This thread has had a huge influx of comments from new accounts in the last 24 hours—over 250 and counting. They are all, I think, critical of the study. Many have been unsubstantive, but many have had interesting things to say.<p>Normally we'd consider closing the thread in a case like this, to prevent it from being brigaded. But this is an unusual case and I'm curious to see how far it goes.<p>In case any of the new commenters happens to read this: I'm the lead moderator of Hacker News. Would you mind sharing with us how you found out about this discussion? It's unusual for us to see so much activity in a thread that is already several days old, and I'm curious to find out what happened.
1. Contact information should not be just an email address. It’s better to have email, phone and any locally popular communication channels. In countries such as China, people don’t use email as often as apps like wechat. Desk clerks are less likely to register an email address to return a wallet, especially when it doesn’t have anything valuable inside.<p>2. The difference between money and no-money percentage may be a better indicator of civil honesty. The absolute percentage reflects more about a “I’ll wait for someone to come” or “not my business” attitude of desk clerks.<p>3. It is better to put something important to the owner but not everyone else in the wallet, such as a driver license or national ID card. This could reduce “not my business” factor.
To me, the biggest confounding variable is the race/culture of the researchers. From the supplementary material:
"We recruited eleven male and two female research assistants to perform the drop-offs. All research assistants were recruited from two German speaking universities and
born between 1985 and 1993." Seems somewhat fortuitous that German/Nordic countries uniformly performed the best. In many countries, they would stick out like a sore thumb. To make this study more complete, they really should have someone who looks and speaks more native do this as well. Especially as race/culture seems to be so highly correlated with the result, it is only natural to see whether factors like distrust/xenophobia play a part. I mean, some random stranger (possibly using a language translator app!?) tells you to do something with a package they drop off and then leaves very quickly. How I react would certainly depend at least somewhat on my impression of the person and how that brief interaction went.
Such an interesting study. Over the past few years, I encounter daily cynicism about how ‘people are the worst’. But, it is so important to not lose this basic trust in others because that, in fact, is the only true foundation in life. We are all alone in this world and to lose trust in the one, absolutely critical and positive tenet of human life is despairing. People are generally good and even, when they are not, it is all explainable.
The wallet in the experiment is doesn't look like a normal "wallet" at all - it's a business card case. I wonder if the results would be any different if they used a real wallet.<p>Pics: Fig S1 @ <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2019/06/19/science.aau8712.DC1/aau8712_Cohn_SM.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2019/06/19/...</a>
So, nice study, but two things:
1) it may be that when there is no money in it, the finder thinks "by the time we get it back to them, they will have replace their ID and called their credit card companies to cancel their credit cards and issue new ones, so it doesn't really matter". When there is money, it is more likely to actually matter.
2) It may be that the expected consequences of keeping it seem negligible when there is no money, but if you kept it and got found out, when there IS money, then you could be in trouble
3) What is Mexico's deal? The only nation which went the opposite way. Or, perhaps, what happened with the data entry in Mexico that they got the numbers reversed?
1) Interesting when you conclude 'dishonesty'with no contacting received. A second explanation would be that people put it to lost and found box or culturally/occupationally have the practice waiting instead of searching for the owner. For Japan you realized that and excluded it. For other countries, the way to deal with unattended belongings might not be as black and white as in Japan but certainly varies. I could also interpret the data as measuring active searching vs passive waiting strategies across countries.<p>2) I feel dishonesty is a too big word and this title/claim goes too far. I think it more reflects the sense of responsibility of the employees at this particular job. 'Not my business' is different from being dishonest.<p>The workload, the degree of satisfaction towards the job and even how natural to communicate in English/via email will largely affect whether an employee would send out that email, which isn't part of their duty in their understanding. They might just leave it there at the counter. Again, I won't call that person being dishonest.<p>3) The nonusual looking of the wallet and the whole act might be more perceived as a spam or fishing for info in certain regions. In deed, when I moved to one big city in the US, I became less willing to reply to missing phone calls compared to a rather spam-free top city of a different country. Your subjects in certain countries might just be very alert to your behavior.
Very nice and unintuitive main finding. I wish there was a separate condition where they sent a second experimenter back to the location of the hand-in to ask for the wallet. Just waiting for a contact leaves some room for unpredictable effects: perhaps with no money, the person can't even be bothered to deal with it. With money, there is an incentive to try to contact in the hope that if no response is received within a short period, the money can be kept.
At first I thought it was counterintuitive.<p>But after self-reflection, I'm more likely to report it if it did have money.<p>If it had money, I'd feel an obligation to protect it and return it to the owner. If it didn't, I'd feel more like it's their problem.
I know that we're not supposed to impute astroturfing/shillage on HN, but the volume of similar, not-very-high-effort comments discussing one specific country out of the many that this report deals with, is, um... surprising. At this point, are we supposed to say as HN commenters "it's okay, these nice folks are just <i>pretending</i> to be wumao, just for the lulz of it", or what?
I wanted to see if they had collected data on how often the wallet was returned with the money. That was not part of the main experiment design[1] where the wallets were not actually collected, but they did collect wallets in Switzerland and Czech Republic to see if it was common to return the wallet, but keep the money. For these 2 countries at least about 99% of people did not keep the money when returning the wallet.<p>[1]<a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2019/06/19/science.aau8712.DC1/aau8712_Cohn_SM.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2019/06/19/...</a>
It is true that Japan has different culture. Japanese prefer to give the purse to the police stations rather than contact the owners directly. So it is reasonable to neglect the research result in Japan.
Guess what？CHINA HAS DIFF CULTURE TOOOOOOOOOOOOOO！
More than half Chinese don't use email in their daily life！（In fact, according to the research on Chinese Internet by government that was published in 2018, More than 60% Chinese netizen don't use email for years.） Chinese prefer WeChat（an communication app like WhatsApp）and phone call.
Also，Chinese prefer to give the items they found to Lost&Found police station，the staffs of the hotels, banks, restaurants than contact the owners directly，which kinds of same as Japanese.
Besides, if the item they found is precious or valuable（worth a lot of money）, then Chinese prefer to stay at the place and wait for the owners, in case the owners come back but can’t find the items immediately.
