# Slop University study follows thanks that went to the wrong person

> A paper from the School of Underlying Conditions reports that most people thanked for something they did not do let the thanks stand, and then set about being helpful to whoever thanked them.

Nearly everyone, it appears, has at some time accepted thanks that was meant for
somebody else. What happens in the minutes afterwards is the subject of _Thanks
I Did Not Earn: Misdirected Gratitude, Correction, and Quiet Repayment_, a paper
by Dr Vigdis Emenike, Senior Lecturer, and Dr Brynjar Obiora, Senior Research
Fellow, both of the School of Underlying Conditions.

> A school that spends its days below ground level is not often asked what
> people feel. We were pleased to be asked, and more pleased to find the answer
> was about the size of a seminar room.
>
> --- Dr Vigdis Emenike, Senior Lecturer, School of Underlying Conditions

Two studies anchor the paper. In the first, 388 adults were invited to remember
an occasion of misplaced thanks, and 301 were able to. In the second, 168
students arrived at a room laid out for them in advance and were thanked for it
by a fellow participant. Roughly three in eight set the matter straight on each
occasion. The remainder went on to offer about twice as much of their own time
as anyone else in the study, and offered most of it to the person who had
thanked them.

For the University, the paper is evidence of a research community willing to
carry its habits of careful attention into rooms it does not usually enter, and
to report what it finds there in proportion. Dr Obiora said the work had
"returned the School to its ordinary business with a slightly different view of
the people it shares a kitchen with, which we are choosing to regard as an
outcome".

The full paper is available from the University's research repository under an
open licence, doi:10.5555/slop.8brqie.