Honesty is Majority Policy in Lost Wallet Experiment (theguardian.com) 132
If you find a wallet stuffed with bank notes, do you pocket the cash or track down the owner to return it? We can each speak for ourselves, but now a team of economists have put the unsuspecting public to the test in a mass social experiment involving 17,000 "lost" wallets in 40 countries. From a report: They found that a majority of people returned the wallets and -- contrary to classic economic logic -- they were more likely to do so the more money the wallet contained. The findings defied the expectations of both professional economists and 2,500 respondents to a survey, who predicted that people would act in self-interest. Research assistants posed as people who had found wallets, hurriedly dropping them off in public places including banks, theatres, museums and police stations. Most of the wallet drops were in large cities, and there were about 400 observations per country.
The wallets contained either no money, a small amount or a larger sum, along with a grocery list and business cards with an email and phone number for the "owner." The amounts were scaled to match spending power in different countries. The entire cost of the project was about $600,000. Overall, 51% of those who were handed a wallet with the smaller amount of money reported it, compared with 40% of those handed an empty wallet. When the wallet contained a large sum of money, the rate of return was 72%.
The wallets contained either no money, a small amount or a larger sum, along with a grocery list and business cards with an email and phone number for the "owner." The amounts were scaled to match spending power in different countries. The entire cost of the project was about $600,000. Overall, 51% of those who were handed a wallet with the smaller amount of money reported it, compared with 40% of those handed an empty wallet. When the wallet contained a large sum of money, the rate of return was 72%.
Re: Are demographic breakdowns available? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
But the summary of the experiment was garbage, and so were the conclusions.
The unwitting test subjects did not simply find a wallet. They were GIVEN a wallet by a researcher who claimed to have just found it. Most of the subjects were at work.
There's a difference between finding a lost item and being entrusted with an item. And there's a lot of other things which makes this experiment vastly different, psychologically, than what they're claiming to measure.
Re: Are demographic breakdowns available? (Score:1)
Right. If the wallet was encountered on the sidewalk the statistics may show a much lower faith in humanity when larges sums of money are in it. The onus of returning a sidewalk wallet is not yet not decided, but once someone had shown an intent to be a good samaritan and passed the found wallet to someone else the onus is more likely than not to be passed on with the wallet.
Re: Are demographic breakdowns available? (Score:1)
My thoughts exactly. People at work tend to be more honest for fear of losing their job.
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I work at a bank and there are ethics policies which are quite specific about handling money, but anyone at their place of employment would have rules about interacting with the public including procedures for lost-and-found items. So this "experiment" is selecting for people who:
1) are at their place of employment and have a duty to behave professionally to members of the public,
2) might have co-workers or even their supervisor nearby who might witness the interaction,
3) knows at least one other person kn
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No sane person carries more than $100 in a wallet. Nobody. If you have more than $100 in a wallet, either you are a criminal, a drug user/trafficker, or someone who is fucking paranoid.
I often have over $100 in my wallet, because $200 is the highest default value for most ATMs I use. Any time I'm running low on cash I just grab $200 from my checking account. Considering I use cash so infrequently, I often go long periods of time with around $200 in my wallet.
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"No sane person carries more than $100 in a wallet. Nobody. If you have more than $100 in a wallet, either you are a criminal, a drug user/trafficker, or someone who is fucking paranoid. "
Um, you're a moron, or twentysomething, or both. I've been carrying more than that for over forty years (I'm 60), and know others who do as well. We're none of the things you imagined in your bullshit comment. $100 has been tucked away as emergency cash in my wallet probably since before you could speak. Times have cha
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If you have more than $100 in a wallet, either you are a criminal, a drug user/trafficker, or someone who is fucking paranoid.
Mark me down as fucking paranoid. I carry a gun also. What do you think of that?
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Source? (Score:2)
Just linking to The Guardian (who have no source for the story) without providing an actual link for the study?
"news"
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It amazes me that Science even published this. The methodology was crap.
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The more money, the more likely you'll think there's a reward. With no money, you don't want to be accused of stealing whatever money was there.
