Yes - I think that what you are trying to ask is too broad to answer in a poll like this. There are many many factors that go into determining the seriousness of some offence.
Ok, below are 9 situations potentially destructive of human relationships. After you read and react on each situation, please rank them which evoked your strongest emotional response and the weakest reaction. The first one to respond should select the “top 2 situations”. The succeeding posters should use the selected top 2 situations to answer the poll questions:
“What made one situation more serious than the other?”
Situation A:
It has come to your attention that a religion teacher (catechist) at your school, married and the father of five children, was picked up last week by the police. Apparently, he had accepted the solicitation of a so-called “lady of the evening” and was about to take her to a motel room when they were caught by two members of a vice squad.
Situation B:
A little boy, a neighbourhood pest and brat, hates a certain old lady in the neighbourhood for constantly yelling at him for playing on her lawn. To get even with her, one day he fills a milk bottle with urine, props it up against her front door, and rings the bell. When she opens the door, the bottle falls into her living room soiling the rug.
Situation C:
A big news item in Sunday’s paper reveals that there is a strong Army lobby urging the US Congress to allow a prominent South Vietnamese general to emigrate to America. The news item also reports that the general was responsible for selling a million dollars worth of heroin to American soldiers.
Situation D:
A close friend of yours confides to you that he stayed home from school the other day. He disguised his voice and called in “sick” by claiming he was his father. Since both of his parents were at work, he was free to use the family jeep. He did so and tells you he was involved in a near-fatal, hit-skip accident. Thus far, neither the police nor his parents know of the crime.
Situation E:
You recently have found out that a neighbourhood boy who got his girlfriend in trouble paid for an abortion. The reason he gave was that her parents were ready to disown her and that he was not financially ready to marry her.
Situation F:
A neighbour girl who is in the third grade came home from school yesterday and told the family that her teacher , who is a man, kept her after school and, once they were alone, made sexual advances.
Situation G:
A factory owner of a large industrial chemical plant is losing money by using antipollution equipment. So, at night when one is watching, he opens the pollution control valves and allows the liquid pollutant by-products to be disposed of in a nearby stream.
Situation H:
It has come to your attention that a drunken motorist fell asleep at the wheel yesterday, lost control of his car, and caused an accident when the car ran up on the sidewalk injuring, luckily not killing, two passersby.
Situation I:
A widow and her two young children have just returned from the funeral of her husband and their father to discover that some men have broken into their home and stolen most of their prized possessions.
