Honouring One's Conscience

"It shows that when we make a decision whether to be dishonest or not, it's not only 'What can I get out of it versus what's the punishment, what's the effort'?"
"It actually matters that people have morals and they like to think of themselves as good human beings."
Nina Mazar, behavioral scientist, Boston University

"The evidence suggests that people tend to care about the welfare of others and they have an aversion to seeing themselves as a thief."
Alain Cohn, assistant professor of information, University of Michigan

"[A survey found that] without money, not reporting a wallet doesn't feel like stealing."
"With money, however, it suddenly feels like stealing and it feels even more like stealing when the money in the wallet increases."
Christian Zund, study co-author

Wallets with cash, a key, a grocery list and business cards were used to test honesty.  (Christian Zünd via Associated Press)

A new study appears to confound the generalized theory that people finding a wallet with money in it are unlikely to return it to its owner, intact. This three-year study considered to be the most all-encompassing world-wide test of peoples' inherent honesty came to the conclusion that people are, after all, inclined to want to do the right thing and return a lost wallet they find. The finding was a surprise to the researchers and it goes a long way to confirming that people in general tend to be mindful of ethical conduct to the extent of actually practising it.

Not only was the discovery made through this study that people value honest behaviour in themselves which will benefit others, but that the incentive to respond honestly is enhanced when a greater amount of money found in a lost wallet is involved. Published in the journal Science, experts in the field of human behaviour feel on the basis of the study and its finding that business and lawmakers might take notice that dishonesty can be prevented through moral expectation absent punitive reactions.

No fewer than 17,303 wallets were used in a giant research ruse that took place in 355 cities on every continent. Wallets complete with transparent business card cases and visible contents containing three business cards reflecting male names identifiable with the country they were distributed in were used to seed the experiment. Each of the business cards came complete with an email address, the wallet owner identified as a freelance software engineer.

A key, a handwritten grocery list in the language of the country the wallet was used in also occupied the wallet, along with in most instances a modest amount of cash in local currency, while others had no money in them at all. They were distributed by research assistants entering post offices, hotels, police stations, banks, museums and other public arenas to approach someone in authority with the spiel: "Hi, I found this on the street around the corner".

'The evidence suggests that people tend to care about the welfare of others, and they have an aversion to seeing themselves as a thief,' said Alain Cohn of the University of Michigan, one author who reported the results. (Christian Zünd via Associated Press)

The research assistant would then hand the wallet over to the individual they had addressed, perhaps someone behind a reception desk, with the additional explanation: "Somebody must have lost it. I'm in a hurry and have to go. Can you please take care of it?" Most people emailed the purported wallet owners with a view to returning the wallet. Peru and Mexico were the two countries where fewer wallets were returned than in any other.

An average of 40 percent of people into whose hands cashless wallets were placed reported them while 51 percent of people given wallets with money, did the same. The experiment was repeated in three countries, just to make certain of the outcomes. In Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States the routine was given a second round and this time greater amounts of cash were added.

Where the initial experiment used around $13.45 in local currency, the repeat performance upped the ante considerably, adding $94.15 in cash. The response to the lost wallets was even more dramatic, when greater numbers of people dutifully emailed the presumed owners to return the wallets; 72 percent compared with the 61 percent attempting to return the wallets with $13.45, and 46 percent of the cashless wallets.

The gender, age and friendliness of each wallet recipient was recorded by research assistants, including how busy they happened to be at the time; whether they had instant use of computers to enable swift response, and whether co-workers, security guards, or cameras could have recorded the exchange in possession of the wallet, from the 'finder' to the individual taking responsibility for its return.

The theory that any of these potentially compromising details could influence the person to feel compelled to return the wallet appeared not to make a difference at all. As Alain Cohn, one of the study's authors noted, "the psychological cost of the dishonest act" in withholding the wallet with cash seemed to propel people toward honesty and the wallet's return.

And how did the experiment end? In a way that acknowledged people's positive decision making by informing those reporting lost wallets through emails by thanking them and advising that the wallet's owner had left town, and the 'finder' could feel free to retain the money, or if preferred, donate it to charity.

"[Our team] would go into these various institutions ... like a bank or a post office, and they would go to the receptionist at the front and they would say, 'Hey, I found this wallet on the street around the corner. I have to leave right now. Can I just leave this wallet with you?'"
"And then we were interested to see how often people would return these wallets, or at least report to us that they found these wallets."

"When the wallet doesn't have money inside of it, it feels like stealing. But when the wallet has money inside, you start to question: 'Hey, if I don't turn this in, what does that say about me?'"

"And so there is this aversion to viewing yourself negatively and that's part of what's motivating people."

"That's not valuable to the person who we turned the wallet in to, but it is valuable to the owner [keys inspiring people to return wallets to their owners]."

David Tannenbaum, social psychologist, study co-author 

If you came across a lost wallet containing cash, would you return it to its rightful owner? Researchers were surprised to find that a majority of people would indeed return it rather than pocket the cash. (Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images)