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Reader’s Digest Mobile Phone Honesty Test - News Story #2

July 25th, 2007

A friend of mine forwarded me a great news story about an honesty test conducted by Reader’s Digest. This test or you could also call it a “social experiment” was conducted in 32 cities around the world. Guess which city came out on top?

Staffers left behind 30 cell phones in various locations throughout the city and waited to see how the finder reacted. These are the simple steps taken to conduct this test:

1) The staffer called the “lost” cell phone and if the finder answered it, they asked them if they would return it to them.

2) If the person didn’t hear the call, the staffer waited to see if the finder called one of the preprogrammed numbers in the phone in an attempt to locate the owner.

3) The staffers watched to see if a person would simply pocket the phone and leave with it.

As you might expect, the overall honesty average was very good, in fact the average was 68 percent. There were some cities that stood out for their honesty.

The honesty gold medal went to city of Ljubljana, Slovenia (29 out of 30). The honesty silver medal went to Toronto, Canada (28 out of 30). The honesty bronze medal went to Seoul, South Korea (27 out of 30). The fourth position went to Stockholm, Sweden (26 out of 30). In a three-way tie for fifth place were the cities of New York, United States, Manila, Philippines and Mumbai, India (24 out of 30).

You can see on the Reader’s Digest the complete chart with the finding of this honesty test. It truly is encouraging to know that no matter where you are in the world there are honest people that will do the right thing.