Anonymous Money: A Social ExperimentBy: P. Karl Benzforte30 December 2008

Recently a friend was telling me about an experiment he saw on TV that I found to be very interesting. The people conducting the experiment put a good sum of cash on a busy street corner in a busy city, on the ground and unguarded. The money was, however, encircled in a ring of chalk–its only “protection” to speak of. Surprisingly (or perhaps not), the money was never taken although it had been approached by countless people. Ultimately it appeared that the ring of chalk appeared to be the crucial factor in keeping people from declaring “finders keepers” and taking the money. The chalk was the barrier, and the larger majority of people (speaking of the average London (?) citizen; it’s impossible to conclude that these findings would prove conclusive on street corners worldwide) have been trained to respect barriers and private property, even seemingly anonymous private property. Here is the link to the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxYCh_p2Mjs.

Coincidentally, a similar phenomenon had been happening where I work, in the IT industry in downtown Salt Lake. About two months ago I noticed that a few nickels, dimes, and pennies had been sitting on a “neutral” table just outside the conference room. Each day as I left meetings, I would see those coins completely untouched. I began to wonder what kept people from claiming these coins. After all, it is very clearly a common table; there are no other cubicle spaces for about 15 feet in either direction, so it can’t be a question of ambiguous ownership. Throughout my life I have seen many, many people stop to pick up a penny, so why wouldn’t anyone stop to pick up $0.26? What would happen if more money were added, say, a $1.00 bill? And what would happen if there were a barrier, similar to the TV experiment mentioned above? I decided to give it a try:

On the morning of the first day, I added a $1.00 bill and a quarter to the other coins and stacked them neatly on a blank white card I had found in the stock room after making sure nobody had seen me. Because I sit a few cubicles away from the table, I quickly began to hear to hear people making remarks such as: “What is this? Whose is this? What’s up with the money here?”

Obviously, it had become more of a curiosity than anything else. By the end of the first day, the money that had been stacked neatly was somewhat scattered, likely as people tried to see if anything had been written on the card. The dollar bill hadn’t moved much from its original position in the center of the card, and the card hadn’t been moved from the center of the table.

After seeing this, I began to think about rules of social structure and boundaries that were at play here. If

this money had been on the floor in an equally neutral zone, would it have been taken? What about in the elevator, where it could be taken opportunistically in relative privacy? Because this is a workplace and not a public place, how much does the environment have an effect on the average person’s likelihood of taking the money? These are all questions for which I have only

speculative answers.

I believe that money left on the floor in a neutral place is more likely to be taken. The greater the amount, the less likely it would be taken before being reported. In other words, I believe a $1.00 bill is much more likely to be pocketed than a $10.00 bill in this workplace environment. By and large, the higher the denomination, the less likely someone would take it without first asking around. If the neutral place becomes the more private elevator, my instinct is that the money is far less

likely to be returned. Anonymity is a powerful variable in this experiment.

Again, this is just my speculation, as it’s hard to know the result without actually doing the experiment.

In the case of the money left on the table, I figured that it would be gone by the morning of the 2nd day. I was wrong; it hadn’t been touched. Soon we had a long weekend combined with the Christmas holiday–a time during which I was sure the money would be taken. Today–exactly 7 days from the start of the experiment, the money looked as follows (see image).

Apparently, the coins have been segregated from the dollar, which still remains roughly in the center of the barrier zone. While people feel free enough to jostle the coins and move them about, this clearly shows that the people in this workplace feel less free to move the paper money. Is it because of the value that the dollar is moved less? Or is it simply a matter of paper versus coin?

The money as it appeared on Day 7

The end of Day 1

For the time being, I’m going to let this experiment continue. Some possible variations come to mind:

Concerning value: What happens if I add another dollar? A five dollar bill? Concerning ownership: What happens if I write a name on the paper of a fictitious

person? Leave a photo next to the money? Concerning location: How about if I move it to the floor at the foot of the table? Will that

make a difference?

Update: Day 13: I have heard a few comments over the last couple of days as passers-by make note of the money. The most common response is still, “Whose money is this?” but no serious effort has been made as to discover the owner of the money on the “change table” as I heard it called today. Deciding to make it a little more interesting,  my friend (mentioned above) donated one more dollar to the social experiment. Again making sure that nobody was watching, we carefully placed the dollar on top of the other. Almost immediately we heard comments about “the change table keeps growing” and “money’s been there for months and months and now it’s growing…” Excellent.