A morally-challenged person who finds a wallet and pockets the money is more likely to toss the empty wallet than to seek out the owner. Conversely, someone who makes the effort to return an empty wallet to its owner probably found it empty in the first place.
If someone returned my lost wallet to me, I'd be grateful and reward the person even if it was empty. I don't carry much cash in it, but I do carry lots of cards that would be a hassle to replace.
Makes Sense (Score:3)
I'll bet a lot of people who returned the wallet were expecting some kind of reward -- I certainly would give one if my wallet returned to me.
If you have $10 in your pocket, the reward probably won't be great. If you have $100 in your wallet, it shows you probably can afford to pay pretty decently.
Just my 2 cents
Re: Makes Sense (Score:1)
The reward would be less than the money you already have in hand. How the heck does that make sense?
Re: Makes Sense (Score:1)
The wallet could belong to an early investor in VA Linux who was smart enough to sell his shares quickly and make a lot of money. Returning the wallet could lead to a hefty reward, maybe including some Yggdrasil Linux installation CDs.
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The reward would be money you legally own, whereas money you just took from a found wallet is not legally yours. Just taking the money might lead to consequences if you are somehow found out.
Also, most people have something called a "conscience".
How would they get a reward? (Score:2)
I'll bet a lot of people who returned the wallet were expecting some kind of reward
If you are just turning it into a mall or theater office though, how would you ever get a reward? For just returning a wallet I don't think I'd expect one, though I would like you be happy to give one...
I have gone well out of my way to try and return stuff after I lost my wallet at a theater when I was ten years old, it made a huge impression on me that it was returned with what little money I had.
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Uh, read the summary, not just the headline.
They were testing the people at the "mall or theater office", not the people who turned the wallets in to them.
rational self-interest (Score:2)
"people would act in self-interest"
Of course they did. It's in my best interest to live in a world where people return lost items. So why would I set a bad example? At some point survival kicks in, but a handful of cash won't change that for most people.
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But this is a prisoner's dilemma. Your best interest is actually to live in a world where people return lost items, except you who just steals everything and gets away with it.
The two countervailing forces I can see are:
1. Morality / altruistic feelings. 2. A notion that the closest the world can practically get is a world where everybody including you return lost items.
#2 takes some justification. It's not clear how you returning a wallet to somebody makes it more likely that somebody will return a wallet to you. Unless you brag about it endlessly or something.
Karma tends to be believed in by many. The old sayings "What goes around comes around", "You reap what you sow", and "Treat others as you would have them treat you" comes to mind and I like to think I run each through my brain before picking up the wallet, grabbing the cash out of it and THEN returning/drop off at the cop shop in hopes it gets returned to the owner.
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This. And, it just doesn't belong to you, so do the right thing and give it back. I don't believe in Karma, but live by the Golden Rule.
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It's still pretty disturbing that they dropped off wallets at banks, museums, and *police stations* and they were only returned 40-72% of the time, at least according to TFS.
Also the tasp of being useful (Score:3)
"people would act in self-interest"
Of course they did. It's in my best interest to live in a world where people return lost items. So why would I set a bad example? At some point survival kicks in, but a handful of cash won't change that for most people.
There's lots of ways to look at this.
We're taught from an early age to be useful and to make a positive contribution. Lots of kids get praise for doing something useful for the family, and lots of adults outright look for ways to be useful to others.
Returning the wallet costs you nothing, and gives you that "tasp" you feel for making a positive contribution to something. You feel good for helping out.
Also, like people have said, it's much more effective to live in a world where people will return wallets.
Reward theory aside (Score:3, Interesting)
Years ago, a contractor friend of mine told me he'd gotten the wrong change from a convenience store clerk when purchasing coffee and cigarettes... the clerk mistakenly gave him change for a hundred after he'd actually given a twenty.
I found myself in the midst of being self-righteously appalled.
My buddy Rocky explained it to me thusly, and perhaps a bit less eloquently: He was broke as a joke. That 20 was the last of his money. An $80 swing in his favor was a huge break he was reluctant to self-correct.