In what universe can the researchers considered Japanese culture difference but ignored Chinese culture difference?! Especially when both of them are from Asia countries. Just like I can’t imagine a research have considered Canada culture but ignored U.S. culture. It’s reasonable and logical to doubt that the researchers are not racists.
Shame on you, Science, for letting this unreasonable article being published.
Civic honesty x civic duty, actually. One of the variables you measured was whether that unknown guy's problem is worth my effort to contact them.<p>I'd guess (out of my ass, of course) that many people didn't steal it but also didn't bother. They just left it there for someone to come and pick it up. And I'd also guess they didn't trust they co-workers not to steal the money if they left the wallet there at the end of their shift, that's why more wallets with money were reported.
I have to say that the methodology applied in this research lack basic social and cultural understanding. It is fair to say that Chinese hardly use email as their primary means of communication. Being in the States, I would use email to contact people. But back in China I would rather use WeChat. In addition, the design of the wallet looks weird and I would rather think that is a piece of garbage. Conventionally speaking, a wallet would contain some money, an ID card in some sort, and maybe credit/debit card in a actual wallet. Having a ID card makes thing so much easier: If I were to pick it up, I would just hand it to the Police and they would take care of it because there is a serial number on the ID that helps to context the person. But the design of this so-called wallet is dubious: a plastic warp with a business card ,a shopping list and a key? Hummmmm.
So clearly, this article failed to recognize the uniqueness of the social conditions in China and thus resulted in a biased and distorted conclusion. As a reverend publisher, Science and the editors should have realized the experimental flaws and the confounding variables that presented in this research, yet it still gets published. I hope the publisher should realize this and try their best to prevent it from happening again.
The experiment is just ridiculous. Even for Western countries like Australia. Imagine you lost wallet in a bus, and someone picked up. What is a normal reaction? The people notify the driver, the driver sent to lost@finding. And I am sure that department will never contact the wallet owner. Even for the owner comeback, a detailed ID check is necessary. And I believe here is no culture difference between Western and Asian. Here you may lack of understanding of lost property and the whole procedure of finding it. Then you just used biased data to prove “Chinese is dishonest”. That is not like a research people behavior. By the way in Australia, universities find students’ lost property will firstly use phone or message to contact students, less likely to use email. If researchers are from famous university, why not start investing the lost property recovering procedure at your home. In addition, I really don’t think there is strong correlation between ‘notify the owner’ and ‘honesty’
It is true that Japan has different culture. Japanese Prefer returning it to police station than directly contacting owners. Guess what? CHINA HAS DIFFERENT CULTURE TOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Only a few Chinese use email in their daily life(According to the research on China Internet by government in 2018, more than 60% emails have been abondoned over a year), they prefer WeChat(An communication app like WhatsApp) and phone call. Also more than half Chinese prefer to return it to lost and found place or just wait at the original place in case the owner return back but can’t find his purse.
In what universe can researchers consider Japanese culture but ignore Chinese culture? Especially when both of them are Asia countries. Just like I can’t imagine a research have considered Canada culture but ignored U.S. culture. It is reasonable and logical to doubt the researchers are raciests. Shame on you, Science, for letting racists’ article being published.
Other points have been addressed amply, so I’ll just point out one major flaw, which is that not returning a plastic bag containing miscellaneous garbage and money that doesn’t even cover a decent meal in major cities doesn’t necessarily mean they are taking it in their possessions. In fact most people in China are careful of this kind of suspicious behavior as it might lead to trouble if it is some sort of scam. The “not my business” attitude is quite common, but dishonesty is not the correct word for it. The authors might have been raised in such humane and altruistic families as they did not know that there’s the word “indifference” in the English dictionary. So there you go researchers. You just learned a English word and a new concept that’s part of the general education, from me. You are welcome.
Also, no amount of post-research data maneuvering can save your conclusions if your data collecting method is seriously flawed and the data corrupted. If you work with corrupted data, you get unreliable results, plain and simple, as I believe you researchers definitely understand with all your academic training. Pretty basic stuff, right? That is until you start getting attached to your results: they just fit your cultural presumptions so well. Northern European countries are populated by altruistic angels and east Asia, by petty shoplifters who steals napkins from fancy restaurants. Also, what can you do? All those years and research funds for nothing? Better make the results sound plausible, well, at least to a western audience. What a bummer it’ll be if no significant difference is found?
I am a Chinese, I must claim I don't know why this paper can be published in Science because its method is totally wrong. I think most of the Chinese citizens even don't have email addresses and they just use phone call and Wechat. There are 8 people in my family but just I have sent emails before. They even never ever sent an email before and they don't know how to use it! I know how the Western media has smeared China, but I did not know that the academic has begun. It really makes me sad. If authors go back to the place they put the wallets, they are likely to find that the wallet has been taken care of or in the lost and found box. By the way, welcome to China, I know there will be some places not good but it's better to know China with your eyes and thoughts.
If I receive a lost wallet once a month, I may trying contacting the owner. If I am busy with tons of customers and pick up multiple lost wallets every week, I definitely would not spend hours sending emails to all owners - it is not my job. I will instead hand it over to the police officer or just keep the wallets at LOST & FOUND, waiting for owners. This way of thinking actually supports the results why people tend to return the wallets with more money - because they believe it is more important and necessary to contact the owners rather than passive waiting. It is probably difficult for the westerners to imagine the real life of living in a country with more than one billion people, otherwise they would not test the "honesty" using such a bad experimental design.
The ridiculous generalization that wallet return rate in a minor sample equals population honesty makes no sense at all, regardless of the conclusion. That is to say, the research methodology is essentially problematic. Should the research be valid, the role that a wallet plays in daily life must not vary significantly from one cultural background to another. The pattern in the plot actually appears to correlate better with the popularity of wallets in each countries. In Northern-European countries, wallets (cash/credit cards) are used for most payments, whereas mobile payments via apps/virtual credit cards dominates the Chinese market (both online and offline, even including miscellaneous fees like parking fee); the US lies in between the two poles.
