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To gauge the honesty of people in different nations, social scientists turned in 17,003 “lost” wallets to people in charge in various public businesses and institutions in 355 cities in 40 countries around the globe, and recorded how many of the wallets were actually returned.
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One surprising result was that there was a higher rate of return with wallets containing a small amount of money ($13.46) than of empty wallets, except in Mexico and Peru.
In three countries, the United States, the United Kingdom and Poland, they also left wallets with a larger sum ($94.15), There was an even higher rate of return for wallets with big money than just a little money.
This is contrary to what both experts and non-experts predicted.
Researchers thought that people made an extra effort when money was involved in order to avoid thinking of themselves as thieves.
Switzerland had the highest rate of return for empty wallets and Denmark for wallets with money in them. European countries overall, including Russia, got high marks for honesty.
China had the lowest rate of return for empty wallets and Peru for wallets with money. I am disappointed that the United States is so far down on the list.
LINKS
Humans are surprisingly honest when it comes to returning lost wallets by Katherine J. Wu for PSB NOVA.
Civic honesty around the globe by Alain Cohn, Michel Andre Marechal, David Tannenbaum and Christian Lukas Zond for Science.
Phil Ebersole's Blog 