So as it stands now, workers in this office have become comfortable enough with the money to shift it around, off the white card which

originally served as a border. The dollar has remained fairly set apart from the coins whereas originally they were stacked neatly. The additional dollar may add an aspect of novelty to the experiment, and some may begin to question the nature of the money as random happenstance and begin to suspect an experiment and/or joke.The experiment continues…

Update: Day 20: We added another dollar bill to the pile, and I haven’t heard a single comment since. I speculate that the reason is because the novelty has worn off; people have grown used to seeing the unclaimed money in plain sight. Either everyone around here is incredibly honest or we just haven’t reached the right price in which someone may consider taking the money.

From the picture (at left), it is plainly evident that someone has counted the money while separating the different coins. The dollar bills have remained stacked relatively neatly and within the bounds of the white card, which has served as a visual barrier from the beginning. Interestingly enough, the “change table” had received

an abandoned cup of coffee along with a salt & pepper shaker. I predict that those items will get cleaned up while the money will remain.

I am toying with the idea of putting down a $5.00 bill, but I’m not too excited about losing the money. I think that perhaps a Five might disappear a lot faster than these other dollars, as someone might conclude that this is indeed some sort of joke and decide to take the money. Plus, there’s a lot more value in less paper. In other words, maybe “stealing” $5.00 feels better than stealing a fistful of $1.00 bills, since you’re actually taking less bills. So it might be easier.

The money as it appeared on Day 13

Day 20

Update: Day 22: We have had some important visitors come into the office this week, and the so-called change table is just outside the conference room.

After a few hours of not hearing anyone reference the money specifically, I decided to go check on it. Sure enough, the money had been removed, probably in an effort to tidy up for the guests. Some plastic cups had been placed on the table along the edge.  At long last, the money is gone, and it seems as if the utility of the table was able to override anyone’s hesitations at removing the money.

Update: Day 23: I am glad I didn’t begin to analyze too much about the money being taken because the utility of the table overriding any social contracts regarding found money: it re-appeared today. Not only was all the money replaced, but it was put onto the blank card on which it had originally been placed, neatly and in the center of the table. What is going on here?

We thought for sure that the money was gone, and had begun to make plans for what we would do next. Before we could get a chance to do that, some anonymous honest person restored unclaimed money to its designated spot. This is quite surprising, and frankly I never

would have predicted this outcome. It seems to us that the next step is definitely to place a $5.00 bill, up the ante so to speak, see if that changes anything.

Update: Day 29: Over the last few days we have heard a number of interesting comments about the change table. Here are a few: “[The name of our company] is a strange place. At any of my other jobs would the money be long gone!” “I’ll bet it’s some sort of test from the executives, trying to test our honesty.” “A little bit more and it’ll be time for a beer run!”

One thing that’s apparent today as compared to the last time we took a picture is that the money has been

growing. Sure, we’ve been slowly been adding to it. However, it’s apparent that other people have been adding to it as well. It then occurred to us that we probably should have been counting the value of the pile each day. In any case, between the two of us we haven’t contributed more than $6.00 yet today the value of the change table is $8.56. We decide to exchange some of the dollars and change for an actual $5.00 bill.

Day 29. Value $8.56

Update: Day 32: People have grown more and more comfortable with the money. What few comments I hear are usually from visitors from other floors in this building, and the dollar amount continues to grow.

Someone arranged the coins to look like a happy face, but did not touch the dollars as far as we can tell. I’m beginning to get the feeling that this has become sort of a pet project for the whole floor; a sort of passing curiosity and mild amusement.

We definitely should do something to step up the game. We’ve thought of putting a small statue, a piggy-bank, or maybe

even a sort of tip jar. We’re hesitant to do any of that because the moment people detect that the whole thing is some joke then the experiment is ruined and people might begin to take advantage.

Of course, that might already have happened, and this smiley face made of coins is the first sign.

Update: Day 33: Today was our first confirmed theft. This morning we swapped out coins for dollars so as to have more dollar bills, and consequently a little bit more temptation. We also added a dollar bill, which should have brought the total to $9.56. Instead, we counted $10.86, which means that as of this morning we had a gain of $1.30 over the previous count.

We decided that it would be a good time to introduce a little

variety into our random experiment: we’d leave a small image with a message. In doing so, we might be able to fan the flames of curiosity…or maybe just inspire people to take money. We chose an image from the Post Secret website, which is a blog where people mail in their secrets anonymously. We selected an image of someone’s graduation gown, with the words “My family never hugs” on the top-right corner.

