Current Events > Panhandler gets more than twice as much money wearing a suit

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.psypost.org/2022/11/pedestrians-give-panhandler-more-than-twice-as-much-money-when-he-wears-a-suit-versus-jeans-experiment-finds-64199

In an initial field study, Callaghan and his team tested whether people would be more likely to help a panhandler wearing clothes that signal high social class or low social class. The experiment was conducted in six busy, downtown areas in New York City and Chicago. Across various trials, the confederate stood in the street holding a paper cup and a cardboard sign with a message about homelessness.

In the high-status trials, the confederate was dressed in high-status symbols a suit, dress shirt, a tie, and slick hair. In the low-status trials, he was dressed in low-status symbols jeans and a t-shirt. Throughout the experiment, research assistants counted the number of passersby, the number of people who donated their money, and the number of people who engaged with the confederate.
The results revealed that when the confederate was wearing a suit and tie, he received 2.55 times the amount of money he received when he wore jeans. He was also approached by a larger number of donors when wearing high-status clothing, although this effect was marginally significant.

While we expected that the displaying high-status symbols would lead to an increase in giving, I was still surprised by the size of this difference a more than two-fold increase in donations, Callaghan explained. I was also somewhat surprised by some of the different ways in which people interacted with me, as the confederate, in the two conditions. For instance, when I was dressed in high-status clothing, several individuals gave donations of $5 or $10 and one dropped a business card in my cup rather than give a one-time donation.

Notably, this means that the confederate earned more money when signaling higher socioeconomic status (SES). Interestingly, passersby were equally likely to interact with the confederate whether they gave him money or not in both conditions, suggesting that the status symbols influenced the quality of interactions with the panhandler, but not the number of them.

Interesting stuff. I guess only the most successful panhandlers wear suits.

since panhandlers almost never wear suits, they prolly got more money because of the sight of it, ya know?

I remember watching a "social experiment" video where a mom in normal clothing holding a baby got more donations than a homeless person who looks like he has next to nothing.

First impressions really matter.

I've seen panhandlers in suits back in the day in San Fran before the addicts took over. I think people would gravitate to donate more to the suit guy because most people would randomly assume the suit guy would appear more trustworthy and do something useful with the money instead of a typical homeless dude spending the cash on alcohol and drugs. It's all social perception and stigma.

They probably think a guy in a suit is looking for work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBuC_0-d-9Y

Dang it, if only i had a suit

I saw some guy at a street corner in Detroit with a sign that said something along the lines of "I'm not gonna bullshit you, I just wanna buy beer."

I wonder how much money he got.

I guess it kinda makes sense? If the guys in a nice suit you can assume hes at least been successful before. Plus hes got a suit to go to job interviews in.

I used to live near Raleigh. Ibwas a kid at the time so maybe I'm misrembering but iirc you had to have a license to panhandle and there was this well off woman who would call the cops on legit homeless people cause they where cutting into her panhandling

Then there was a "homeless" (not sure if he really was) guy that would panhandle during the day but at night you'd see him go into a building and come back out in a high dollar suit.

The license thing is what killed me. Supposedly it was only 5 bucks but a legit homeless person isn't gonna spend 5 bucks on that. Moot law too cause the cops typically wouldn't arrest the homeless. Just shoo them off. Had some actually try and get arrested and the cops wouldn't. They wherent trying to cop a lengthy prison sentence just trying to get a warm bed and food for a short while during winter