How much can I trust students?
Scientists wondered if people were honest when no one was looking, so they came up with a clever test. Here鈥檚 something I wrote about the topic for as a :
As a young man, my dad came upon a lost wallet with a very large sum of cash inside.
鈥淲hat did you do?鈥� I asked.
鈥淚 looked around for its owner for quite a while. But there was nobody in sight. So I took it to the Lost and Found.鈥�
鈥淏ut maybe the people at the Lost and Found took the money,鈥� I pointed out. 鈥淢aybe if you鈥檇 kept the money instead of returning the wallet, you could have done something good with it.鈥�
I was in elementary school when my dad told me this story, but I already knew how easy it was to tell a little lie in order to get out of trouble. I knew I鈥檇 once snuck into my mom鈥檚 purse and swiped a $20 bill without permission. And I knew how easy it was to come up with explanations for why, just this time, it was OK not to tell the truth.
鈥淲ell, maybe so,鈥� my dad replied. 鈥淏ut not me. I knew I did the right thing.鈥�
Have you ever wondered how many people would, like my dad, return a lost wallet?
To answer that question, scientists devised a clever . They assembled more than 17,000 identical clear plastic wallets containing a business card and different amounts of cash, then asked members of their research team across 40 countries to return them to the front desk of hotels, post offices, and other public places, explaining each time that 鈥渟omebody must have lost it. I鈥檓 in a hurry and have to go. Can you please take care of it?鈥�
If people are honest, the researchers reasoned, they would go to the trouble of reaching out to the email address on the business card.
What scientists learned is that both within and between countries, there鈥檚 a lot of variability in honesty. But in general, the more money was in the wallet, the more likely it would be returned鈥攕uggesting that, like my dad, a lot of people are motivated to do the right thing.
To this day, I remember how awful I felt knowing that I鈥檇 stolen $20 from my mother. So awful, in fact, that a few days later, I snuck into her purse a second time to put it back.
顿辞苍鈥檛 assume that kids grow up to be honest without positive role models. But don鈥檛 pretend that you鈥檝e never told a lie, either.
Do talk about honesty. Tell stories that show you know how hard it can be to tell the truth. Show kids that you, too, are learning how to do the right thing.
