Week 7 - Jonesin' for Baked Treats

            This week, I decided to take a field trip to Pollock to hand out cards. I handed out two on two different days; one to a male, one to a female. Spoiler alert: Neither called back. Both gave responses almost exactly similar to one another: both nodded politely, heard me out, took the card, thanked me, and walked away. I get this response pretty damned often, and it bothers me quite a bit; no, it’s not because these are the people that never call back. It’s the part where they thank me. I’m serious; a conservative estimate would be that at least half of the people that have received notecards thus far have thanked me before I thanked them. Thanks? For what? Think about it- What did I do that deserves thanks? I understand that people may not say entirely sensible things while under pressure, and in all fairness, I suppose it could be a reflex to say “thanks” when handed something. Nonetheless, I find it to be getting a little pedantic, so perhaps I should just get used to it.

But enough ranting, something happened Saturday night that was incredibly interesting. I was sitting outside with a few friends eating some cigarettes when two girls approached us with a package of cookies, offering us some. At the time it was a blessing because, to be entirely honest, I was really jonesin’ for some cookies. So, inquisitive as I am, I asked the biddies why they were giving baked treats to strangers. Turns out they were from Penn State Abdington, and were doing a project for a social sciences class in which they offered cookies to strangers and would see if they took them. After shaking off the lab rat feeling, I asked them of their figures. I found their data surprising: I was their sixth taker out of twenty five people, a success rate around 25%, within a half-hour. This is greater than my success rate of three in sixteen, but not much more. I find it unbelievable that they aren’t much more successful than I have been; after all, cookies are always delicious, and the benefit of accepting is right in front of you without much investment at all. So even with something as easy and rewarding as accepting a cookie, people still only bite about twenty-five percent of the time. Interesting indeed. 

So there are a few mysteries on the table here. Why do people say thanks to me? Why wouldn't more people accept cookies? Was I seriously eating cigarettes? Some things we may never know... But we should at least discuss them.