Abstract
After a semester long ordeal of ill planning, tedious research, struggles with technology, and many hours of maniacal laughter we proudly present: Town and Country. At the start of the year, as a group we were assigned chapters in Richard Wright’s book, The Moral Animal, for both a group poster presentation and ultimately a self designed lab. As a whole we were most intrigued by Wright purporting that those in a city environment were far less altruistic than those living in a small town atmosphere. Having a group of three, and ironically each member being raised in a significantly different environment, it was decided to create a lab that tests the moral and altruistic levels of individuals living in the city, the suburbs, and the country. Surveys were crafted to both evaluate an individuals reactions to questions of morality and friendliness, as well as serving as an evaluation of the participants reactions to taking the survey itself. The surveys were presented orally to strangers in each one of our hometowns, a video was made, data was gathered and evaluated, graphs were compiled. The final analysis of data helped validate both Richard Wright’s theory, as well as our originally stated hypothesis.
Introduction
Upon taking the train into New York City my mother forewarned me for the sixth time: “Remember, do not look anyone in the eye.” The stereotypical view of city people is that they have an agenda, do not desire to be interrupted, and that an action, such as looking a person in the eye, would be all together too personal and inviting.
With this, our research group would like to compare the social tendencies of individuals in the city, suburbs, and rural areas of the mid-west. Does location allow an individual to become more or less self-absorbed? Does it make a difference where one was raised? Or is the current location more of the guiding issue?
Based on the stereotypical view of city dwellers vs. country dwellers, our group hypothesizes that city dwellers will be more concerned with themselves and less concerned in the well being others. Picture the streets of New York, business men and women walking a quick pace in order to meet the next client. It would almost be improper to pick up the person’s cell phone in front of you who dropped it in his or her own hurry. The country dweller is then hypothesized to react the opposite, chatting with local neighbors, helping carry groceries to the car, and establishing an afternoon tea date with friends later that day. Richard Wright, author of The Moral Animal gives his thoughts on the size and location of town compared to one’s unselfishness. “There are at least two reasons integrity and honesty make particular sense in a small and social setting. One is that (as everyone who has lived in a small town knows) there is no escaping your past… A second reason why being nice is so fruitful in a place like Shrewsbury is that the people you’re nice to will be around for a long time” (Wright 220). People in small towns tend to stray more from their selfishness because they are continuously confronted with reoccurring issues such as relationships, social status, and current events.
Our research group, consisting of Melissa Raftery, Brandy McQueary, and Nikki Rudnick, decided on our research project based from our study on altruism during the poster session. The Merriam Webster’s Deluxe Dictionary defines altruism as the “unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others.” According to James Ozinga, author of Altruism, altruism is “behavior benefiting someone else at some cost to oneself, while selfishness is behavior that benefits oneself at some cost to others” (Ozinga xvi). And finally, the social psychology textbook defines altruism as “selfishness in reverse” (Myers 474). All three definitions lead us into a human phenomenon touching on the areas of social exchange and self-interest. The remaining question asks, “Why, and when, will people perform altruistic acts?”
In creating our poster we battled with altruism as a genetic trait vs. learned behavior. The contradicting student responses were ones asking, “Is altruism even real? Isn’t there the possibility people will always be looking out for their own good expecting a returned favor down the road?” All valid questions and ones we couldn’t quite answer, but took into consideration while forming this research project.
In researching the social tendencies of dwellers in the city, suburbs, and rural areas we plan to accomplish a better understanding of people and their unselfish and charitable abilities. Do the stereotypes of city dwellers hold true? Country dwellers? Were the students correct in wondering if altruism is even real? Through our oral interviews and visits to the urban, suburban, and rural areas we hope to achieve a better understanding of people and their kindness to each other. This could be the glue that holds our world. We want to know.