Science should have Op-Ed column to accommodate researchers who have deep-rooted need to justify certain covet assumptions. The faults of the research methods are sufficiently revealed by comments here. Labeling any individual with negative moralistic quality based on very limited interaction is called judgmental or bigotry in general conversation. Disguising such hurtful expression with scientific diagraphes or data charts would not change the fact that such generalization is against a bigger need to bridge the differences between culture and social groups. The Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray Bell Curve Study had already charred our conscience. This research group and author should know they added more blows to human dignity.
Remarkable finding.<p>And it is strange almost everyone, including myself, intuits the opposite. Where does this negative view of people come from?<p>In that vein, I wonder, when the desk clerk received an empty wallet, if they sometimes thought the money had already been taken and they would be blamed.
Isn't there a degree of "apathy" vs. "honesty" here? A person could be fully honest, but just not care enough to take the time to contact the owner of the wallet. It doesn't seem they considered that in the study design?
Firstly, if you have every been to China and lived there for a while, you should notice that they don't use email quite often(only 38.1%). If the card inside the wallet includes a wechat QR code, that will be adifferent thing. Secondly, the wallet didn't look like a wallet that people would use everyday. They could be easily cleaned away by Chinese road cleaners. Thirdly, although everybody in China learns English, it doesn't mean everyone can use it well. If you speak English to tell someone that you found a wallet, you'd better find a translator or simply go with Maindrain. The experiment wasn't quite scientific, in my opinion.
Firstly, there is little use of e-mails in China, and more people use telephone or wechat. Secondly, there is a deviation in the definition of wallet, that is, most Chinese people don't think it is a wallet and it is important. Thirdly, Chinese people think that wallet conuld be handed over to the police or relevant staff, and many places have lost and found such places, waiting for the owner to find it back. It is not for the staff to contact the owner on their own initiative.But it should be regard as civic honesty.Last but not least,there are may be more misunderstanding of many other countries.
Dear Professors,
I don’t think leaving a so-called wallet (actually I think it is a file bag) with email address is an effective way to make this research.
I’m appreciating to see you considered Japan’s social situation but why you didn’t take China’s into consideration?
As we all know, only less than 40% people who always use email in China and we also have police stations in the Main Street.
If you didn’t know these things, please delete your essay from this. If you DO know this things but still do this to insult civil in China , you are responsible for your racism and discrimination in your essay.
I propose closing comments on this topic (or maybe close comments to new accounts), as I think enough discussion was had, and it's annoying to see the /newcomments page spammed with dozens of similar comments.
Sorry, I don't think this experiment can prove anything. You have mentioned Japan have their unique police to handle this kind of things, in fact, in China, each public places have an individual office which duty to save lost goods or help people to find their lost. According to this, the most times, we do not need to call the police. In addition, email is not a common contact method for Chinese people, we often use wechat. I hope the writer can have more scientific research before you give any comment for a country or their people.
Check this test video below to see and hear how much we common Chinese people CHERISH honesty and integrity.<p>Alipay, the biggest mobile payment company in China, did the tests in several cities.<p>Without any guarantee and supervision, people can borrow and need too return their favorite product from a shelf with just a name.<p><a href="https://video.sina.cn/tech/2019-06-06/detail-ihvhiews7158597.d.html?vt=4&pos=91&wm=2256_1231" rel="nofollow">https://video.sina.cn/tech/2019-06-06/detail-ihvhiews7158597...</a>
It’s not like a research, and it’s just like a kidding. I’m also suspicious that the person who conducts this ‘kind of experiment’ is a discriminator. Because of the difference in cultures, every country adopts different ways in connecting with each other. It’s not appropriate to use email as the only media between each others. The method used in your ‘experiment’ is not fair. Also, the design of your ‘wallet’ is ridiculous. If you didn’t explain it to me, I believe that no one will recognize it as a wallet.
It’s not like a research, and it’s just like a kidding. I’m also suspicious that the person who conducts this ‘kind of experiment’ is a discriminator. Because of the difference in cultures, every country adopts different ways in connecting with each other. It’s not appropriate to use email as the only media between each others. The method used in your ‘experiment’ is not fair. Also, the design of your ‘wallet’ is ridiculous. If you didn’t explain it to me, I believe that no one will recognize it as a wallet.
Science is an authorize academic magazine in all over the world, I don't understand why would this paper could be recognized in it. It's a crucial time when China and America have the unsettled relationship, which giving people more information over it. Concentrate at this study ,obviously it has so many disadvantage,why a excellent professor have designed such sick experiment and it even couldn't approve this conclusion, at the end it left a feeling hurting in our chinese heart.
May I know what did you do to make sure the research takes consideration of different culture and social differences? Because, honestly, I see none. It’s naive and biased to draw any conclusion from the simple experiments, let alone to measure and rank countries civic honest levels. For example, emails are not popular in many Asian countries. And in many countries, like China, people use lost & found centers or direct give the stuff to the policemen. Did you consider all of these?
Only around 57% of people in China use Internet and we do not use email as often as WeChat. Usually, the lost is more likely to be picked up by cleaners and most cleaners do not know how to send an email. In my humble opinion, the wallets which used in research were more like trash:）. What's more, when you find a lost, you can hand over to community or police. When you lost something, you need to connect lost-and-found office of community or police station by yourself.
Not to mention that I am also not fully convinced by the design of this methodology, I don‘t think one can conclude the civic honesty by such a convey. I mainly want to point out that I think this in the end is a cultural misunderstanding. If one of the authors has had consulted any Chinese about the design of the test, they would not have done this convey in China. Simply because any Chinese would know this won’t work in China based on the knowledge of Chinese culture.
What did you do to make sure that the research considers the culture and social differences among the countries? Because honestly I see nothing. It’s naive and biased to draw any conclusion from the simply experiments, let alone to measure and rank country’s civic honesty. For example, emails are not popular in many countries. And in many countries, for example China, people are more likely to return the lost stuff to the nearest list & found center or policemen.
Did the researchers conduct any background survey for their experimental subjects?
The researchers don’t understand Chinese as Chinese participants don’t understand English. Communication efficiency -100.<p>Participants’ lifestyle is different from researchers’. We use instant message apps for work and dailylife communication rather than Email, (e.g., apps WeChat, QQ. )<p>Without considering these variables (language barrier and lifestyle) into account. It’s unreasonable to call it a fair test.
