Fun Finland Fact of the Day

This one comes from Suhail Kazi of Imaginathon (he also co-blogs at ChiensSansFrontiers). Recall that a few days ago I wrote what Finland can teach us. I wrote that the Finns were naturally more cooperative than Americans or Indians because of a lack of ethnic diversity.

Suhail recalled a survey (unfortunately, no link) that measured honesty among various people:

I read in an article somewhere about a "Honesty" survey done across several countries. The researchers placed a wallet stuffed with a decent amount, but not too much, of local currency, some officialese paper-chits, some smart cards, and a business card with their complete contact details in that city. These wallets were dropped off at several public places like train/bus stations, malls, cinema halls, park benches etc. Then they noted down how many people returned back the wallets, and what were the methods used. The results were mixed, as expected. In most countries the return percentage hovered around 60-75% (I recollect from memory). In some cases, the person directly landed up at the address given in the business card. Others just called up and asked the owner to come and collect it. Some points worth noting from the survey results.

So how did the Finns do? I would admit that it would be embarrassing if the Finns proved to be very dishonest. The Finns did not let me down:

Finland was the only country with 100% returns. 10/10 to their honesty.

That’s a small sample size. Considering that most nations’ citizens returned the wallet about 70% of the time, the p-value that the Finns are only as honest as everyone else is 3% which is significant but only barely. So probably the Finns are more honest, but we really need more data. Of course 10 for 10 is interesting because we cannot rule out that the Finns are pathologically honest either.

I remember a news reporter doing the same thing in the U.S. Perhaps 70% returned the wallet but I recall it was more like a little over 50%. It wasn’t anything close to 100%.

An interesting question is whether income inequality leads to a lack of cooperation. That would be the typical left-wing explanation for why Finland seems so cooperative. My observation from college was that the rich kids had less respect for private property than anyone else. They didn’t need to steal, but if they didn’t fear any consequences, they would take stuff that wasn’t theirs. Being poor doesn’t make you into a bad person, but the reverse could be true.

McDonald’s

Suhail also has a humorous account of his experience misunderstanding the checkout guy at McDonald’s asking him if he would like to have his fillet-o-fish “fohyaatugo.”