The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 183 of 254
Situation versus character: the dime experiment
important is it in determining what we do? It is a truism to say that how we behave is a result of two factors: our own natures and the situations we find ourselves in. Many are now claiming, however, that it is situation, not character, which often makes the biggest difference to what we do. And if that is true, character is not as powerful a determinant of behaviour as most of us take it to be. John Doris has assembled the most comprehensive case for this view in his book Lack of Character. Many of the experiments he cites have become widely known. In one, an actor drops a folder full of papers outside a phone booth, just as an unwitting experimental subject is stepping out. Some of these guinea pigs, however, have just had a pleasant but trivial surprise: the phone box was rigged so that an unexpected dime appeared in the coin-return slot at the end of the call. Of the 16 people who found the dime, 14 helped the actor pick up her papers. Of the 25 who didn’t, only one did.3 It would be an amazing fluke if the 14 who found the dime just happened to be more altruistic people.