Los Angeles: Beautiful but Dishonest?
I stumbled upon (found accidentally, without looking for it) a short article in the newspaper the other day (recently) about an informal, non-scientific survey (study) of how honest Americans were in different U.S. cities. An organic tea company, Honest Tea,* ran (conducted; did) a small experiment to test how honest people were. (Organic usually means food that is grown or prepared without any man-made (artificial) chemicals.)
The set-up (way something is arranged or organized) for the study was simple: the company put a cart (a small, portable (easily movable) vehicle on wheels used for selling things on the street) out in a public place with a sign saying that a bottle of tea was $1.00. No one was working at the cart, however. Instead, there was a sign saying that customers were on the honor system. The honor system is when you are supposed to leave money for something you are taking even though there is no one there to take your money (typically, you leave it in an envelope provided to you or put it in a closed box). The company also put a hidden (secret; one that nobody could see) camera and counted the number of people who took some tea but didn’t pay – that is, who stole a bottle of tea. They did this in seven large cities in the U.S.
Here are the percentage of people who were honest, who left money for the tea they drank:
- Boston (Massachusetts): 93.3%
- Washington, D.C.: 93%
- San Francisco: 91%
- New York City: 89%
- Atlanta (Georgia): 89%
- Chicago (Illinois): 78%
- Los Angeles: 75%
Notice that the percentage is overall quite high, with the vast majority (well over 50%) of people paying for their tea. For five of the seven cities, around 90% of the people were honest. But in two cities, there were significantly fewer honest people – Chicago at 78% and Los Angeles at 75%.
Chicago is in the Midwest, the central part of the United States, where people typically have the reputation for being honest (I am from the Midwest, so this must be true). The city of Chicago, however, also has the reputation of being home to (a place where you will find) a lot of political corruption (lying; stealing; dishonesty). Perhaps some of that dishonesty is being reflected (seen; noticed) in the survey?
Los Angeles is another story (a different case; situation). I don’t think most Americans expect Angelinos (people who live in LA) to be very honest because it is a large city. But of course, all of the cities in the survey are large, and they were still honest, at least much more honest than Los Angeles. What is the reason for LA’s poor showing (result in comparison to other groups)?
Los Angeles has the reputation of being a very superficial (opposite of deep, profound, and serious) city, where the way you look and the car you drive are more important than who you are as a person. The people here (some say) are very self-centered, meaning they only care about themselves. It may be that if you are mostly concerned about yourself, you don’t mind cheating someone else.
I don’t really know the answer, but I did watch the short, entertaining YouTube video that the company made for each city. If you are curious, you may want watch it to see how the experiment worked in Los Angeles. What I noticed is that the carts were put in tourist areas, such as Venice Beach or the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where the majority of people are actually visitors, not from Los Angeles at all. Of course, this explanation could just be my excuse for LA’s poor results!
If there were a similar experiment in your city, how honest do you think people would be?
~Jeff
* = “Honest Tea” is a play on words (using words with similar pronunciations or spellings to make a little joke), since it is pronounced just like the word “honesty.”
Photo credit: Honest Tea, copyright 2010. Used by permission.
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:10 am
Well Jeff, I don´t prefer to do such a thing here in Madrid and in fact I haven´t any perspective of the results.
It could be a disaster or a big surprise, I don´t know…..but better not to tempt the devil.
As a matter of fact I don´t have any confidence about honesty living the days we are living today.
When I need to go downtown by the tube I could see frequently lot of people jumping the barriers or passing at
the same time of others just in order of not buying the tickets…..so it is just a picture of our times.
No jobs, no money, no hopes and honesty doesn´t help to survive in a big city like this one.
If our Goverment is the first that hasn´t any honesty, who can we expect from our poor citizens…
well, I prefer not to speak and bore our friends.
It would be funny to see the video, and about L.A., it´s just possible that people who takes the tea bottle hadn´t a dollar coin or note, in a rich city like L.A. people carries notes of more value that a single dollar………..ten dollars could be the lowest one they use and they can´t pay
for their tea, a single dollar? it´s so few, who cares about so little money …..That´s the explanation Jeff.