In my personal experience, I forgot my phone on the basketball court of Chinese university campus in 2015, and it took me four hours to remember. When I went back to look for it, it was still in its place. In this study, the owner was asked to contact the owner by email. However, Chinese people do not often use email, and they usually return the lost property to the lost and found office. I hope Science can be more rigorous in future research. Thank you.
Did the researchers conduct any background survey before the test? Did they take the variables like language barrier and lifestyle into account? Chinese mainly use Instant message apps like QQ wechat in most scenes of life, we do lost and found with police.<p>Without knowing the experimental subjects, how come this impractical can be regarded as fair?<p>If you want to know real China, go there and live like a Chinese, you will find out things are totally different with this unfair test.
This is 2019,our chinese local people are quite far more modern than the old moneys. we use wechat instead of emails.ok? if we do some research in your country,left money and namecard and wechat accounts there.I do believe no wallet will be send back.but I know you.what a hell ,full stereotypes and prejudice！extremly ridiculous researchers!don't be angry,you deserve that.science at least lost 20% prestige in China mainland because of you.
A meaningless and ridiculous paper with full of prejudice and arrogance! In China，very less people use email. In general, submitting the lost wallet to police or lost and found place are more commonly way. However, the authors choose Email as contact way without considering the more commen method. How can a person contact you via email if he/she does not have an email? How can such an irresponsible paper published in an adademic journal！
why not take Japan into account? China also have its local condition. this study can prove that Chinese seldom use emails, can prove that Chinese don't regard a plastic bag as a wallet, can prove that China has more efficient local police and "lost and founds" who can help you find your losts, it can prove that the author is a prejudiced man and Science is a discriminatory journal, but has nothing to do with civic honesty.
Do you have any problems? Do you understand China's actual national conditions? There are very few mails in China, and we have lost and found centers, and we will wait for the owner to find them. This is our national condition. In the absence of understanding at all, you have taken very inappropriate measures. I doubt the authority of your magazine. Is the previous article so unfounded? Or is it purposeful for China alone?
Firstly, in China, although most people learn English during their education, but they can’t really speak/understand English.
Secondly, we have loads of lost and found offices, why in the published paper, the authors can understand the similar culture in Japan, but cannot understand the culture in China?
Finally, we don’t contact each other by email, cause we have WeChat, which is much more conscience than email.
In China, we have lots of Lost and Fund Offices in hotels/rail stations etc. When we find/lost something important, we would go there. BTW, almost no one in China use emails to inform other people. Even for those needs email-check, we would use other ways(such as phone or WeChat)to connect the person to check the email, rather than just sending an email. Because we won’t check emails everyday
A Swiss funded research shows Switzerland is the most honest country, and China happened to be the worst, and the research deliberately ignore Japan and Korea because the author knows these countries have some specific policy which could lead to bias, while the author is very sure that China doesn’t have same policy or culture.
Hmmm, your payers must be very glad to see the result, well done.
I’m a Chinese. Actually, I found an interesting thing that your experiment leaving email as the connecting approach. People in my country are not used to use email to connect a stranger. The experimenters have considered the special condition in Japan, but not in other countries? I wish when people want to investigate cross-cultural behaviors, they could be more objective and cautious.
Here is one replication of the experiment in China. Vary the email variable to phone number, plastic one to real wallet: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg6WG6pRcFM&t=36s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg6WG6pRcFM&t=36s</a>
I believe this Science paper needs at least a major revision in my opinion.
Most of the time, it is based on cognitive differences. First, China seldom uses plastic bags to pack money or documents. Second, China is accustomed to using micro-mail or telephone instead of mailbox. Third, there are police stations or lost-and-found centers in public places in every region of China. It is too one-sided to rely on mail response rate.
1. The author failed to address to the special local practice in many countries such as India and China. I had experience in China that some of my friends put the lost and found information on their WeChat moments (something like 'timeline' in Facebook or moments in Path) . Others just hand it to nearby security guard hub, since the owner would ask the security guard anyway. These are common practice. As to email, it's a rare choice, even if we have it, we are reluctant to use it. For one thing, the general public doesn't use it anymore. For another, the owner would rather search along the way than check their dust-laden email box.<p>2. The survaillance camera coverage could be a fairly important factor, which is merely slightly memtioned in this article. Take China, UK and the U.S. as examples. China has more and more coverage of surveillance cameras now, about 10 per thousand person (<a href="http://new.mbu.cn/zjc/article/212/13759" rel="nofollow">http://new.mbu.cn/zjc/article/212/13759</a>), but still not comparable to developed countries (75 in England and 96 in the U.S. per thousand person). This would change people's awareness whether there exist a camera or not.<p>3. As a scientific article, shouldn't it be culturally-neutral to avoid being used as tools to undermine some cultures? In this sense, the author and the journal editor clearly did not qualify. The result is potentially prejudiced and not purely scientific. And that's why lot's of people in these countries would have emotional comments on this.<p>P.S.: Hail Bibi :)
Totally biased methodology designed by the researchers. There were several hypotheses that are based on lack of understandings of cultural and social behaviors. This is such a clueless study that almost has no value in contributing to sociological science but full of unawareness that may lead to the wrong impressions of the tested countries.
Well, you call that plastic bag “wallet” or “purse”.... In China, a plastic bag with no ID and no other important documents, usually we call it trash. Btw, we have a lot of small police offices and community centers that can store lost items but will never contact you. They only wait for the owner to go there and find their lost items.
The researcher should trade off the importance of essential variables such as commutication preference, third party variables control...Wait, all above were applied on Japan which result in it wasn’t opted as a sample. I’m trying really hard not to believe in conspiracy, still, Chinese people deserve a reasonable explanation.
The researcher did not consider the cultural difference at all (eg, in China, that kind of 'wallet' would not be considered as a real wallet and Chinese ppl rarely use email as contact way.), which means the samples and results are completely meaningless. Now I really doubt the ability of the editor of Science....
