調查顯示,錢包裏的錢越多歸還率越高!
Does the amount of cash in a lost wallet impact how likely a person is to return it?
遺失錢包內的現金數量是否會影響其歸還率？Classical economic theories suggest that the greater the temptation, the less likely we are to be honest -- but a new study turns the idea on its head, finding that altruism, and a powerful aversion to viewing oneself as a "thief," outweigh the financial incentives.
經典的經濟學理論認爲，誘惑越大，我們越不可能誠實，但一項新的研究顛覆了這一觀點。這項研究發現，利他主義和把自己看作“小偷”的強烈厭惡感會勝過經濟誘因。A team of researchers studied these questions in a huge experiment spanning 355 cities in 40 countries -- one of the most rigorous investigations so far into the intersection of economics and psychology.
一組研究人員在針對40個國家355個城市的大型實驗中研究了這些問題，這是迄今爲止對經濟學和心理學交叉領域最嚴謹的調查之一。
The results, published Thursday in Science, also reveal extreme differences between countries, with Switzerland and Norway topping the honesty list.
6月20日刊登在美國《科學》雜誌上的調查結果顯示，不同國家的人對撿到錢包的態度存在顯著差異，瑞士和挪威的人最爲誠實。But although rates of civic honesty varied greatly from country to country, one thing remained remarkably constant: wallets with money, as opposed to no money, boosted reporting rates.
儘管各國民衆的誠實度不盡相同，但有一個現象驚人地一致：裝有錢的錢包比空錢包歸還率更高。
The global average for reporting a lost wallet was 40 percent, which grew to 51 percent when it had money.
從全球平均來看，丟失錢包的歸還率爲40%，而有現金的錢包歸還率則達到了51%。"The evidence suggests that people tend to care about the welfare of others and they have an aversion to seeing themselves as a thief," co-author Alain Cohn from the University of Michigan said.
研究報告的作者之一、密歇根大學的阿蘭·科恩說：“研究結果表明，人們傾向於關心其他人的福利，討厭視自己爲竊賊。”Researchers from the University of Zurich and the University of Utah were also part of the work.
來自蘇黎世大學和猶他大學的研究人員也參與了這項調查。The researchers then polled a group of 279 top-performing professional economists to see if they would have accurately predicted the outcome, which only 29 percent did.
研究人員還讓279位頂級的經濟學家參與了調查，看他們是否能準確預測結果，然而只有29%的人回答正確。"Our results suggest that even experts tend to have cynical intuitions about other people's motivations, often exaggerating the role of financial incentives and underestimating the role of psychological forces," added Cohn.
科恩補充說：“調查結果顯示，即使是專家對人的動機也持很悲觀的態度，常常誇大經濟誘因的作用，低估心理因素。”The experiment, which cost $600,000, is unparalleled in its magnitude. More than 17,000 identical wallets were dropped off at banks, cultural establishments like theaters and museums, post offices, hotels, and police stations or courts of law.
這項調查耗資60萬美元（約合412萬元人民幣），規模前所未有。研究人員將1.7萬多個相同的錢包丟棄在了銀行、劇院和博物館等文化設施、郵局、酒店、警察局和法院等地。The wallet would be placed on the counter by the research assistant, who would deliver it to an employee telling them they had found it on the street but were in a hurry and had to go.
研究助理會把錢包放在櫃檯上，然後把它交給一名員工，告訴他們在街上撿到了錢包，但很着急離開。Each contained a grocery list, a key, and three business cards in the local language using fictitious but commonplace male names and an email address, signaling the owner was a local resident.
每個錢包裏都有一張購物清單、一把鑰匙和三張當地語言的名片，上面用的是虛構的但很普通的男性名字和一個電子郵件地址，表明主人是當地居民。Some had no money, while others contained the equivalent of $13.45, adjusted for purchasing power in the target country.
有的錢包裏沒有任何現金，有的錢包裏則有相當於13.45美元的當地貨幣。In three countries (the US, UK and Poland), they repeated the experiment with even more money: $94.15, which boosted reporting rates by an average of 11 percentage points compared to the smaller amount.
在美國、英國和波蘭，研究人員重複進行了試驗，在錢包裏放入了94.15美元，而歸還率比現金更少的錢包平均高出了11%。They also found that having a key boosted reporting rates by 9.2 percentage points in the three countries.
他們還發現，在這三個國家中，錢包中有鑰匙使歸還率提高了9.2%。Since the key is valuable to the owner but not the finder, this pointed toward an altruism concern in addition to the cost of negatively updating one's self image.
由於鑰匙對失主很有價值，但對拾到的人卻沒有價值，這表明除了顧及自我形象受損外，人們還有利他主義的考慮。
