on Lost Wallet Honesty - 74% of people are honest.
October 11, 2007 – 5:24 pm
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Paul Kinsella performed a remarkable survey that tests a person’s honesty when faced with the prospect of keeping a $0.35 wallet containing $2.10 and a $50 gift certificate or returning it to the owner using the id card contained in the wallet. Paul had the bright idea of recording hilarious conversations from many of the thieves and a few of the honest ones.
Some of the interesting results are:
- 26% of the people kept the wallets
- 86% of women and 61% of men were honest
- 56% of young people were honest, 81% of middle aged people were honest, 88% of old people were honest
- 79% of white people were honest, 57% of black people were honest
- The most honest group were white females (95%), the least honest group were young black people (40%)
The author was careful to point out that “It was not the intention of this experiment to make any particular group look bad, reinforce stereotypes nor to further a hidden agenda of any kind. The actions of a few members in a group should not, of course, be used to judge the whole group.” - I wonder why!
3 Responses to “on Lost Wallet Honesty - 74% of people are honest.”
This is very fascinating! It’s neat to actually see who is most honest. I actually would have guessed it would have been white females and I am a male.
I can see how this survey could seem racist but it isn’t intended to and it comes from a legitimate source.
By Jim Drummond on Oct 11, 2007
I’m a lady and I’d use that gift certificate to buy me some new xtenshuns! fo sho!
By Shakesulah on Oct 11, 2007
i’d like to see how honesty paired up with class designations (income/education)
By M on Jul 4, 2008