So Japan has its own culture, what about China then? It's more common for owners to go to the nearby Lost and Found/ Police stations for their belongings instead of waiting to be contacted. Try again with phone number provided, and I believe the results will be different. Thanks for this interesting research.
Please don't talking rubbish in the name of science ！！！
In china，if we found a wallet or anything looks important ，we will take it to the police station or lost-and-found office,the government can content the owner more quickly. Because nobody would leave a e-mail address or phone number in their wallet ！
I think the numbers in reality are a bit worse. I recently lost my wallet, noticed about a minute later and went back - it was already gone. Later someone found it in a trash can, emptied of all money. This happened in Switzerland, which is at the top of this list, and I've heard similar stories before.
I remember watching 'lost wallet test' videos on youtube while back. Vloggers test leaving expensive stuff and/or wallet in cafe/subway and see if it gets taken by strangers.<p>In some nations, stuff just wasn't touched at all for hours.<p>I didn't think a scientific study would be done on this and published.
In china，if we picked a wallet or anything looks important ，we will take it to the police station or lost-and-found office ，the government can content the owner more quickly，because nobody would leave a e-mail address or phone number in their wallet！
Stop talking rubbish in the name of science ！！！
The validity problem of this research method is so obvious that I am surprised that it should appear in Science.
Researchers say there are many small police booths in Japan. But the funny thing is that China learned police model from Japan. So there are also many small police booths in China. For this reason, researchers are investigating China instead of Japan in the hope that China will appear at the bottom.
In addition, the Chinese jumped directly from writing letters to sending text messages, then Wechat (an app like Line), skipping e-mail. It's like Chinese people jumping from using bank cards to mobile payments, skipping credit cards. So Chinese people use e-mail and credit cards only occasionally. Why do researchers selectively ignore Chinese customs and culture?
Maybe you can also do a research that defines "people have to take off his/her shoes when he/she enter a room" as "not free" and then excludes Japan for "cultural reasons", so that China will become the "least free" country. Does that sound great?
Shame on you.
In China we dont usually use e mail，the researcher even doesn't know the basic national conditions when he designed that study. I cant believe he give a cursory conclusion in that way.How can we believe an research result that used a wrong method?
And I question his purpose
I found a wallet in a parking lot of a mall in Warsaw, Poland. The customer info desk would accept it, citing "internal regulations". Maybe I should just have dropped the wallet on their desk and run away :)<p>(Owner found me, because the info desk at least wrote down my number)
I realized this organization has some difficulty with achieving authoritative. As I know, in china there are lots of small lost and find office where the wallet won’t send to the police office. Hoping these international organization have more respect to themselves.
Please retract this article and issue an apology statement because of the infringement of the reputation for Chinese civil by publishing the article. The truth is — First, in China, we don't use email very often, using Wechat app to communicate instead. Therefore, the way of receiving responses in this study is not in line with China's situation and is unfair. Secondly, we usually have "lost and find offices" in every place — such as airports, hotels,restaurants — and we choose to wait for the owner to come rather than contact the owner. Why do you investigate the national conditions of Japan, but do not respect ours? Third, China is one of the largest cashless payment countries in the world, now in China, everyone uses mobile phones to pay, no one will take cash out, so it is rare to lose your wallet in China. I hope you could design an objective and fair experiment next time, and science magazine can make an objective and fair report! THANK YOU!
One thing missing form the design is to go back and check the status of the wallets. If most are just put in some lost & found boxes waiting for the owner to come and claim, then a low reporting rate cannot be considered a measure of honesty.
I am so angry and sad when I see this post. As a Chinese , i have to say , your way of texting is not " science ". you just notice the difference of Japanese , why don't you notice ours ! You have damaged China's reputation!
If there is a mobile number within the wallet, I will give a call, if there is none then I will hand in the wallet to the police. It is hard to think about emails though, email is probably only used to retained a forgotten password in China
I can see nothing but bias and innocence in this article.<p>MOST CHINESE PEOPLE DO NOT USE EMAIL TO CONTACT STRANGERS!<p>Last time I check Science is still a journal of "science". What happened to change that? The entrenched bias towards Chinese ppl? Interesting.
It is such a ridiculuous research,the method is not reliable and scientifical at all. And the paper reflects discriminate against chinese from the author. However,how can this unscientifical paper published in science？what a fXXk
“Cultural Differences”?Oh,guys. Are you serious?And why would you make a plastic bag pretend to be a wallet?Last year, the China Internet network information center (cnnic) calculated that the usage rate of mailbox in China was only 38.1%.So why don't you use WeChat?At least 900 million people in China use WeChat.Even without WeChat, there must be a phone?China has 1.3 billion mobile phone users.In addition，In China,Lost-property office won't actively contact owner commonly, because most lose property, do not have identity information, even if have, also confirm very hard is owner himself, because this is inferior to wait for the owner to come back.And with 1.4 billion people in China, of course you have to wait to find the owner.This paper is really full of holes.Luckily,now I understand how is “science” “justified”.
The report rate should be also related to population density in that area. I know there is someone who tried to exclude the effect of population density and got a totally different result. Have you considered it in your work?
There are too many flaws in this study, and the writter is a typical Mr Right. So I won't join the ridiculous discussion.<p>I just want to ask how much does it cost to make such a low-quality paper be published in the journal Science？
It is such a ridiculuous research,the method is not reliable and scientifical at all. And the paper reflects discriminate against chinese from the author. However,how can this unscientifical paper published in science？
Funny. I’ve lost mine in Switzerland. Some cash, credit card and driver’s license. Never heard anything back directly or from city’s lost and found. Heard of many with similar experience, not to mention pick pocketing...