Relevance
According to David Myers’s text, Social Psychology, there are six motivations for volunteering time, friendship, and help:
Values: to act on humanitarian values and concerns for others
Understanding: to learn about people or learn skills
Social: to be part of a group and gain approval
Career: to enhance job prospects with experience and contacts
Ego protection: to reduce guilt or escape personal problems
Esteem enhancement: to boost self-worth and confidence
In relevance to our own study, we would assume that ego protection and esteem enhancement are two of the most important motivations for dwellers in rural areas. Living in seas of people, the city dweller has easy access to escaping their own personal problems, while the rural dweller’s issues are made public. Addressing esteem enhancement, I would predict city dwellers to boost self-worth and confidence in personal manners such as exercise or reading. If seeking esteem enhancement by showing off, the city dweller is at a lost cause. In the small town an individual’s actions could be gossiped over in hours. The city wouldn’t even blink an eye.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin, author of Among Friends, illustrates two opposite scenes: the small midwestern town called Appleton and any large city such as New York. In Appleton the center of traffic and activity is at Lucille’s coffee shop. One local businessman is quoted to say, “Everyday at ten o’clock, you won’t find anybody in their shops or offices…Everybody is having coffee there and discussing the affairs of the town” (Pogrebin 139). When the businessman interviewed gave the quote, what he meant by everyone was truly that—the minister, police chief, doctors, lawyers, shop owners, judge, and newspaper editor. No wonder people are believed to express more altruistic qualities than those of the city. What if you had gotten a DUI the night before? It is a given that the townspeople will know by the ten a.m. the next morning at the coffee shop, and that stares, judgments, and criticisms will begin
In contrast to the city of Appleton, Letty Pogrebin writes on the city, specifically, New York. “New Yorker’s spend so much energy going to and from work, shopping, finding a parking place, and beating the traffic out of town for the weekend that they don’t have much left for friends” (Pogrebin 142). Considering this, why would a New Yorker bend over backwards in order to help a stranger. A great amount of experienced New Yorker’s would argue this stance, but the stereotype still remains. New Yorkers are fast and often rude.
The evidence that states urban, suburban, and rural settings have the potential to mold people is true. In our study, we only hope to confirm these stereotypical views and find data significant to the mid-west.
Materials and Methods
The experiment has been designed to test the altruistic nature of individuals living in different venues of urban, suburban and rural environments. More specifically to compare the altruism of people of downtown Cincinnati, West Chester a suburb of Cincinnati, and Greenville, an Ohio a farm community. Initially the team planned to have nine different venues for questioning, using Cincinnati, Chicago and Indianapolis as central metropolises and working outward toward the country from each. This proved to be slightly optimistic and the data collection plans needed revision. Cincinnati was chosen because it was most convenient and easy to negotiate for the group. It is hoped the data and results collected reflect the altruistic nature of the country at large, but in actuality it is only a specific midwestern area.
The experiment will be conducted by orally presenting a survey to fifty random people in each location. Data will be collected in two ways from the surveys. First it will be calculated and documented how many people were approached to fill out the surveys and how many people actually did so. A comparison will be made from the different venues concerning how willing participants were in the study. The survey it self will consist of several questions in which a moral dilemma is posed in a yes or no fashion. For example, If you saw a person drop a twenty-dollar bill on the ground, and you had the opportunity to give it back, would you do so? This section of data will hypothetically give an opportunity to contrast the differing moral or ethic reactions of town and country. The questioner, in reference to the individual’s body language and behavior, completes the second section of the survey. These questions rate the individuals willingness to stop and complete the survey, degree of eye contact, interest in the experiment, and overall congeniality on a scale of one through five (one being the most five being the least enthusiastic). The advantage of having a duel purpose in our survey will allow us to gain access to both avenues of value and patience.
In addition, we attempted to create a video from our experiences in the varying community settings to show the class. Pictures are at times worth a thousand words, and since we will have had the opportunity to see first hand the differing reactions in public settings we feel the class should have the same opportunity. Unfortunately the group, having a slight impediment with computers, struggled with loading the video clips, so bare with any technical difficulties.
