Influence of a Good Mood on Helpfulness
Description
This study investigated whether finding a coin influenced a person's likelihood of mailing a sealed but addressed letter that appeared to have been accidentally left in a conspicuous place. Several variables were collected during the experiment, including two randomized variables of whether there was a coin to be found and whether the letter already had a stamp on it.
Usage
mail_me
Format
A data frame with 42 observations on the following 4 variables.
- stamped
a factor with levels
noyes- found_coin
a factor with levels
coinno_coin- gender
a factor with levels
femalemale- mailed_letter
a factor with levels
noyes
Details
The precise context was in a phone booth (this study is from the 1970s!), where a person who entered a phone booth would find a dime in the phone tray, which would be sufficient to pay for their phone call. There was also a letter next to the phone, which sometimes had a stamp on it.
Source
Levin PF, Isen AM. 1975. Studies on the Effect of Feeling Good on Helping. Sociometry 31(1), p141-147.