Results of the “Wallets.com” Experiment

Some of the questions that this sociological experiment in honesty might be able to help answer are: “Do men steal more then women?”, “What happens to lost wallets?”, “Do black people steal more then white people?”, “Do young people steal more then old people?”, “Why is the crime rate higher in predominately black neighborhoods?”, “Why are there so many more men in prison then women?”, “Why is there an improportionate number of black people in jail?”, “Why is the prison population mostly men?”. The keyword list for this website is as follows: racial profiling, wallets, racial profiling statistics, crime, lost wallets, prejudice, discrimination, sex discrimination, sexism, crime statistics, age discrimination, racial discrimination, race, honesty, theft, honesty testing, black people, white people, racism, stealing, honesty test

Each of the 100 wallets contained $2.10 in real money, a fake $50.00 gift certificate, some miscellaneous items and a clearly written ID card identifying the lost wallet’s rightful owner. We were curious as to how honest people would be and wanted to see how different groups would compare to each other. For example, who would return the wallets more often . . . men or women? Young or old?