For this particular level of research the experimental design is statistically sound. An even number of participants have been selected from each location and an effort has been made to make these as random as possible. In downtown Cincinnati, Mel and Brandy interviewed people on Fountain Square at around six pm on a Tuesday. This allowed for some individuals to still be in town for work purposes will others where in the city for relaxation and personal pleasure. In West Chester citizens were interviewed outside of a public library between the hours of six pm and eight pm on a Monday evening. In Greenville participants were questioned from two pm to five pm in the uptown areas of shops, restaurants, and local businesses. Efforts were made to reach a wide variety of people through the venue choice in each location, yet participants were still interviewed at random. Both the class and the professor were questioned on the legitimacy of the locations and the amount of surveys used, that’s why these particular locations were chosen.
The idea of unbiased results and data is a slippery slope at times. The data is defiantly critiqued in an unbiased fashion by the computer, and data sheets are available for the class to check the numbers, yet the potential for human error is impossible to extinguish. First, three different females gave the questions orally. This poses two issues right away. Females may be perceived differently than males and secondly, each questioner has different voice inflection and tone and could possible be received differently even if she was to interview the same person as another questioner the results may be different. Second, the venues themselves could pose a problem and not actually be the best example of a city suburb and country town. Finally having three individuals rate the behavior of the specimen also posses problems because personal perception differs from person to person. Issues of trust can be covered somewhat on the principle of individual academic integrity as well as the data sheets and video recordings.
The materials used in this experiment did not typical lab equipment. A car was needed to travel from location to location and the Western digital camera was used to videotape. Outside of the paper the surveys were printed on, and pens used to fill them in, the individual participants were the most important part of the process.
Timeline
Group Research Execution
Week of March 4: Printing surveys for class, conducting preliminary research, and
gathering materials and data.
Week of March 18: Rethinking survey locations and numbers.
Week of March 25: Survey redesigned after class input.
Week of April 1: Struggling with new concept of a two-part survey.
Week of April 8: Research an group deliberation.
Week of April 15: Final Survey design decided on.
Week of April 22: Surveying In Greenville and West Chester, video taping in
Greenville. Monday conference with Hays.
Week of April 29: Complete surveying in Cincinnati, taping in Cincinnati and
Greeneville. Analyzing data in comparison to hypothesis and previously
researched data. Final touches on lab write-up. Struggling with Adobe Movie
Class Execution
Week 1 (1/9-1/11) The Debate
Week 2 (1/16-1/18) The Debate II
Week 3 (1/23-1/25) Finding the Perfect Mate…Mates?
Week 4 (1/30-2/1) Finding the Perfect Mate…Mates? II
Week 5 (2/6-2/8) Understanding Family & Friends
Week 6 (2/13-2/15) Understanding Family & Friends II
Week 7 (2/20-2/22) Your Social Status
Week 8 (2/27-3/1) Your Social Status II
Week 9 (3/6-3/8) Evolutionary Ethics
SPRING BREAK WEEK (3/12-3/19)
Week 10 (3/20-3/22) Measuring Heads ***Midterm***
Week 11 (3/27-3/29) Religion
Week 12 (4/3-4/5) Philosophy
Week 13 (4/10-4/12) The Biophilia Hypothesis
Week 14 (4/17-4/19) The Value of Life
Week 15 (4/24-4/26) Final Reflections
Week 16 (4/30-4/4) Final Exams, Semester Projects Due May 4th 5pm
Results
Graph 1
Graph 2
Graph 3
Graph 4
Graph 5
Graph 6
Graph 7
Graph 8
Graph 9
Graph 10
Judging solely from the test of which area would be most willing to stop and take the time to complete a survey our hypothesis that people in small towns would be more congenial then people in the city would be correct, with suburbanites falling right in the middle of the two. Once all of the other questions are factored into the equation it becomes much harder to find a clear concise answer to our question. In terms of what was observable from initially taking the surveys, it seems that age and sex seem to play a larger role in opinion, rather than locale, yet because this was not part of the original question even though it was recorded, it was decide not to include it in the data sheet or in graphs. After reviewing the original question it was also decided that the most important location to consider was where the surveys were taken. The questions of where the individual was raised and which area they identified most with were then eliminated from the configuration process. The process of surveying proves an interesting, amusing, slightly frustrating, yet basically an overall enjoyable experience. Data could be recorded not only in terms of numerical data, but also individuals’ actions and reactions throughout the process. Doing the survey out loud allowed for more interpersonal interactions and a better means of critiquing someone’s body language. After the surveys were complete, it proved easiest to enter the raw data into a spread sheet and then using a Chi Squared test find the correlations in each area of data. These correlations were then displayed in bar graph form. This procedure was suggested by the instructor, followed by many classmates, and appeared an appropriate approach to analyzing and displaying the findings from this project.
