How Honest are we?

This is little Old – some Two Month Ago. But worth Reading.

It Comes from the mother of good english reading – Readers Digest. (August 07 Issue – archives)

What they have done is to place (leave) some 654 mobile handsets in 32 cities around the world. People came, and while some returned them back to the owner, some were not blessed to have the honesty and honour…The results are interesting…and so is the story!

AND Read it surely if you have any opinion about honesty of people in Amchi Mumbai..

MUMBAI SCORES TOP MARKS IN A
READER’S DIGEST GLOBAL HONESTY TEST : RESEARCHERS ‘LOSE’ MOBILE PHONES IN 32 CITIES, AND TWO THIRDS ARE RETURNED – IF YOU FOUND ONE, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

[MUMBAI, INDIA], July 25, 2007 – If you were sitting on a railway platform bench and noticed that a “lost” cell phone was ringing, would you answer it? And if so, and a stranger’s voice on the other end asked you to take time from your busy day to return the phone, what would you do? Hang up? Keep the phone? Or, agree to return it? Mumbai insurance executive Dharmendra Kumar, 28, found its and waited for her to pick it up after he found a brand-new cell phone ringing just behind his bench one evening at Mumbai’s Chatrapati Shivaji railway terminus. In fact 24 Mumbai citizens out of 30 returned similarly mislaid cell phones they found in different parts of the city, giving Mumbai an 80 per cent score for honesty and placing the city first in Asia (along with Manila) and fifth in the world.

This followed an experiment Reader’s Digest editors and reporters around the world did to learn how people behaved and how honest they’d be. Reader’s Digest, the world’s most widely read magazine used its network of global editions to conduct an informal test of honesty around the world, asking reporters in the most populous cities in 32 countries to leave 960 mid-priced mobile phones in busy public places.

Local researchers and editors from each country arranged and conducted their own tests, observing the mobiles from a distance. They rang the phones and waited to see if anyone would answer, and then watched to see if the person would (1) agree to return it, (2) call later on preset numbers that were programmed into the handsets, or (3) keep the phones for themselves. After all, these were tempting, brand-new phones with usable airtime.

The researchers tallied the results, interviewed many of the test participants, and filed their reports in the August editions of Reader’s Digest, which will be available on newsstands in India in a few days’ time. While the study was not scientific, the results provided a fascinating human interest story. “What we found out surprised and intrigued us,” said Conrad Kiechel, Vice President of the Reader’s Digest International Edition. “In every single city where the test was conducted, at minimum almost half of the phones were returned. And despite the temptation that people must have felt to keep the phones, and the fact that the test imposed on everyone’s time, the average return rate was a remarkable 68 percent, or about two thirds of the 30 phones we dropped in each city.”

The highest percentage of returned phones was in the smallest city, Ljubljana, Slovenia, with a population of only 267,000. All but one of 30 cell phones were returned. From a nun at a bus stop to a young waiter at a coffee shop (who also retrieved a leather jacket the reporter had accidentally left behind – not part of the test!), the residents in this picture-postcard city in the foothills of the Alps were almost universally helpful.

Could the citizens of a major metropolis, with all its stress and pressure, be as honest? The people of Toronto, Canada (population 5.4 million), came close, returning 28 of 30 phones. “If you can help somebody out, why not?” said Ryan Demchuk, a 29-year-old insurance broker, who returned the mobile. “Integrity in this city is exceptional. I lost my wallet and got it back, and I returned two wallets in a week,” he said.

Tied for fifth place in the rankings with 24 (out of 30) returned phones were: Mumbai, India; Manila, the Philippines; and New York City. Mumbai also tied with Manila for the most honest of the eight Asian cities surveyed. Even in developed Singapore, only 16 phones were returned. Kuala Lumpur returned just 13.
In many countries, people said they believed the young would behave worse than their elders. Yet, in the test results, young people were just as honest. After Ashwini P. Gode, a 12th standard student, and her older sister, Vaishali, found a mislaid mobile near the Gateway of India being picked up by a tall middle-aged man, Ashwini went looking for our reporter among the crowd. The two sisters had been seated near our female reporter just before the phone was left behind and felt sure it must be hers. Meanwhile, Vaishali followed the man around the Gateway. The Digest reporter finally got the phone back.

Women were slightly more likely to return phones than were men. “Females tend more to look for opportunities to improve relationships and good deeds are one way to do this,” comments Terrence Shulman, lawyer and founder of the Shulman Centre for Compulsive Theft and Spending in Michigan, USA. “They are also less likely to have a criminal mindset.” In Mumbai, all the seven women who found our phones returned them.

All over the world, the most common reason people gave for returning a phone was that they too had once lost an item of value and didn’t want others to suffer as they had. And banker Dharmendra Kumar of Mumbai, who returned our phone, told us he’s lost three cell phones and now only uses the cheapest model available. Even so he asked our reporter, “Just how can you be so careless?”

Added said Kristiina Laakso, 51, who returned a phone in Helsinki, Finland: “I’ve had cars stolen three times and even the laundry from the cellar was taken.” Parental influence weighed heavily with some. After two Pune engineering students Kaushik Krishnan and his classmate Chetan Bhende, returned a phone they found at Mumbai’s Inorbit mall, Kaushik told us, “I’d never have kept it, and anyway, even if I’d taken it home, my folks would have forced me to return it.

Many adults accompanied by children were keen to show the young people how to behave when they spotted a phone. In Hounslow, West London, Mohammad Yusuf Mahmoud, 33, was with his two young daughters when he answered a phone in a busy shopping street. “I’m glad that my kids are here to see this. I hope it sets a good example,” he said.

Other helpful citizens returned phones for the information contained within it. “Besides numbers, mobiles often have pictures with sentimental value,” Mahendra Agashe, 28, a passenger services assistant with a shipping line, told our reporter. “All that’s often more important than the phone itself and can’t be replaced easily.” Mahendra found and returned our phone while walking Steffi, his dog, in Mumbai’s Shivaji Park.

So, how did planet earth perform in the honesty test? Everywhere, the locally based Reader’s Digest reporters heard pessimism about the chances of getting phones back. “Everything has become very dishonest…” complained Doreen, a Berlin sales assistant. People in Bangkok, Milan and Mexico City said economic and other pressures would make it unlikely that people would return phones. And yet, globally, 654 mobiles, or 68 percent, were returned.