ABSTRACT
Background Notes: A national telephone poll was conducted to examine attitudes toward the homeless. Respondents were offered $10 for participating in the poll. Among other things, the pollsters asked respondents how many "homeless panhandlers" they had encountered during the past year. They speculated that if Americans were losing their compassion for the homeless, those who had more contact with them would be less compassionate. At the end of the interview, some respondents spontaneously asked the researchers to donate their $10 fee to an organization for the homeless. The pollsters used this as a measure of compassion-those who offered to donate their fee were regarded as more compassionate than those who did not offer.
