Supermarket collection

What the supermarket collection is is when you go to a supermarket and ask people entering it to buy one item from a list containing food and toiletries. Then they are asked to donate what they have bought by putting it into a trolley. 

Sufra - the food bank I sporadically volunteer at - held one this weekend. Aneesa - who used to work there and used to go to my high school - was helping out and she roped me into helping out. I roped Joy into helping out. 

It was actually rather fun. 

It was like, there is no space to be shy or quiet. We had to be confident, polite and proactive. Letting someone walk past without even approaching them, was not an option. 

I got the least rejections. 

I was thinking about it afterwards.

Maybe Aneesa was rejected because she was Muslim (and Islamaphobia is wide spread) and Karlem perhaps because he was black and wearing a hoodie. Some people may have judged based on appearance and thought, well I will not donate food to a charity represented by these people. Joy was rather quiet and stood to the side, complaining that I was talking to everyone, yet not making effort to engage with people. 

I love the way that doing psychology makes me think. 

I was thinking, we should conduct a covert observation. 

Counting how many people walk past and the percentage of whom take a leaflet and of that the percentage who actually donate food. 

Of that, the ethnicity and gender and age range. 

However, that would not be conclusive. It may seem to show that an over represnetation of one demographic group donating. 

However, to further sort of research who will donate food and who will not, we should do variations. 

For instance, somewhere less diverse than Hendon.

One where the volunteers are all male or all female. All Muslim or Christian or other religious groups. 

Then I thought, hmmm. but even if we carried out all that research, there is the issue that human behaviour is complex.

A person may not donate food, not as a result of racial bias, but due to financial situation or experience and we could not control for all the different factors. 

Person A may have been duped by a charity whereas person B has not been. They could both hold the same racial stereotypes. 

I was thinking about the ethics and the practicalities of carrying out research like this.

I actually really want to do a Psychology degree.

I thought perhaps I picked it for the wrong reasons. 

I do not think I have, at the moment, that is.