WINFREY: Coming up,
we hit the streets of New York to test the kindness
of strangers in a special little old experiment...
WINFREY: ...to see how people responded to a woman in need.
We'll show you the results in New York City.
WINFREY: We did a special test on the sidewalks of New York,
and this is what happened.
WINFREY: We asked this woman to try an experiment for us on New York's
trendy Upper West Side. Again and again, Clair dropped a
stack of books and papers as our cameras
captured the scene.
We wanted to see if people would be kind to a stranger.
CLAIR: Look at this teamwork here.
Thanks, sweetie.
Unidentified Child #20: You're welcome.
WINFREY: One woman explained her good deed this way:
Unidentified Woman #11: I'm just the kind of people who sort
of picks people up off sidewalks and stuff.
I'm from Ohio originally;
I don't know if that counts, but...
WINFREY: Not everyone, however, stopped to help.
Watch these two women. They didn't even flinch.
Neither did this guy.
Several of those who walked on by said they had an excuse.
Unidentified Woman #12: Why didn't I stop?
Because I have a baby I have to
get home to and I've got a train in literally,
about, 10 minutes.
Unidentified Woman #13: Because I have a bad back.
WINFREY: All in all, Clair dropped the books and papers 24 times.
But only six times did no one help.
WINFREY: Did you see the nun pass her by?
(Laughter)
WINFREY: Sister, girl!
Anyway, we tried a different test in Los Angeles.
This time we asked Elizabeth to see what happened when
she asked strangers for change for a quarter.
Take a look.
ELIZABETH: Do you have a quarter for two dimes and a nickel?
Could I get change for a quarter from you?
I think people in Los Angeles are basically good.
I think sometimes they're very busy and don't
take the time to think about other people.
ELIZABETH: It seems to be more just a character issue.
I think people were a little embarrassed when they
found out they were on camera
and maybe they had told a fib to me.
They said, `No, they didn't have change.'
Instead of saying,
`No, I don't feel like making change for you.'
Unidentified Woman #13: I'm limited on time.
I probably do have change at the bottom of my purse,
but as you can see, it's very compact in here.
And I just didn't want to stop and dig around.
ELIZABETH: Panhandling is so prevalent.
It might have a backlash on people giving
and being kind because you're accosted at every corner.
Unidentified Man #4: I don't have any change.
I don't believe in change.
(Laughter)
ELIZABETH: My lasting impression from this is going to be
that people are good, and people basically want to help.
WINFREY: Well, we--Elizabeth asked 50 people for help,
21 gave her change for a quarter, 14 didn't
have it or didn't bother to look,
while 15 stopped to try and make change but did not have it.
That's pretty good, isn't it?
Mr. WHITSETT: I think it is pretty good.
Overall, unfortunately, in some of the largest
experiments that have been done across the country,
they have found that the degree
of helping is pretty dismal in--in large
cities and--and this is sort of
surprising--pretty dismal in small cities as well.
WINFREY: Really? I'm surprised.
Because I would think in small cities--you know,
when I go to smaller towns,
things just move more slowly.
So I'm thinking people would have time to kind
of get into their wallets a little more.
(Laughter)
WINFREY: A similar but more thorough
experiment was reported by American Demographics Magazine.
WINFREY: They found that residents in Louisville, Kentucky,
down there in the Bluegrass State, Houston, Texas,
and Knoxville, Tennessee, were the kindest, according to them,
when it came to making change for a quarter.
They also tested to see who might help a stranger
who dropped a pen on the street.
WINFREY: In that experiment, residents of Springfield,
Massachusetts, and Santa Barbara, California, were at the top of the list.
WINFREY: In the ranking of overall kindness in cities, Rochester,
New York, was first, followed by East Lansing, Michigan, and
Nashville, Tennessee.
Wha--now you know, I wonder about these, you know,
demographics and--and tests and statistics.
Because I--we were just in Philadelphia,
and they got ranked as the most hostile city,
and some of the nicest people I ever met were there.
Mr. WHITSETT: That's right.
WINFREY: So I wonder whether they just ran
into a whole bunch of people on a bad day.
Or in Rochester, did they run into, you
know, a string of people who had just come
out of the ice cream parlor or something?
Mr. WHITSETT: Right. Well, they measured 1/1,000th
percent of the American people.
WINFREY: That's right.
Mr. WHITSETT: I mean, this was a very small study.
WINFREY: Yeah.
Mr. WHITSETT: And although they found some differences,
generally, as I said before, the dif--differences were very few.
I think one of the most
telling things was something that
the experimenters said after the experiment.
He said, `You know, people seem to notice me,
but they didn't really seem to see me.
It was almost as if people were afraid to see me.'
And I think that says something about why we behave this way.
WINFREY: Yeah. Well, that's what we tend to do a lot now,
don't we, kind of look through people? Yeah.