If you don't already know, here is the link of the original data:<p><a href="https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/honesty" rel="nofollow">https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/honesty</a>
If you don't know, here is the link to original data:<p><a href="https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/honesty" rel="nofollow">https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/honesty</a>
I want to say, it's just a transparent bag. I can't pick it up when I see it. I just put it on the roadside and wait for the owner to come back and find it. By the way, I'm Chinese.
so absurd，the SCIENCE's authority is out of sight ,First of all, Do u know Chinese people seldom if ever use e-mill. Next , for Chinese condition ，One has a wallet of 49 yuan and no important documents such as id card ，Ordinary people will choose to bring it to the public of"lost and found" or forget this thing ,everyone is busy.most people think that there is no important documents lost,just 49yuan,so let it go,its doesn't matter, so please Learn about China's national conditions ,thank u.
so absurd，the SCIENCE's authority is out of sight ,First of all, Do u know Chinese people seldom if ever use e-mill. Next , for Chinese condition ，a wallet of 49 yuan and no important documents such as id card ，Ordinary people will choose to bring it to the public of"lost and found" or forget this thing ,everyone is busy.most people think that there is no important documents lost,just 49yuan,so let it go,its doesn't matter, so please Learn about China's national conditions ,thank u.
Honestly the ranking in figure 1 is ridiculous, as the method the authors used. First of all, very few people uses emails nowadays. According to CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center), only 38% of chinese people still uses emails, and even fewer of them utilises emails for contact use. Secondly and the most importantly, there are lost and found Centers in China. These organisations won’t contact owners of lost items. They usually wait for people to come and ask, then confirm their identity. These two characteristics would obviously affect the result. Thus I would suggest the authors to do a proper cultural research before the investigation. Best wishes.
Ridiculous research. Bad study design. The proportion of sample so-called wallets (I will call them “unimportant things” due to their appearance) and total population for each country is NOT the same, which is problematic. Also this study doesn’t take the discrepancy of countries into account. For example you noticed that Japan is “different” but you didn’t notice China, which you have to admit. I don’t know if there exists discrimination here. Besides, I wonder if the authors noticed something called LOST&FOUND office. Putting wallets there can’t be defined as NOT HONEST. I also wonder why SCIENCE published this paper when it has ridiculous biases.
The measure does not match Chinese situations. We have plenty way to find the lost staff, not just go to policeoffice. I strongly doubt the accuracy of the test result in China.
This is not scientific way to do the research, not considering culture diversity at all.<p>As many people said, Chinese people do not use email at all. Some people like my father, who asked the iPhone store to set up an apple id for him. Only 38% people use email, and most of them just use it during the work time.<p>We are more likely to message people instead of emailing.<p>Second, we are told that do not directly contact the people's information on their belonging. Because it might be a spam. Give it to the policeman or "lost and found" is the right behavior.<p>Many people like me do respect Science, which is most authorized educational magazine. So please retrieve this article!!
What?? We Chinese don't use email except for work, we also have our own local customs on how to find the owner. So how did you arrive at your conclusion???
Ridiculous research about the science on the society which without any culture research...develop your little brain now,It's been 2019,not the 1029
Additionally, we rarely use mails to contact, we would like to use wechat or phone. We usually handle the things we found to the police office near by.
A potential possibility of why not including Japan is the result they found differs significantly from the reality because of their way of measurements. It seems that the authors concluded as “Cultural Differences” and decide not to use data points of Japan. However The datapoints of India and China seem to coincide with the authors’ hypothesis so they decide not to eliminate them and publish in the journal. This is complete discrimination and I found this extremely dishonest. Shame on the authors and Sciences Journal.
I’m Chinese. I noticed the researchers asked Chinese ppl to send email to report loss. We rarely use email to communicate in our daily life. We use Wechat ! I strongly recommend the researchers to do it again in China using Wechat. It’s highly likely you’ll get different results. And — the plastic bag used in this experiment doesn’t look like wallet at all. Anyway, if you do it again using Wechat and the result changed significantly, it means the existing studies ignored important factors.
If you realized that Japanese has different culture, then you should do more research on Chinese cultural difference before designing such a research with deep bias and ignorance. Instead of wallet and email, most Chinese today use Apps like Alipay, the convenient e-payment, and WeChat, the social networking app on their mobile phone instead of the wallet (which in your test is more like a trash bag）. Please do not take advantage of science to show you discrimination and ignorance.
I believe one serious social investigation should base on certain degrees understanding of the local culture and background. Regarding this study, it is the usage of internet and especially email in China, the widely spread of the lost and found office, the prove of returning the wallet equals to the honesty of the nation. It is very disappointing that study not lack the basic understanding appears in science which to my opinion is a great damage to the reputation of Science.
if it just give me a email address, I may really just put it to the LOST&FOUND. I don't even use email, how can I think that is the best way to find the owner? come on,2019, I just knew there really have countries widely use email.
if the study is about the usage of email, true enough!
F5--Search(honest)--replace to(use of email)
The statistical methods used by the authors of this article in statistics and rankings are not adapted to the local situation and have problems with the referential nature of integrity rankings. Is it really surprising that such an article, which is dubious and likely to deepen prejudice against Asian Americans, should be published in Science, the world's most authoritative academic journal, in a somewhat odd way? Or is the reputation of the Chinese worthless?
1. Contact info only limits to the email, which is of little use in China.
2. Returning the wallet is equalled to Civil honest by the author arbitrarily.
3. Passively returning the wallet is the way how Chinese perform honesty. They wait for the owner coming to them, instead of searching for the owner themselves.
4. If knowing little about China, stop using the unfair data judging China.
5. So-called Science is nothing but discrimination in this article.
They should probably know that citizens in China hardly use email to contact the possessioner...Also, lost stuff is generally turned in in the lost and found boxes or police stations in the vicinity.
It is just me or is the research a well designed political reference which is aimed at enhancing certain unfair stereotypes?
If the latter is the answer, those who took on the research should NEVER claim themselves as scientists. Shame on them.
What a ridiculous research. In China how many people usually use the email, did you ever research this? You said Japan is different, then do you know how many lost property offices are there, isn't China different? In fact, you didn't want to do a academic at all, you only want a political propaganda, right? Oh, I got an advice that in China the black race never suffer gun shots, will you research this and reach a conclusion?
This is a completely ineffective experimental method. First of all, China is very developed. Almost no one uses e-mail to communicate, but mainly uses WeChat and telephone. Secondly, lost items in China, the police station and the Lost and Found Center will not contact the owner, but it does not mean it was taken away by others. Such junk articles can be published in the science magazine, it is really shameful.