By mid-afternoon, one dollar had gone missing, so our current total is $9.86. This begs the question: did our attempt at humor play a factor in the anonymous person’s decision to take the money? Does the assumption that the money is a joke void the unwritten social contract that seems to have existed for the last month? Apparently so, although it could have been a coincidence, however unlikely it may be.

Day 33. Prior to theft.

Thus if our humor has changed perceptions of the experiment, then we have in effect changed the context of the anonymous money. In one person’s mind this change of context may have been enough to move forward and take a dollar, as if the contract of respect for unclaimed money had now expired.

I’m no scientist; I’m definitely no sociologist or behavioral psychologist, nor am I claiming to be. But I am a lifelong student of human behavior, and this sort of thing fascinates me.

Update: Day 54: Experiment Terminated: We decided today that the experiment had run its course and that it was time to end it. We have cleared the table as I write this, and will soon put a link to this post over on the table as our way of bringing closure to the experiment. Because I haven’t kept this updated, allow me recap what has happened over the last 3 weeks.

After the dollar had been taken, we removed the graduation photo and replaced it with

another image. The image has a blue background and a handwritten message in red that says, “I know what you’re doing.” We thought that maybe this could help to make it somewhat cryptic, perhaps restoring the original feeling of taboo in taking the money. The effect was actually different than we imagined: people began to take it even less seriously.

We began to see that the coins and bills were constantly shifted around. At one point they were arranged to make a question mark, and then later on an explanation point. Not long after that, dollars began to disappear again. We had gotten down to $7.00 + change, as people began to speak openly about taking dollars for soda and candy.

One person photocopied the front and back of a million dollar bill and added it to the table. A coupon for Carl’s Jr. fast food appeared not long after that. One employee left 4 quarters, and writing on the bottom of the million dollar bill page, left his name as a contributor.

Last Friday morning, (Day 50 of the experiment) we saw that someone had taken all the bills. Immediately people began to comment the money was gone, blaming each other with a sort of teasing accusation. We were ready to end the experiment at this point, but by late morning, someone had restored the money that he/she had hidden.

We were perplexed by this turn of events, but decided to carry on. We even threw in another $5.00 to keep it interesting. However, 4 days later, we have decided that this experiment was about ready to be ended. The original “social contract” of respecting unknown money had devolved so greatly that the entire purpose of the table had changed, roughly into 3 stages:

1. Money as Unknown (0 days to roughly 2 weeks): People respected the placement of the money, its literal position on the table. Multiple inquiries were made so as to ascertain the ownership of the money, and nothing was taken.

2. Money as Novelty (2 weeks to roughly 1 month): During this period, the money on the table had been referred to as “the change table.” A lot of questions were asked pertaining

Day 54. Close up of replaced message.

to the purpose of the money. People made jokes about waiting a little longer before they would buy themselves lunch. Suspicions were raised as to whether this was some sort of corporate-sponsored experiment to test employee honesty. There were also comments about waiting until there was enough to buy the office pizza. The coins were shifted quite a bit, but the dollars seemed to be left relatively untouched.

3. Money as a Running Joke (beyond 1 month): Almost like clockwork, people began to feel freer to manipulate the money once a month had passed. It was during this time that money was taken, shifted to make smiley faces or punctuation marks, hidden and then returned. Admittedly, we might have shifted the tone in adding the somewhat cryptic images, allowing people to feel more inclined to add humorous media of their own. All in all, it was during this period that the money was no longer taken seriously.

It has been interesting to watch the events of this experiment unfold. In the context of this white-collar, IT industry office, unknown money has proven to be quite respected. This cannot be assumed for offices in general, as it only takes one opportunistic, self-interested individual to take unclaimed property where there is no perceivable punishment.

While we may have predicted that sooner or later the money would have been taken, we were somewhat surprised to see at what level it had become sort of an inter-office joke. Employees seemed to want to see it grow; almost took pleasure in seeing what had been added next. The value of the money, socially, had outweighed any individualistic desire for self-enrichment.

The addition of joke material by others further supports this argument.

Conclusion: social contracts are relative to time, location, geography, and space. Time can and most likely will erode, warp, and change those contracts into something distinctly different than that from which it started. In the case of this office, a general rule of honesty became one in which humor prevails.

Contributions from others