Honesty is a luxury of the folks who are eating and covering the rent quite regularly.
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The cashier had to make up the difference out of his/her own pocket.
One poor slob robbed another.
Would the cashier be justified in short-changing customers because he/she is "broke as a joke"?
Your friend has no integrity. Find better people to hang out with.
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The point isn't whether or not Rocky couldn't have acted more honorably... clearly he could have.
It's rather how much easier it is to act honorably relative to the weight of your purse.
Re:Reward theory aside (Score:5, Insightful)
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Honesty is not a luxory of those who are better off. Honesty is a virtue. Look at the 2008 American Financial Crisis. The wealthy are crooks, too. Your friend knew he was wrong and tried to justify it with his own state of financial misfortune. Plain and simple. I've met homeless people who will harass you for a bite to eat. I've also met homeless people who were more willing to help ME out in my distress, despite their unfortunate circumstances. Assholes are assholes. Some of them are rich, some of them are poor, some of them are homeless, and some of them are in jail/prison. There's also good people in all of those places too.
You're correct that
"There's also good people in all of those places too."
Good, though, is a relative concept. It is infinitely easier to be good when doing so only costs you the price of your annual tip to the garbage contractor, instead of your monthly rent.
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Years ago, a contractor friend of mine told me he'd gotten the wrong change from a convenience store clerk when purchasing coffee and cigarettes... the clerk mistakenly gave him change for a hundred after he'd actually given a twenty.
I found myself in the midst of being self-righteously appalled.
My buddy Rocky explained it to me thusly, and perhaps a bit less eloquently: He was broke as a joke. That 20 was the last of his money. An $80 swing in his favor was a huge break he was reluctant to self-correct.
Honesty is a luxury of the folks who are eating and covering the rent quite regularly.
A nearly exact thing happened to me when I was a poor student. Among the bills I was given in change was a high denomination bill in change - which should have been a one dollar bill. I went back to the store and pointed out the error, and exchanged "my" fifty for a one (worth more than a hundred would be today). Even poor people can be honest.
The pleasure you derive in yourself in knowing your are honest is far more valuable than the tiny bits of cash you reap though petty dishonesty.
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Where I live the larger denomination notes are physically larger, and every denomination is a different colour, with only the basic design (location of value) standard across the notes.
It's usually very obvious if you give or receive the wrong change.
I'd bet that this is a deliberate choice by the currency designers.
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It makes it harder to counterfeit by bleaching $1 bills and printing $20, $50, or $100 on them.
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Your virtues follow you when you die. Do you want to be remembered as a good person or an a-hole? If you're an a-hole you probably don't care because you'll be dead and it won't affect you. If you've got a little decency left, you may want to be remembered well.
Re: Reward theory aside (Score:2)
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Conclusion: If you find a money-eating wallet (Score:1)
people are more likely to keep it.
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Bags of Spilling have value if you know who to sell them to.
I returned one once (Score:4, Interesting)
"hey, wallet"
Got back home, looked through and eventually found enough info to track down a phone number. No money in it.
Called him, we met at the Kmart parking lot. He offered $10 reward, I said no, he pushed it on me.
When I called, he was just on his way back out to the trail to look. He had apparently wiped out at that spot, and his wallet popped out of the backpack.
Self interest (Score:1)
The returning of a wallet with a lot of money makes sense and does align with self-interest. It's just the economists are looking at short-term self-interest (hey, I get money now) vesus long-term interest (what happens a week from now).
A wallet with just a little money and a grocery list probably belongs to someone who doesn't have many resources. Therefore the probability of a payoff or punishment is low.
Taking the money from a stuffed full wallet means no reward if you return it, and possible punishment
Finally some good news! (Score:2)
With all the crap I see on TV every day, it's good to see there are still some people who know what the right thing to do is and actually do it.
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But if all you do is watch the news, you'll get the mistaken impression that the world is a cesspool of liars, cheats, and criminals.
The world is a cesspool of liars, cheats, and criminals. There are more now than ever before.
But that's because there are more people on the planet than ever before. As a percentage of the total population, there may actually be fewer of them. Violent crime declined for decades after leaded gasoline was banned.
