Imagine this: You’re at work in a hotel lobby when someone rushes up to you, handing over a lost wallet they found nearby. They’re in a hurry and can’t stick around. The wallet has:
- A key
- A grocery list
- About $13
- Three business cards with a name and email, likely belonging to the owner.
What would you do?
Between 2013 and 2016, over 17,000 hotel workers worldwide faced this decision in a big study about honesty. Surprisingly, the results shocked top economists and researchers.
Honesty
We usually think of honesty as telling the truth in our relationships. But it’s also crucial for society to work well. Using public services, doing business, and making decisions all rely on people being honest.
So, understanding honesty is important for economists, psychologists, and sociologists. But it’s hard to study because people might change their behavior if they know they’re being watched.
Study: Will people do the right thing even when they won’t get caught?
A big study by the universities of Michigan, Utah, and Zurich asked: Will people do the right thing even when they won’t get caught? They did this by leaving lost wallets in different places worldwide.
Some wallets had:
- A key, a grocery list, and business cards.
- Some also had about $13.
Researchers thought money might stop people from being honest. They figured people would care more about keeping the money than doing the right thing.
They thought people would be less likely to report wallets with money. But they were wrong. More wallets with money were reported than those without.
This was true all over the world, no matter the person’s age, gender, or if they knew they were being watched. Even when wallets had nearly $100, most were still reported.
There are many ideas about why people are more honest when their wallet has more money. Maybe taking more money feels more like stealing, so people want to avoid feeling like thieves. Or maybe people feel worse about causing harm when there’s more money involved.
This study shows that self-interest might not be as strong as we think. Feeling like an honest person can motivate you to act honestly. By encouraging honesty, we can build a society we can all trust.