| A study was conducted to test the hypothesis that social deviance has an effect on altruism as measured by lost letter return rates. The study employed Stanley Milgram's "Lost Letter Technique." Five hundred fictitious letters were dropped in public places within small towns, suburbs, and cities in southeastern Connecticut and Rhode Island. One hundred letters were addressed to each of two socially desirable addressees, one hundred letters were addressed to a socially neutral addressee, and one hundred letters were addressed to each of two socially deviant addressees. It was hypothesized that fewer individuals would be willing to mail a lost letter addressed to the socially deviant addressees rather than the socially neutral and socially desirable addressees. The Chi-square analysis supported the hypothesis that deviant addressee affiliation was a significant factor in diminished lost letter returns X2(2, N = 500) = 28.93, p < .001. |
