A while ago, I watched videos of social experiments that tested how people in society thought and acted. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed by what I saw. Many people who were in the videos did things that made me frown at how people in society act when in certain situations.

One such experiment was the “Hot Girl vs. Homeless Child.” An attractive girl in her late teens to early twenties dressed up in a tank top, short shorts, and high heels while a girl, probably about nine, dressed up in thick and dirty clothes. Both were holding signs, asking for money. While the “hot girl” was asking for money to buy makeup, the “homeless girl” asked for money so she could get food. Guess who got more help? If you said the homeless girl got more help, you guessed wrong. The older girl was flocked by people and got over ten donations in under thirty minutes, while everyone ignored the young girl, except from a few people, all of whom were part of minorities and groups that are discriminated against. In the span of over one hour, the young girl only got a few dollars.

If you thought that was bad, think again. Another social experiment I saw was the “blind man” experiment that a man and a young boy worked on together. The man pretended to be blind, and asked for change for five dollars while holding out a fifty dollar bill. While some people did point out he was holding out a fifty and not a five, there were also people who pocketed the fifty, gave change for a five, then tried to leave. Of course, they returned the fifty dollars after they were told it was for a social experiment and the camera was pointed out to them. I noted that most of the people who took the fifty dollars were men, while majority of the people who corrected the man were women.

The experiment was repeated with the young boy, who also asked for change for five dollars while holding out a fifty dollar bill, and what I saw was very tragic. The results were similar with the first run, and it disgusted me that there are people who would actually take advantage of a blind child and take their money. However, one college student in the video surprised me. He pointed out to the boy that he was holding out a fifty dollar bill. He then took out some money and saw he only had three dollars. Even then, the student offered to give the three dollars to the boy. But what disgusted me the most was the last person in the video. He was one of the people who took the fifty dollars from the boy. Even after he was told it was a social experiment to see if people would rob a blind person, he walked away while arguing with the man and boy. The confrontation ends with them running after the man to get the fifty dollars back with the man making excuses to keep the fifty dollars. However, the video continued to show what people did when a friend of the man running the experiment, also pretending to be blind, dropped a bag of money while moving around. Of all the people who picked up the bag, only one person was honest and gave the man back the money instead of taking the money for himself.

After seeing all this, my judgement of people will probably become even more critical. If this is what defines people in society, then I’m pretty glad to be a somewhat reclusive introvert. While I admit that I’m not the most honest of people, I would never stoop so low as to rob the handicapped. So everyone, please be the best you can be. It’s bad enough that there are adults who would rob a blind person without remorse and give money to people who will use it for vanity products over a child who will use it to survive. We have to do the best we can to do what’s right as people. That way, we can work towards a better society for everyone in general.