What Would You Do If You Saw A Stamped Envelope

[bikeperson45]

Recently as part of my Extended Project I was doing an investigation. This involved me dropping 2 stamped and addressed envelopes (addressed to a school about 8 miles away) on the ground within a 5m radius of a postbox.

There was two aims: to see if people would pick them up and post them and secondly to see if when there was a higher number of people the letter would be less likely to be picked up. To do this I dropped one envelope in a town centre, and one on a rural street.

I got the results back today, but am curious to see what people think they would do in this situation, and I'll say that from being able to watch people in the town centre I was shocked at how many people stepped on it, walked past it or even picked it up and read it only to put it back on the ground.

Thanks

Edited May 27, 2011 by bikeperson45

[dann2707]

Deffo open it and look at the contents. It's a bit bastardly but i'm way too nosy.

[N.Wood]

Either walk past ( I wouldn't step on it, I'm not a twat) or pick it up and post it, depending on how much of a rush I was in. More likely to pick it up and post it on a rural road than in a city, and more likely to pick it up if it was in my village / I had some kind of connection with the place it was addressed to.

[Rich J]

Anyone who opens it then puts it back on the floor has too much time.

[LukasMcNeal]

Needs an option for look at the address then still post it, thats what I would do

[Revolver]

'Oh look, a letter. Don't recognise the address.'

Post.

Or ignore it, if I was going too quick to really notice.

Edited May 25, 2011 by Revolver

[James Quigley]

Pick it up, look at the address to make sure it's still legible, then post it.

If the address is illegible, open it up to see if it's important/if there's a return address and proceed

[bikeperson45]

Needs an option for look at the address then still post it, thats what I would do

Done.

Thanks for the votes, seem to be fairly similar to the accurate results. Won't completely know the final results until Friday, just got an email saying some have come late. At the moment out of the thirty envelopes dropped 10 were picked up in the town centre, 9 on rural-ish road. One of the rural ones was opened (very neatly with a letter opener, presumably) then posted and one was opened scrumpled up and littered again, what kind of sick freak would do such a thing?

[Sam Nichols]

BUT WHAT IF IT CONTAINS ANTHRAX?!

[Muel]

Look at the address then post it.

[DrDoom]

http://jforjustice.co.uk/banksters

[PaRtZ]

check address, then post it.

[Topsy]

I'd look at the adresse and post it. Edit: if the adresse seems strange i'd open it and see. Would still post it though! (unless it's a threat^^)

May I ask what you wrote in the letter?

Edited May 25, 2011 by Hopping_Topsy

[Greetings]

I'd investigate it to make sure it was meant to go into the letter box in the first place.

edit: investigate as in check the address but I see what you did there...

Edited May 25, 2011 by Greetings

[dann2707]

I'd investigate it to make sure it was meant to go into the letter box in the first place.

That's just a nicer way of saying what i would do!!

[Boswell]

This happened to me when I was a kid, I posted it.

[bikeperson45]

Got the final results back today. Out of the 30 letters dropped 29 were returned, which was quite a lot more then I had predicted. I had expected that in a more suburban setting more would be returned because when people see them they feel like the responsibility is only on them, as opposed to a town where the responsibilities spread over all people around it. The only one that wasn't was the one I found the next day opened and scrumpled up. Now I have a few months to write a 5000 word essay on it and other surrounding areas...

[N.Wood]

Good results by the sounds of it

What is this actually proving / testing? Someone's theory?

[bikeperson45]

I started off wanting to do something about altruism and what effects it, and one of the factors is the bystander effect where the more people there are in a situation the less will be done. There was some quote like 'lucky is the man who needs help when only one other is present'. So basically, the idea was to see if in a place like a town centre where there's lots of people would the letter be less likely to picked up then somewhere like a housing road where only one person will walk past it at a time.

From the few times I was able to observed, the rural road one was always picked up by the first person who walked past where as in town I could wait for 10 minutes of people walking past it (and step on it seeing the envelopes with shoe prints) before someone would pick it up, who mostly seemed to be elderly people. Plus, an envelope's a good way of doing it so people won't be influenced by who their helping, unlike a young man rushing over to the aid of a woman who dropped a piece of paper.

I had originally thought of testing this by staging a mugging, but apparently that would lead to all sorts of complications

[N.Wood]

Got you, sounds like you've got some meaningful data.

[JD™]

I started off wanting to do something about altruism and what effects it, and one of the factors is the bystander effect where the more people there are in a situation the less will be done. There was some quote like 'lucky is the man who needs help when only one other is present'. So basically, the idea was to see if in a place like a town centre where there's lots of people would the letter be less likely to picked up then somewhere like a housing road where only one person will walk past it at a time.

From the few times I was able to observed, the rural road one was always picked up by the first person who walked past where as in town I could wait for 10 minutes of people walking past it (and step on it seeing the envelopes with shoe prints) before someone would pick it up, who mostly seemed to be elderly people. Plus, an envelope's a good way of doing it so people won't be influenced by who their helping, unlike a young man rushing over to the aid of a woman who dropped a piece of paper.

I had originally thought of testing this by staging a mugging, but apparently that would lead to all sorts of complications

Could you get hold of local authorities and ask them stupidly nicely to let you see any CCTV footage of the time you left it? If they'd allow you a few screenshots of that, or even better the actual footage, that'd be some great data I reckon. You could then average out the time per person that it took for each or something - come up with a really direct stat to compare the 2 instances on a purely mathematical basis, from which you can draw your psychological conclusions.

[bikeperson45]

Could you get hold of local authorities and ask them stupidly nicely to let you see any CCTV footage of the time you left it? If they'd allow you a few screenshots of that, or even better the actual footage, that'd be some great data I reckon. You could then average out the time per person that it took for each or something - come up with a really direct stat to compare the 2 instances on a purely mathematical basis, from which you can draw your psychological conclusions.

That would be awesome, only problem would be the lack of CCTV in both of the areas. In the town there's some, but from where I know the camera is it wouldn't got the best view of the postbox. Although, since I've got a few stamps left, and I plan on dropping a few more and filming people's reactions to it over the next few days.

I know the mathematical basis would be good, but that would be effort There had been other aspects like that I would have liked to also test, like distance from postbox, but my tutor for this wanted me to keep it simple. But when I do the filmed ones I'll defiantly time it as well

[JD™]

That would be awesome, only problem would be the lack of CCTV in both of the areas. In the town there's some, but from where I know the camera is it wouldn't got the best view of the postbox. Although, since I've got a few stamps left, and I plan on dropping a few more and filming people's reactions to it over the next few days.

I know the mathematical basis would be good, but that would be effort There had been other aspects like that I would have liked to also test, like distance from postbox, but my tutor for this wanted me to keep it simple. But when I do the filmed ones I'll defiantly time it as well

All you'd need is a rough average of people per hour footfall through both locations and the time it took for someone to pick it up and post it. Effort it is not An 'A' it is.