The problem is modern communications technology means every liar, cheat, and criminal on the planet is in your back pocket. It used to be your exposure to them all was very limited. If they could
Understandable difference (Score:5, Insightful)
When someone loses $20, or $100 in a wallet, we can treat it casually and as a modest accident. When someone loses $1000, that could cost them their apartment, or food for the week, or their vacation. It's a greater tragedy, one with which they may need a great deal more help to recovery. So these results might be less surprising than we expect because the amounts involved are both a greater loss for the victim and a greater responsibility for the discovererer.
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When someone loses $20, or $100 in a wallet, we can treat it casually and as a modest accident. When someone loses $1000, that could cost them their apartment, or food for the week, or their vacation.
There's also the minor difference that stealing $100 is a misdemeanor, while stealing over $1000 is a felony.
People may not weigh that all that highly in their moral calculus, but the effect isn't zero either.
Expensive (Score:1)
douche bags (Score:2)
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It's pathetic that you can't care for your things. Why should others have to do your legwork? We are not your slaves, and have every right to take advantage of what's in front of us if we don't steal or harm or cheat. Picking up something left in a public place is not immoral, but breaking into your home is, get the difference?
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It's pathetic that you can't care for your things. Why should others have to do your legwork? We are not your slaves, and have every right to take advantage of what's in front of us if we don't steal or harm or cheat. Picking up something left in a public place is not immoral, but breaking into your home is, get the difference?
In California, it _is_ stealing. Plain and simple. In New York, rules are slightly different, but it is stealing if you don't return the money within six months. In Germany, it is "Fundunterschlagung" (illegally copying something you found), unless you found the wallet in a place like a train or bus, or inside a building, in which case it is theft again.
So it _is_ immoral, and it _is_ criminal.
Re: douche bags (Score:2)
I don't look to the sausage makers for moral advice. Why do you?
Re: douche bags (Score:2)
saw it, but did not pick it (Score:2)
I wonder if this category was included into statistics. That's what Muslims do.
Didn't conduct the experiment in Japan (Score:3)
It seems pretty strange to omit the country which is known for acting honestly when handling lost property. (Yes, umbrella and bicycle theft DOES happen in Japan, but if you drop your wallet in a train station, there's about a 99.9% chance that it will be handed over to a station attendant with the contents intact.)
Instead of including Japan (which almost certainly would have registered the most honest behavior), Switzerland is reported as being the most honest country on planet Earth. Let's take a quick look at the CV of the lead author of the study...
Hmmm, must have some sentimental reason for this decision.
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People in collectivist societies act more pro-social, who would've guessed?
People in collectivist societies (Score:1)
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What is being reported and what is listed in the conclusions of the report are two very different things. You vilify the scientist for a journalist's error as the article would never claim to declare anything part of the world when the world wasn't in the dataset.
Why not Japan? Common knowledge. Completely different culture. Not in the budget. There are many reasons not to do a study for the entire world, not the least of which is you could spend a large portion of your budget just on airfares.
Link to the study (Score:2)
I read the study - it doesn't measure honesty (Score:4, Insightful)
Coherent results (Score:2)
Those results are right in line with what I'd have expected. It's important to understand that people are pack animals; we have a deep connection to the social fabric of our lives, and that means following societal norms and expectations. In this case, absent other pressure, people will try to find the owners of the money. There's a measure of empathy in there, but also of rule following.
Interesting experiment regardless.
The top countries are those with high social trust (Score:3)
All the higher returns here are the same countries that also top the UN quality of living index. One of the keys is to have a high level of social trust, i.e. almost everyone expect other people around them to be basically honest & trustworthy.
Scandinavia plus Netherlands and New Zealand typically tops these lists.
It has been estimated that this form of trust provides a significant boost to national GDP since it acts as lubrication: "A deal is a deal", a verbal agreement can be trusted etc.
I was glad to see Switzerland and Norway at the top, returning nearly all wallets independently of what they contained, but slightly bothered that both Denmark and Sweden was more likely than us to be helpful when the contents was significantly higher.
