Lost Wallet Experiment – Honesty Story #9
February 1st, 2007
In a networking event last night, I met a person who told me about an experiment that tested people’s honesty and highly recommended that I read the results. Based on this study and his own experience, he truly believes that most people are honest when given the opportunity.
So I decided to find the results of this test and see what it was all about. The experiment is called Wallet Test. What they did was to drop 100 identical wallets containing $2.10, a fake $50 gift certificate, some miscellaneous items and an ID card with the owner’s contact information. Hidden cameras then recorded the actions of each one of the finders and the data was compiled with the results. In case you were wondering where the study took place, it was in Belleville, Illinois which they consider “a medium-sized American city”. They also claim in their study that all the samples were random.
Ok, now that I’ve set the stage, you probably want to know just how many people did return the wallets. The results they compiled found that 74% of people were honest and returned the wallets they found. As a side note, let me just clarify that I am not endorsing this study or its scientific validity. I do think it is an interesting experiment about honesty and I am encouraged to find, based on their experiment, that honest people outnumber dishonest people 3 to 1.
I couldn’t resist making an additional point regarding the importance of an ID card or some kind of form of identification. As honest as a person might be, if they find an item in the street without any kind of identification, it is virtually impossible for them to return it it to its rightful owner.
(Chart Wallet Test)
Entry Filed under: Honesty
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1 Comment Add your own
1. Lora Weinstein | February 20th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
iI recommend lifelock.com which i had bad experiences with or http://www.walletnanny.com (which is set to launch soon i believe). Those are the only two websites to protect again wallet theft or loss though they have 2 different approaches toward the same problem.
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