Bye, till tomorrow Jeff.
September 23rd, 2010 at 8:51 am
Very good question to survey people´s behaviour and even more doing it with a global perspective; Here in Spain, a diner restaurant owner in Barcelona did recently more or less the same experiment with his customers, after several months only a couple of teenagers were cheating out by putting only a few euro cents inside the envelope but the vast majority of the clients were paying the current price stablished for the midday menu in the city.
The owner declared that he was positive impressed about the honestity of the general public and that he knows now from his survey that the average price the people was willing to pay freely was 9,-€, so he now display this price on its menu blackboard.
As far as country cross comparisons, a japanese friend of mine told me that in many neighbourhoods throughout the country there are some corners in the communal gardens with groceries like flowers, vegetables and fruits alongside a self-cardcashing and weighting machine, the purveyors are controlling the stocks from their computers and replenishing them and the coustomers keep the store absolutely tiny and in good condition. It seems that marketing has a lot of unknown aereas to explore on the grounds of these experimental honor systems.
September 23rd, 2010 at 11:51 am
Maybe foreing people and tourists don’t imagine this, but Brazil (where I live) has a very bad reputation among its citizens when we talk about honesty. If this survey was made here, the result would be a complete disaster, for sure. However there are always the good ones who would act with sincerely, but they are minority.
Hope this can change someday, and it depends on education, what we can find in this blog. Thank you for your effort on teaching people, Dr Jeff and Dr Lucy.
September 23rd, 2010 at 10:33 pm
Hi! Dear Jeff, I’d like to be your first pupil who wishes to you : HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, much , much health and happiness!
A white flower from me to your desk, just today the 24 th of September your birthday.
All my appreciation,
Tania
September 24th, 2010 at 4:39 am
Wow!!! Your percentages are very very high!
If that were happened here in Italy (In Rome where I live) I think that they probably would take away all the bottles without paying any money!!!
If that were happened in Naples (another large Italian city famous for pizza and dishonest people) they would take away the cart and the hidden camera as well!!!
Goodbye from beautiful (but extremely dishonest) Italy
Mario
September 24th, 2010 at 6:42 am
Hello dear friends and teacher
About honesty, it’s difficult to talk about because we are treating with men and men are, since the earlier times, animals provided with intelligence. Maybe this is the worst thing put into a man. Using the intelligence, men are able to plan against other men. It doesn’t matter if the others go into pain, or get damage, or feel unhappy. The most important thing is to have profits. I always say that the three worst things invented by men were:
1 – Be fruitful and multiply and fill the world. After this commandment, men in deed spread throughout the world and filled it with men.
2 – Money. I don’t mean money is bad. I mean men don’t know how to use it.
3 – Oil engine. If men were still using their own muscle force, maybe this world would be fairer, united, and good-pleasured.
The third was the biggest disaster. For money men kill, steal, and commit all criminals against themselves.
Try to be honest, simply for look into yourself and feel proud.
Aecio from Brazil
September 24th, 2010 at 7:43 am
Hi, dear friends of ESL podcast……
Where can we write our good wishes for Jeff?
Where are the cake and the candles?………
Don´t you remember this is a special day form our dear teacher?
We are waiting, and I could see that Tania couldn´t wait any more, congratulations Tania you have been the first one.
September 25th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I´m sure that here in the Czech Republic some men would sell this stuff for himself or better would take the whole cart, especially when it´s portable. Too bad
September 25th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Hi Jeff, Lucy and all readers!
I live in a small village, where we still not need to shut our doors, or cars, (usually)..so
I don`t know how this would be in our cities, I still guess most of us would pay.
We have had kinda like this arrangement on a train going from my homeplace to the coast,
where you can pay for food, chokolate, coffee and a lot more, they`ve had this for many
many years, so I
guess they get paid, otherwise they wouldn`t have it now, would they?
I love that they show us such respect =)