Dan Janal
Dan Janal
Aug 29, 2017 · 2 min read

Elevator on college campus. A middle-aged man enters the elevator. A college-aged woman follows him in.

WOMAN: Hi. How are you doing today?

MAN: Uh, okay. (Presses button)

WOMAN: Nice day today, huh (presses button)

MAN: Uh, yeah. (Looks at his shoes)

WOMAN: So what are you doing on campus today? Are you a professor?

MAN: Oh, I get it. You’re one of those psychology students doing an experiment, right?

WOMAN: What do you mean?

MAN: No one strikes up a conversation on an elevator with a stranger. Especially a young woman. And especially to a man who is old enough to be her father.

WOMAN: I don’t know what you mean. Can’t a person be friendly?

MAN: Yeah, right. A woman like you talking to a guy like me. Come clean. You’re a psych student and this is an experiment.

WOMAN: Busted! Yeah. I have to talk to 20 people on an elevator to see their reactions so I can get my grade.

MAN: I knew it. Every time I visit campus, something strange happens in an elevator that never happens in real life.

WOMAN: Like what?

MAN: There was the time when I walked into an elevator and everyone was facing the wrong way.

WOMAN: Oh, that was Professor Bernardi’s study on social influence.

MAN: Then there was the time when I walked into an elevator and everyone faced the same way and then everyone turned around.

WOMAN: Professor Bernardi again. The social psychological effects of peer pressure on closed group dynamics. I helped him write that paper.

MAN: Why on earth does he think those studies apply to the real world in any way, shape or form?

WOMAN: What do you mean?

MAN: He designs these studies using fake situations. He has a study group of guinea pigs who aren’t a representative sample of the cross population of a business environment and he claims to be able to apply the outcomes to the real world. For crying out loud, he’s using college kids as his samples on a college campus. There’s no more group that is out of touch with real life than college students!

WOMAN: Are you saying my professor is a fraud?

MAN: Well, yes.

WOMAN: So I’m wasting four years of my life and a quarter million dollars studying something that has dubious application in the real world?

MAN: Well, yes.

WOMAN: What do you think I should do?

MAN: Well, you’ve just proven my study on the social effects of asking strangers for advice that can change your life even though you don’t know who they are. You’ve been a great subject for my Ph.D. study.

WOMAN: So you’re doing research too?

MAN? Yes. By the way, can I buy you a cup of coffee?

WOMAN: Are you kidding? I don’t speak to strangers on elevators. What kinds of nuts talk to strangers on elevators?

(end)

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    Dan Janal

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    Dan Janal