Inhabitants of Greenville, the small town environment, were obviously more willing to stop, chat, and in general spend more time conversing with Nikki. They were also more interested in the purpose of the survey as a whole. These findings can be seen in graphs 1 and 9. People questioned Nikki about her life as well as the survey processes. They also felt comfortable sharing personal stories. One woman in particular wanted everyone in her restaurant to aid in the process. People in the suburban venue, West Chester, were slightly less willing to stop, much less willing to chat, and extremely less interested in what the survey was about. One man told Brandy that he “just had to get to his car” while a young woman replied that she would really like to help, but was hungry. Again these findings can be referenced in graphs 1 and 9. Not surprisingly people surveyed on Fountain Square were least likely to stop when approached, yet were ironically more interested on average in both general conversation and what the project was about. One woman’s only reply was “I’m getting the hell out of here” a rather hostile remark to a stranger. A few others commented on needing to catch a bus and still others said they needed to ‘rush’ off to the Reds game. But there were also people that shared insights from their lives and one man even approached Brandy about taking the survey. Check graphs 1, 9, and the data sheet found in the Materials and Methods section. Graph 7 unfortunately contradicts these themes in judging of the participants’ body language in terms of willingness to stop. According to this particular factor, people in the city were the most willing, then people in the suburbs, and then rural area. This cannot be an accurate representation, due to the fact that everyone in the country that was asked to fill out a survey did so and ten people in the city adamantly refused for one reason or another. This again revisits problems with having three different people evaluating the mood of a stranger; it is obvious that each group member has very different standards.
In terms of the morality question, dealing with returning a lost twenty-dollar bill to the rightful owner, people in the city were only slightly less willing then those in the other two setting to give it back. Across the board it was not really and issue of whether or not the person would be seen again. Please see graphs 2 and 3.
The majority of the people surveyed struggled in answering this question of whether of not they would interrupt a gossip session with a yes or no response; stating that either it was not their place to do so or that there were better ways to deal with such an instance. In general it seemed that age might play more of a role in this particular question rather current location. As it stands each venue was split almost fifty fifty, with a slight edge to rural interrupting more often. Please see graph 4. These findings did little to help prove or disprove the hypothesis, and it is possible that extenuating factors such as education or manners may again play more of a role than physical location, however, location may help dictate these factors.
In asking the question: Are others aware of your behavior…always, most of the time, sometime, or never? No responses for never were recorded, surprisingly. Not surprisingly people in the country do feel that others are extremely aware of their day-to-day actions, and most feel that because of this they may alter their actions slightly or completely. This is exactly what was predicted in the introduction and what Wright focuses so much on. Urbanites felt less watched overall, again an original prediction, yet those who did feel observed felt that they altered their actions because of this. See Graphs 5 and 6. The opposite of town and country was once again blurred when the suburban data was reviewed. Suburbanites were evenly distributed in all categories and make it difficult to continue rating it in the middle of town and country, but more of a mess of what town and country values and actions seem to be. It is becoming obvious that the results would be much easier to identify if the comparison have been only between rural and urban, a much clearer dichotomy would be set.
Level of eye contact proved to be of marginal consequence in the study. Graph 8 shows that participants in each venue at least made some level of eye contact, because no documentation of the number 5 (which was no contact) is recorded. People in the country did have the highest level of constant eye contact, and city folk had the least, but suburbanites were only very slightly behind those in the country as far as constant contact can be judged. This could possibly show that people in a country environment do in fact feel more comfortable in interpersonal situations and show higher levels of attention, yet the data is less conclusive for what can accurately be stated about what levels of eye contact say about the character of those living in the suburbs and in the city.