In China:
1. Most people do NOT use email. They prefer to call or use Wechat.
2. In China, institutions such as Lost&Found usually expect those who lost their stuffs to come or simply call them rather than contacting them via email because most people in China do NOT use email.<p>This ‘objective’ method really makes me laugh.
Context differences really need to be taken into account if you are doing research related to different counties.I don't know why the authors can only see cultural/political differences in Japan but are blind to those differences in China，given that China and Japan have lots in common
The serious flaws in the experimental design made the feasibility of this article seriously degraded. The cultural differences between countries and the different definitions of “wallets” make this result seem ridiculous. Stereotyped design, simple and rude analysis, no scientific value.
If the researchers considered the special situation in Japan, why didn't they reflect the situation in China as well? I doubt the different rates of usage of e-mail are ignored deliberately.Anyway, Science shouldn't publish such a reseach which isn't objective enough.
So this is what a so-called TOP ACADEMIC PAPER does? The authors and editors are just the same as unscrupulous and boring media reporters, desperate in flubdub. The only reason for ur overclaim is arrogance and lack of basic respect to culture,race and academic work. Shame on you.
As a faculty in statistics and probability, I need to clarify this publication is based on the most annoying and unbalanced experiment I have ever seen. The reviewer and journal should be responsible for this mistake. It is obviously related to trump politics strategy these days.
I guess if the email address is replaced by Wechat number, Chinese will be at the top of the list.
Japanese culture can be taken into consideration while Chinese cannot.
Anyway, can research be done so arbitrarily and racially?
Ah, such a SCIENTIFIC SCIENCE!
I always believe that the research should be based on the fairness so that I hope you can do it without DISCRIMINATION!!! It just made me not want to read the Science anymore and I will suspect the results of the others from now on. Shame on you!
This is completely non-sense and ridiculous, as Chinese citizen, first of all we don’t use email like you do and considering the huge amount of people the method to test the civic honesty is never fair at the first place. Those plastic bags could be easily cleaned by our street cleaner because it doesn’t look like a wallet AT ALL! Secondly we use we chat, the test has never considered China’s local customs, we have lost & found in every police station and we have those police stations every twice a block. People could just put the bag there! And why would any Chinese citizen want to keep a bag with only that much of money? Each country has different type of culture and indeed we are conservatives, a lot of us will not contact the owner if we can just give them to the police station. This test is completely non sense and not realistic.
I’m Chinese. We don’t use email in our daily life communication. We use Wechat ! Why don’t you try Wechat and see whether you’ll get the same results? If the result changes a lot then it means existing studies ignored important social factors.
Even a 3 yrs old Chinese kid know the best way to return lost stuff is giving it to a policeman nearby or returning center not by sending emails. How can this kind of article which has no solid basis can be published!?
Wow, what a "Research"…… yet SCIENCE did publish it ?? So many factors being selectively ignored by the author and the reviewers, just to "Prove" a biased conclusion that chinese are unethical.
Don't you guys think that they really care about how reliable the method is? They are just trying to put China to the bottom in the rank. That is how western world does all the time. It is real shame.
It left huge concern with me for its rather unreasonable experimental tools and unbelievably arrogant assumption that China does not have lots&found center. Don’t let ignorance blind your eyes.
In China,people do not connect with each other in e-mail. God, are you guys from ancient?By the way, like japan do, we have similar situation that people can get their lost things in return center
Why not test the civic intelligence of using chopsticks around the world? This article really made my day of such unscientific research can really appeared in the science. How ironic it is.
Do you dare to conduct a research comparing honesty of different races？
I don't understand why you western guys manage to attack Chinese people so hard.
Also, shame on SCIENCE.
So do you want to publish a paper on the ranking of shootings in various countries?Why not consider Chinese cultural customs?Biased investigation,unacceptable!!! Thank you.
Email is totally old fashioned and out dated... Who the hell use email to contact the owner despite the convenience of IM and phone calls?
Won’t trust Science anymore.
It is unfair way to judge Chinese people. May be contract with Wechat will be more useful. And China also have the certain place for people to find their losting tings.
why not take Japan into account? China also has its local condition. this study can prove that Chinese seldom use emails, can prove that Chinese don't regard your plastic bag as a wallet, can prove that China has more efficient local police and "lost and found" which can help you find your losts. can prove that the author is a prejudiced man and the Science is a discriminatory journal, but has nothing to do with civic honesty.
Please do something real and write your research article according the real data,now we millions chineses realise how foolish you are and not preciseness you are.
So this is what a so-called TOP ACADEMIC PAPER does? The authors and editors are just the same as unscrupulous and boring media reporters, desperate in flub-dub
i thought Science is an academic rigour magazine, now i find it's a discriminatory one. you know do a intial pilot test in Japan then why don't you just do the same in China? you know what? it's your arrogance and prejudice that make you wrong and you'd better correct that mistake and apologize as soon as possible.
it's funny to think that whether do you dare come to the same conclusion on black
Meaningless researches based on ridiculous method. Articles should be conducted without any bias and discrimination, if not, then it's all nonsense.
Serious dude? This article published out at science?? Do you really know about Chinese behaviors? Why should call the owner as the index? Serious again??
this study is not objective to Chinese. we are not used to using e-mail, we prefer to use wechat or other social application. if we pick up a wallet, we will send it to the police office instead of sending an e-mail. can this be proved that we are not honesty? you even don't know the Chinese culture and you are just defaming our reputation.
On smaller scales, this seems to be a popular experiment. I recall hearing, in the popular press, related experiments on city neighborhoods and university departments. (Of course, it's fodder for unfair prejudices and jokes about, e.g., which department disproportionately attracts sociopaths.)
no deap research is not good research. the reseach like this without logic is to prove the Press stupid?
Anyway, I almost like donot use email privately, and belive our country police will deal with it well.
a ridiculous research about cross cultural behavior that did not give a poop about cultural factors.
To the researchers and SCIENCE：
please do not look down upon your own reputation.
different countries have their own culture, how to remove the difference to ensure the result. I don't believe at all. it can be delivered in SCIENCE. is it science?
