Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

240 STEPHEN T. REHRAUER
seemed to be determinative of the anomalous results seemed to
be that of the physical presence and proximity of an authority
figure. A second experiment known as the “Good Samaritan
Experiments,” which studied the opposite side of the injustice
coin, was carried out by Darley and Batson at Princeton
Theological Seminary. 27 The experiment attempted to discover
whether or not seminary students who were asked to prepare
and give a lecture at a nearby campus building on the topic of
the gospel parable of the Good Samaritan would be more apt to
stop and help an obviously distressed physically ill person in the
alley separating the two buildings than a similar group asked to
prepare and deliver a lecture on the topic of job opportunities.
From the perspective of Christian ethics, the results of the
experiment were disappointing to say the least. The only factor
which seemed to have any influence over whether or not the
seminary student stopped to render help was whether or not the
student was in a hurry. 28 A third research project carried out by
themselves would obey such an unreasonable and unconscionable order,
asked another sample of middle-class adults to predict how far other people
would go in such a procedure. The average prediction was that perhaps one
person in a thousand would continue to the end. This prediction was wrong.
In fact 65 percent (26/40) of the subjects obeyed to the end … In one variation
the subject himself was not ordered to pull the switch delivering the shock,
rather he performed a different, also essential task, while another person (in
reality a confederate) pulled the switch. In this case roughly 90 percent
(37/40) of the subjects continued to perform the subsidiary task through 450
volts.” J. SABINI and M. SILVER, Moralities of Everyday Life, pp. 59-60.
27
Again, the actual experiment consisted of various similar experiments
over an extended time period. For complete details reported by the original
authors, see J. DARLEY and C. BATSON, “From Jerusalem to Jericho: A Study of
Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology 27 (1973), pp. 100-108.
28
“Most of the seminary students did not help the victim in this
situation, and neither the topic on which they were to lecture nor the value
they placed on religious commitment was associated with helping … The
only factor that seemed to influence helping in this situation was the amount
of time each student believed he had before his lecture was to begin; those
who believed they had to hurry were less likely to help than were those who
believed they had ample time and thus could afford to stop.” R. LIEBERT,
“What Develops in Moral Development?” in W. KURTINES and J. GEWIRTZ, eds.,