People are more honest than expected. Social scientists struggle to explain

The experiment involved a lost wallet:

A team of economists found recently that, in a massive global study of 17,000 “lost wallets” in forty countries, people were more likely to return a wallet if it contained a large amount of cash. This finding “defied the expectations of both professional economists and 2,500 respondents to a survey, who predicted that people would act in self-interest.” (The Guardian) …

A variety of sources struggle to account for the high level of honesty in a “selfish gene”/“hairless ape” paradigm

“The lost wallet returns—and experts are baffled” at Mind Matters News

The puzzlement makes for fun reading.

See also: Can AI make us better human beings? Helping us believe that is a promising new business area for some

and

Putting a respectable face on persecuting the social justice science hoaxers

Embattled “Social Sciences Hoax” Prof Is Not A Hero, He’s A Canary

Social Science Hoaxer’s Job At Risk For Revealing “Bias”

Sokal hoaxes strike social science again

Exposing gender studies as a Sokal hoax

Social Science Hoax Papers Is One Of RealClearScience’s Top Junk Science Stories Of 2018

and

Alan Sokal, Buy Yourself A Latte: “Star Wars” Biology Paper Accepted

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