It was shocking to discover exactly how little people cared about why they were answering some random questions. Those interviewed in the suburbs actually showed the least interest, with country people showing the most interest, and surprisingly those in the city fell in the middle this time. Please reference graph 9. This does little to substantiate the original arguments, but reflects more on the apathy of society as a whole.
The data recorded in the category of overall congeniality may, again, reflect the vast discrepancy in how individual group members view mood and body language. Saying that, please move your attention to graph 10. It is obvious that those in the country were overall more willing and friendly in the surveying process, not only from the data table, but also from the personal experiences in the interviewing process. People in the suburbs appear to be more friendly than those in the city, yet in comparing personal experiences surveying in both areas Brandy feels that people in the city actually were more polite and friendly on the whole…even though the data does not reflect such thoughts.
In conclusion there are many possible events and circumstances that had the potential to skew the data, these will be further discussed later in the write up. At this point it appears that the original hypothesis was on a general track toward some insightful conclusions, yet became blurred in the process. Having an oral survey that was also split between reactions and perceived reactions seemed to be a fantastic idea, and was to some extent, but also left room for larger margins of error and discrepancy.
ConclusionConclusion
Our results lead us to conclude that people residing in rural areas are more altruistic and aware of their actions than people in suburban areas, and people in suburban areas more altruistic and aware then individuals in urban areas. There is an evident difference between people living in urban areas to people living in rural areas, but the people from suburban areas gave data that was slightly skewed, which could have been due to a number of factors: influence of lifestyle, where raised, age, size of particular suburban area surveyed, etc. These results are exactly what we had hypothesized. With our survey being divided into two sections: testing human response and observing human behavior, we found that people observed were much more correlated to our hypothesis than they responded that they were. We must account for human error in our means of judging people, however; the statistics were fairly accurate to our conclusion, but not as direct as we would have liked.
We structured our survey in a way that allowed us to interview the participants, and then evaluated their disposition while engaging with them. This evaluation allowed us to make judgments and comparisons as to how individuals rated themselves on our designed altruistic scale compared to the ways in which they were perceived by us. Our results, though slightly varied, show that individuals do tend to be more perceptive in rural areas than in urban areas. In interviewing individuals, people from rural areas were ready to share their own personal experiences. They wanted to know all about our purpose of surveying and let us know what they thought we could do to improve our testing methods. Unlike people in the rural areas, individuals in the suburbs were preoccupied, they were willing to take the survey, but not so sit and chat with us. The people in the urban areas were comparable to people in the suburbs in being preoccupied. They were rushing around and many did not have time to talk to us; however, due to the observation section of our survey we were able to observe their actions and use it as data.
Beyond this project we have been doing research on tourism in the specific areas where we conducted our surveys, to see if there was any sort of correlation between the areas people preferred to visit to the areas where people where found to be the most altruistic. It was interesting to find that tourists most often migrate to the urban areas, then rural, and finally suburban (Page). Our group concluded from our results that this idea of tourism could be connected to the entertainment and aesthetics of the area traveled. Urban areas, despite the hurriedness of the people, are a place of much enjoyment for tourist due to the plethora of activity. Rural areas would rank second for tourism, based on our results, due to the aesthetics and the rarity of the areas. Finally, suburban areas ranking last on the tourist board, due to the commonality or ordinariness.
Our work fits in many ways with what other researchers have done by way of urban, suburban, and rural populations. One specific observation that we made related to outside research found was that people in rural areas tend to be less educated then people in suburban and urban areas (White). One question on our survey read, “where were you raised? urban, suburban, rural.” A good number of individuals in the rural area did not know what these terms meant, as surveyors we had to explain big city, suburb of city, and small town (like this one). In contrast no one from the urban or suburban areas needed the terms to be explained. This observation led us to conclude that people in rural areas are in fact less educated.
After analyzing all of our data and correlating the results, our group still wants to know how we have personally been affected by our urban, suburban, and rural lifestyles. It has been interesting for us to see the diverse data. Each of the members of our group has come from one of the three locations surveyed, and we want to know if this has affected our personalities and difference that we may have in our own mentalities.
