Researchers have been spying on us on the subway. Here's what they've learned.

from Slate:

As Milgram's mother-in-law had posed it to him: "Why don't young people get up anymore in a bus or a subway train to give their seat to a gray-haired elderly woman?"

Milgram wanted to know: What if you simply asked them to? And so students in his experimental social psychology class took to the underground to ask for seats, under a number of conditions (either with no justification, or offering a rationale like "I can't read my book standing up").

People were surprisingly compliant—a total of 68 percent either got up or moved over in the "no justification" condition. The more justification that was offered, however, the less likely people were to stand up. Curiously, Blass notes, the most striking thing for many of the participants was just how difficult it was to ask for the seat ("I actually felt as if I were going to perish," recalled Milgram). It's not hard to imagine why; asking for help on a subway exposes one to both the risk of a certain stigma—and to the possibility of rejection.

When the New York Times later replicated the Milgram study, less scientifically, compliance rates were higher. (Maybe New York really is the world's most polite city!)