social experiments have been conducted in this regard. This experiment can be replicated across many public places to truly understand the factors that motivate people to spare a few minutes of their time to talk to a stranger or to help a stranger (prosocial behavior).

References:

?1.?????https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/social-experiment/#:~:text=A%20social%20experiment%20is%20a,to%20as%20a%20social%20experiment .

?2.?????https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/documents/areas/fac/marketing/mogilner/Mogilner_Chance_Norton_Giving_Time_6.pdf