Terje
Sorry no (Score:3)
I worked for the railway for 40 years and I got tons of wallets delivered from people who found them.
There was rarely any money in them.
If there were papers in there I'd call the person and they'd come and get it and asked: "Where's my money?" and looking at _me_!
I did that 3 times, after that wallets without money just went to the trash.
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My guess is that a good portion of those wallets you received had been stolen before they had been found.
Pickpockets tend to work in railway stations, because they are crowded places where most people only pass through. The thieves take the cash and dispose of the wallet quickly so that if they would be arrested, they would not carry any evidence.
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I worked for the railway for 40 years and I got tons of wallets delivered from people who found them.
There was rarely any money in them. If there were papers in there I'd call the person and they'd come and get it and asked: "Where's my money?" and looking at _me_!
I did that 3 times, after that wallets without money just went to the trash.
You were not working for TfL (Transport for London) then. If someone hands a wallet to you as a railway employee and you throw it away, I'd say you should be punched then fired for being a thief.
If you lose a wallet in London on the train or underground, you send them an email describing what you lost, and when they find it they mail you back and you can pick it up. There will be no money _in_ your wallet. Instead, the take it out, count it, and you go to a counter where they give you the money, minus 5
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The wallet was not returned by magic. The process took time away from people doing their regular jobs and someone was paid to do all that work. Five pounds sounds like a deal considering what the service was worth.
I know what it is (Score:2)
Real wallets contain more than money (Score:2)
The wallets in the study contained only money, a shopping list and a business card.
In the real world, however, I think that many people carry many other (for them) important things in their wallets, such as ID card, key fobs, membership cards, even debit and credit cards.
I think it could be difficult to figure out what some items are and how important they are to the owner.
And also, I think most people would not want to "spy" more than would be necessary to find the owner's contact information.
Change my mind: Finders keepers is not dishonest (Score:2)
Imagine walking along on some (public) country path and you happen to notice, out of the corner of your eye, a gold coin hidden in a nearby bush. Someone could have dropped it accidentally or placed it deliberately. Suppose you have never in your life pledged not to take things you find in your travels. Tell me, what is dishonest about taking the coin?
Sure, if I dropped that coin accidentally, I would love for someone to do me the favor of returning it to me, but I don't see the moral argument there: how
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Before someone says it, whether the wallet or coin has an e-mail address is somewhat of a red herring (though an important practical concern), but it doesn't change the underlying moral question. The person could have accidentally or deliberately dropped the item in a public (non-privately owned) space, and no violence or theft or fraud is committed.
Re: Change my mind: Finders keepers is not dishone (Score:1)
You sure have a very weird world-view.
But if you want to know if it is "evil" or not you ought to ask your priest, that's their kind of thing.
Outside of religion and evilness, the issue in the "I found something and I keep it" is profiting from someone's misfortune. It is generally detrimental to society (creates perverse incentives, effort needs to be wasted on paranoia, general erosion of trust in others) and most human behaviour is crazily tuned towards living in a society.
Returning something lost is als
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Thanks for the comment.
The main motivation for my diatribe was that, while I agree it's a good thing to return wallets to people, and I do myself, I also find it offensive to call the opposite "dishonest", for it presumes some kind of tacit agreement is in place, which it isn't, so it can't be broken. Perhaps you could call taking the wallet "anti-social", but as I described at length, that is only if you believe that it's somehow "pro-social" to treat adults as children who can't take care of their things
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Finding a coin, or maybe more realistically a high-value banknote, in a public place really doesn't give the finder a lot of options for tracking down the rightful owner.
If it was a store or some similar place, there would be staff who theoretically would be responsible for taking custody of lost items surrendered by members of the public and returning them to a person who later can make a believable claim to having lost it at that location.
Economists (Score:2)
"The findings defied the expectations of both professional economists..."
And this is why nobody should pay attention to economists predictions. They're good a economic history, but when it comes to future predictions, they're right about as often as a 1950s weatherman. Flip a coin, and you'll do just as well. There's plenty of evidence if you google it to back this up.