Honest Tea Declares Chicago Most Honest City, New York Least Honest
From the Huffington Post:
Would you still pay a dollar for Honest Tea if you could take it for free? On July 19, the company conducted an Honest Cities social experiment—it placed unmanned beverage kiosks in 12 American cities. There was a box for people to slip a dollar in, but there were no consequences if they did not pay.
Turns out, Americans (or at least Americans who like Honest Tea) are pretty gosh darn honest. Chicago was the most honest city, with 99 percent of people still paying a dollar. New York was the least honest city—only 86 percent coughed up the buck.
The full results:
Chicago: 99%
Boston: 97%
Seattle: 97%
Dallas: 97%
Atlanta: 96%
Philadelphia: 96%
Cincinnati: 95%
San Francisco: 93%
Miami: 92%
Washington, DC: 91%
Los Angeles: 88%
New York: 86%Honest Tea is donating all of the money collected, nearly $5,000, to Share Our Strength, City Year and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The company is matching the total, bringing the total donated to $10,000.
What kinds of things might have changed this very honest behavior?
Here are some open questions, or maybe future experiments to try:
1) What if the box for paying was not transparent? If it was opaque, then no one could see if the person in front of the box was really paying and there was no evidence that many people have paid before (based on the number of dollars that were there)
2) What if people approached the booth one by one and without being observed by anyone?
3) What if the experiment was conducted at night? What if people were slightly drunk?
4) What if there was an actor who would go by and take a bottle without paying? Would it make the other people be less honest? (I think so)
5) Who is more likely to be dishonest, people who come as individuals, or people who come in groups?
6) When it is sunny and people are happier, are they also more honest?
What is clear is that there are lots of interesting questions here.
The Upside of Irrationality, explores some positive and some negative ways that irrationality plays out in our lives.
Maybe you already know this example because it’s in Cambridge. Near Harvard Sq, in Brattle St, there’s usually a table with books and a box. All books are priced and there is a sign that says that if you want one just put the money in the box and take it. According to other sign in which the owner thanks people for their honesty, most buyers do pay.
I made some photos a couple years ago:
http://fernando-gutierrez.com/honor-system-bases-library-in-cambridge-ma
This is very inspiring. The Standard of Trust tribe believes in implementing industry standards for the on-line capture and measurement of Relationship Capital (RC). There are 7 core principles you must believe in to consistently earn RC. HONESTY is one! Also, I am a life-long Chicagoan so this article and video made my day! Thank you, Rob
There does seem to be a presumption that all neighborhoods within a city are the same. Or was there an attempt to standardize the location that I missed?
It would be interesting to conduct this experiment with a different branding – exact same set-up but without the “Honest” labelling. Does the “Honest” branding prime people?
I was wondering the same thing.
If the brand name was something more shady- “Moonshine” or “DupliciTea,” would that make a difference?
There’s no control for income level. It could be that New York can’t afford it or even that they’re used to free stuff being handed out and didn’t read the sign. Different locations can change this.
This proves yet again that people are honest and genuine unless circumstances force them to ‘prop their antennae up’. But it would also be interesting to see the same results in a few diff settings.
1. What if the same is kept in a location that has
(a) a homogeneous sample set – say in a college canteen.
(b) a regulated environment that ‘enables/reinforces’ honest thoughts – say outside a church/temple or a hospital.
(c) a small picture of a starving kid, say in Somalia next to ‘pay here’ and a picture of a arrogant kid in a diff location.
(d) What is a small video is being played – where ‘dishonesty’ is ‘seemingly rewarded; – e.g. a corrupt politician winning the elections…
After watching the video my ideas on this changed. I do believe the name “Honest” helped as well as the clear box.
I would be interested to see a similar experiment involving the same item, but instead of $1 make it $4
Agreed. $1 is less than what you could buy Honest Tea for elsewhere. $2.50 is about on par. I suspect that most people wouldn’t label themselves “dishonest” for a bargain($1). For $2.50, that’s another story.
“Honesty stalls” have received attention from conceptual artists as well. See, for example: http://www.grizedale.org/projects/honesty.stall
This is not new. Newspapers were sold this way from open boxes in Germany for decades (I remember seeing them in the 1980s, but not after that. They might still exist, though.)
Statistical significance?
I sense the hand of Barry Nalebuff behind this …
It would be interesting to see how many people paid as the product got more expensive as well. A dollar is a small cost to pay for not feeling bad about oneself (if the person views stealing or not paying as morally wrong), but for more valuable items, they might justify not paying if the value the item brings them is “greater” than the “bad feeling”.
What if we removed the “social reward” from the equation (the reward someone gains from being viewed as a good citizen) and did this experiment in a way that everyone was anonymous (the others could not see him/her) but the probability of getting caught was the same. Would the amount of people getting the tea be less (are they not tea lovers but people who want to tag themselves as good citizens)?
And do certain people weigh in a reward from being viewed as social norm breakers? Would they not steal if it was anonymous?
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I’d be curious to see cultural variations, if any. One of my friends recently had a stoop sale in Park Slope, Brooklyn (which is what one does in Park Slope). Her observation was that white people were very likely to haggle on price (even low stoop sale prices), while minorities were more apt to pay the written price.
It would be good to see the results if the test is carried out in different countries.