The most exciting finding that we had was validating our hypothesis. When we began this experiment we were extremely skeptical as to what our results would yield, if anything. As we began surveying and researching past work that had been done on this very topic, it became clear that we had a sound experiment, and something that was going to give us exciting results, from which we could draw some sort of conclusion.
Surveying was also one of the most exciting parts of our process. Choosing to interview people rather than hand out surveys, proved most effective. Individuals in the rural area never denied us from questioning them, and many were willing to share personal stories with us that pertained in some way to our study. Individuals in the suburban areas were a little more reluctant about being interviewed. They seemed preoccupied. We were denied five times out of fifty when attempting the survey in this area. The urban area was an incredible change of pace from the rural and suburban areas. People in the city were extremely fast paced. Few had anytime to stop and help us out. About ten people denied our group the opportunity to interview them.
If one wanted to do further investigation on this particular study we would suggest surveying more areas. Our group chose to visit one rural, one suburban, and one urban area, we would suggest going to at least two of each place to see how the results varied. This would give a researcher more statically sound data, and the opportunity to see more of the interactions that take place in these specific areas. We learned the most from visiting these three specific areas, and interviewing there. If one were to go to a variety of rural, suburban, and urban areas we believe that their findings would be much more dynamic.
If we were to do this study again the survey would have to be changed. As we got out and began surveying people we found the questions to be hard to interpret and sort of repetitive. We also had to account for a lot of human error when drawing conclusions from our data. Being three very different individuals, influenced by three different locations (rural, urban, and suburban), our observations of people dispositions were skewed to our own personal judgment of the surveyed and how we perceived the rating scale on our data sheet. We would have allowed ourselves more time to do the actual surveying. Towards the end of the project we began to get pressed for time, due mainly to data analyze, better budgeting of our time may have led to more concise conclusions.
Literature Cited
“Altruism: A Quest for an Altruistic Society.” Online. Apr. 3, 2001.
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ruben_hugo/altruism.htm
Badcock, C.R. The Problem of Altruism: Freudian-Darwinian Solutions. Basil, Oxford,
1986.
Briassoulis, Helen and Jan van der Straaten. Tourism and the Environment: regional,
Economic, Cultural and Policy Issues. Kluwer, Boston: 2000.
Evers, John R. “A Justification Of Societal Altruism According To The Memetic Application Of
Hamilton’s Rule.” Online. Apr. 16, 2001. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Conf/MemePap/Evers.html.
Moore, Jim. “The Evolution Of Reciprocal Sharing.” Ethnology and Sociobiology 5:Received Sept. 16, 1982; revised April 17, 1983. Anthropology Dept., Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Online. Apr. 3, 2001. http://weber.ucsd.edu/~jmoore/publications/Recip.html.
Myers, David G. Social Psychology. McGraw-Hill, Boston: 1999.
Ozinga, James R. Altruism. Westport: Praeger Publishers, 1999.
Page, Stephen. Urban Tourism. Routledge, New York: 1995.
Pogrebin, Letty Cottin. Among Friends: Who We Like, Why We Like Them, and What
We Do With Them. McGraw-Hill, New York: 1987.
“The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism, and the Fundamental Principle of Morality.” Online.
Apr. 16, 2001. http://www.friesian.com/moral-1.htm.
White, Barry Clifton. “Urban vs. Rural Settings and Ideas in Deliverance.” Online. Apr. 3, 2001.
http://list.gatech.edu/archives/lcc3227p/0041.html.
Wildavsky, Aaron. Culture and Social Theory. Transaction, London: 1998.
Wright, Robert. The Moral Animal Why We Are The Way We Are: The New Science of
Evolutionary Psychology. Vintage, New York: 1994.
Next Article
Previous Article
Return to the Topic Menu
IMPORTANT: For each Response, make sure the title of the response is different than previous titles shown above!
WEATHER & EARTH SCIENCE RESOURCES |
|
OTHER ACADEMIC COURSES, STUDENT RESEARCH, OTHER STUFF
|
|
TEACHING TOOLS & OTHER STUFF
 |
Listen to a "Voice Navigation" Intro!
(Quicktime or