Politeness Part 1

Do you think that a lack of common courtesy is a major challenge in today’s world? Or do you think common courtesy is still alive and well? In an intriguing article, Readers Digest posed the question, “How polite are we?” They sent under cover reporters to thirty five cities around the world to test for politeness. Half of the reporters were male, half were female.

They used three tests for politeness. Twenty times they walked into a public building slightly behind a person and waited to see if they would hold the door. During the second test, they bought twenty items in a store and recorded the number of times the sales person said “thank you.” Thirdly, they dropped folders full of papers in twenty busy locations, to see if anyone would stop to help pick them up. The reporters allowed one point for each positive behavior for a best score of sixty points. The results may surprise you.

The test found New Yorkers to be the most courteous. They held the door eighteen out of twenty times and were among the top five for all three tests. Responding to why New York responded so well, former mayor Ed Kotch commented, “After nine, eleven New Yorkers understand the shortness of life.”

Where store owners claimed that good manners were just part of their tradition, Zurich placed second on the politeness scale. On the opposite end Mumbai and Moscow ranked lowest. When asked why she let the door slam into a reporter’s face, one hurried Moscow commuter said, “I’m not a door man; people should be faster on their feet.”

Torontonians can take pride in the fact that Toronto ranked third for politeness in the survey. Sixteen out of twenty cashiers said “thank you” when items were purchased. Three out of four Torontonians held doors open for the reporters and eleven out of twenty Torontonians stopped to help pick up papers dropped during rush hour. Interestingly, the nine people who failed the test were in their sixties or older challenging the stigma that youth today aren’t as polite as they should be.

Other general findings were that prosperous cities were more courteous then less prosperous ones, women were more courteous then men although both were more polite to people of the same gender. Globally, seventy four percent of us say “thank you.” Half of us hold doors for others and one third of us will stop to help others pick up dropped papers.

In a follow up to testing the world on politeness, Readers Digest decided to see how Canadians would fair in the same test. They sent their reporters out to many of our major cities. I’ll have those results next week.

- Terry Harris

Diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when he was two years old, Terry Harris in the opinion of many experts within the medical and education professions, would never walk, talk, read, write or go to a regular school. It was recommended to his parents that he beplaced in an institution. In 1995 Terry graduated from Brock University with a B.A. in English Literature and obtained a degree in marriage and family therapy in 1999 from Tyndale Seminary.