Otara: Hence what I said about agreeing with you “sort of”. I basically agreed with what you wrote but I thought it was clearer to define exactly what could and could not happen by way of a concrete (if contrived) example.
I think that’s what I did in my earlier post (#26). My numbers were admittedly contrived, but I was reminded of a real-life example of this kind of thing reported by John Allan Paulos in his book Innumeracy (I think—I can’t find the book right now so I’m going on memory, so I may not have all the details right):
In a certain graduate school, female applicants had a lower overall acceptance rate than male applicants, which looked like evidence of sex discrimination. But when they broke it down by department, in each department, women actually had a higher acceptance rate than men. It’s just that far more females applied to departments with lower overall acceptance rates (because of greater competition).
Yeah…I guess I had missed that. My example has the same structure as yours (with, of course, slightly different numbers) except for a reversal of the roles of the men and women.
And, it is interesting to hear about the real world example where this sort of scenario apparently played out.
If they just toss BOTH the money AND the wallet away - then it is laziness.
If they take out the money and THEN toss just the wallet - then it is dishonesty.
I think very few would do the first.
I’m not sure I agree with that. If you decide that it’s not worth your time to return the wallet, (and not worth the owner’s time to bother with it) then you might toss it. But it’s probably worth your time to take the money rather than throw it away.
The problem I see is that it’s so little money in question. If it were even $10, or a real ID, the perceived value to the owner and the finder is so much higher that you get to see what people would do in a real situation.
Fine. Tell us which ones did which and we’ll have a test. As it is, you have no idea. The “experiment” is useless.
Finding and stealing are not the same thing, no matter what the “testers” say. It simply isn’t.
I agree that the amount of money involved makes a difference. If I found a 10 dollar bill lying on the sidewalk, I would just take it. If I found 40 dollars lying on the sidewalk, I would take it but tape a note with my name and telephone number to the nearest signpost. If I found 1000 dollars lying on the sidewalk, I would report it to the nearest police precinct. (This is all assuming that there is no identifying info with the money)
I don’t have any idea… maybe some men have that scumbag sense of entitlement???
I always put myself in the persons place, knowing I would deeply appreciate it if someone returned my lost wallet. I mean, I even return money when I’m given too much in change. This guy gave me an extra $5.00 in Walmart the other day, and I returned it thinking he would get in trouble for having an off register. I didn’t want him to get in trouble.