Did Trump pay for this article? This article produces no academic value but would be used as a political weapon against certain country.<p>When I looked at the methodology, it has tons of thousands of holes. For example, only contact by email is counted as valid, what about countries that do not use email frequently? Does the wallet look like a wallet in the country?<p>This is so ridiculous that Science is publishing this type of nonsense research!
I don't know why people are so cynical, the results are generally what I would have imagined.<p>Most interesting - the $13/$100 difference.<p>Notice that in the US and UK, the 'return rate' goes way up when there's $100 in the wallet, but when only $13 it's quite low.<p>In Switzerland and Sweden, it's high even for $13.<p>I think there might be a difference between 'core conscientiousness' and 'meaningful conscientiousness'.<p>In Sweden and Switzerland, it's a matter of propriety to 'return the wallet'. It's appropriate behaviour. They have smaller, tighter communities, you may even know the person. So they 'just do the right thing' because it doesn't matter what's in the wallet.<p>In the US/UK culture the thinking might be $13 - nobody is care, it's not worth the hassle to report. But as soon as there's money, then it becomes a material matter of conscientiousness, i.e. 'people will miss $100, it's worth the effort to report it'.<p>I think $13 is just not really enough money, not that much different from $0. It's almost change.<p>$100 is a nice, meaningful threshold.<p>Finally, China ... ouch.<p>Also, the results are perfectly correlated with transparency international index [1]<p>It's interesting because it may be that 'corruption' is not just a systematic issue in governance, but it may be correlated or predicted with even more basic levels of civic conscientiousness, as measured by tests such as this.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018" rel="nofollow">https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018</a>
Returning a wallet is just "honesty", not "civic honesty".<p>"Civic honesty" is, oh, finding five dollars and declaring it as income on your next tax return.<p>civic: "of or relating to a citizen, a city, citizenship, or community affairs" (merriam-webster).
If u respect the diversity, then use wechat or phone number as the contact. No one in China use Email anymore. It is a ancient tool for uncivilized people.
The author failed to think through the Chinese habits and cultures, and ridiculously believe that a small plastic bag filled with English information would be considered as wallet!
1. The sample size is insufficient and the specific sampling method is controversial; 2. How could SCIENCE journals allows such an imprecise article to be published? 3. China and Japan should not be treated differently in this absurd investigation.
阿联：population 9.70M, examples 400 英国：population 65.10M, examples 1132 美国：population 329.25M, examples 1000 中国：population 1384.68M, examples 400 ?? shouldn't be 4000?
Japan is special, China is not because it fits the pre-setting hypothesis.
It is racist!
不好意思，我们不常用邮箱，我们用微信。另外我们捡到东西一般都送到失物招领中心好吗？yes, I know u maybe hardly understand Chinese, as more than half of People cannot understand English!So why u use ENGLISH as the testing language?And also Use Email as the only valid way??Chinese never use email as a daily contacting tools!!
Japan has its own basic condition,so you mean that China don't have?Every country has different basic condition,how can you sure that your experiments are fair??Do you have any tightly standard???
IS THIS YOUR SCIENCE CLAIM???
If you can't be fair,I recommend that you can resign as a scientist.To prevent science from being stigmatized.Thank you for your cooperation:)
也就是中国人能这么善良了，理解你有文化差异，还给你发邮件，你倒好，不管中国人民有没有文化差异，得出这么个结论？还他妈civic honesty？一副西方中心主义和种族主义的嘴脸，拜托小王子小公主们收了神通，好好学点文化，别丢人现眼了。这文章是一坨屎。I notice there were still some Chinese people kindly took your culture in consideration and actively sent mails. Sadly you guys ignored the cultural difference and made such a conclusion. I feel nothing but arrogance from Western centralists, or maybe even racists.
Shame on you. Shame on Science.
恶毒的话我就不说了
I was totally shock why this kind of racism and stupid paper would published! Only contains highly Biased data analysis method and ridiculous testing model. When you try to make such a survey in a country, please at least try to figure out what relevant data you should use. Firstly, the editors are totally stupid to use email to reflect so-called “honest”, most of Chinese only use more efficient and popular app such like We-chat. Moreover, when normal people pick up a wallet at hotel or street , them would just give it to the lobby or the police station. Who will send a email to say “ Hey, you lost something come and get???” How does this process even make sense in a 1.6 billion country? And Last But Not Least, WTF of saying that Japanese they are test free because their police station is..??? What are the writers trying to imply???? Totally shit!
You're really ignorant and terrible. Would you please go away with your prejudice against China? Can any idiot be a "scholar" now? Do you know how many people can be misled by an article like yours that doesn't have a scientific basis?
As a Chinese, I have n ever imagined such a study should have been published on SCIENCE. HONEST saying, I presume honesty should not be judged by just a WALLET TEST, this method, obviously in a Chinese view, is more like a child, out of prejudice, holding a GUN against some specific groups. Not to mention about the WALLET involved is quite far from common. Wallet we used to see is in black or brown and made of leather instead of plastic, and Chinese would hand in the lost wallet to the police station if we can't contact the owner. Besides, we can't draw a conclusion only from employee's reaction to lost wallets. If so, this study has no consideration about the population classification such as age and education level. Lastly, I am obliged to stress two points. 1, Chinese don't even never use email to contact somebody. 2, Overwhelming majority of Chinese don't carry a wallet on. Wondering why, go and ask Jack Ma and Pony Ma.
Rpeat:As a Chinese, I have n ever imagined such a study should have been published on SCIENCE. HONEST saying, I presume honesty should not be judged by just a WALLET TEST, this method, obviously in a Chinese view, is more like a child, out of prejudice, holding a GUN against some specific groups. Not to mention about the WALLET involved is quite far from common. Wallet we used to see is in black or brown and made of leather instead of plastic, and Chinese would hand in the lost wallet to the police station if we can't contact the owner. Besides, we can't draw a conclusion only from employee's reaction to lost wallets. If so, this study has no consideration about the population classification such as age and education level. Lastly, I am obliged to stress two points. 1, Chinese don't even never use email to contact somebody. 2, Overwhelming majority of Chinese don't carry a wallet on. Wondering why, go and ask Jack Ma and Pony Ma.