Of the wallets planted in a worldwide study, 51% of those containing money were handed back, against 40% of those without
you found a wallet in the street containing a stranger’s contact details but no cash. Would you go out of your way to return it to its owner? Now imagine that the same wallet contained a few crisp banknotes. Would that alter your response? Does it depend on the amount of money? And how do you think other people would react in similar circumstances?
Honesty makes the world go round. Without people trusting in one another, at least to a certain extent, society would fall apart. Honesty is therefore studied academically. Most work in the area, though, takes place under controlled conditions in laboratories. Moreover, it often features well-off and well-educated Westerners as its subjects. By contrast Alain Cohn of the University of Michigan and his colleagues have taken such behavioural economics around the world.
In 38 of the 40 countries, the wallets with money in them were returned more often than those without . While rates of honesty varied greatly between different places , the difference within individual countries between the two return rates was quite stable around that figure of 11 percentage points. In addition, wallets containing a larger sum of money were even more likely to be returned than those with less, although the “big money” experiment was done in only three countries.
With greater temptation, then, comes greater honesty—at least when it comes to lost wallets and petty cash. Intriguingly, though, such personal probity is not reflected in people’s expectations of their fellow men and women. When Dr Cohn and his team surveyed a sample of 299 volunteers, most respondents predicted that the more money there was in a wallet the more likely it was that it would be kept.
A certain cynicism about the motives of others is probably good for survival, so the response of the general population may be understandable. But the warm inner glow derived from “doing the right thing” is also a powerful motivator. How this altruism evolved is much debated by biologists and anthropologists—particularly when it extends, as in Dr Cohn’s experiments, to strangers whom the altruist has no expectation of ever meeting.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
https://people.com/Get the latest news about celebrities, royals, music, TV, and real people. Find exclusive content, including photos and videos, on PEOPLE.com.
Read more »
Wondering why Cracker Barrel was trending on Twitter?Cracker Barrel turns away Grayson Fritts for 'discriminatory treatment' of LGBT people
Read more »
https://people.com/Get the latest news about celebrities, royals, music, TV, and real people. Find exclusive content, including photos and videos, on PEOPLE.com.
Read more »
https://people.com/Get the latest news about celebrities, royals, music, TV, and real people. Find exclusive content, including photos and videos, on PEOPLE.com.
Read more »
https://people.com/Get the latest news about celebrities, royals, music, TV, and real people. Find exclusive content, including photos and videos, on PEOPLE.com.
Read more »
https://people.com/Get the latest news about celebrities, royals, music, TV, and real people. Find exclusive content, including photos and videos, on PEOPLE.com.
Read more »