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Does the amount of cash in a lost wallet impact how likely a person is to return it?
遗失钱包内的现金数量是否会影响其归还率？
Classical economic theories suggest that the greater the temptation, the less likely we are to be honest -- but a new study turns the idea on its head, finding that altruism, and a powerful aversion to viewing oneself as a "thief," outweigh the financial incentives.
经典的经济学理论认为，诱惑越大，我们越不可能诚实，但一项新的研究颠覆了这一观点。这项研究发现，利他主义和把自己看作“小偷”的强烈厌恶感会胜过经济诱因。
A team of researchers studied these questions in a huge experiment spanning 355 cities in 40 countries -- one of the most rigorous investigations so far into the intersection of economics and psychology.
一组研究人员在针对40个国家355个城市的大型实验中研究了这些问题，这是迄今为止对经济学和心理学交叉领域最严谨的调查之一。
The results, published Thursday in Science, also reveal extreme differences between countries, with Switzerland and Norway topping the honesty list.
6月20日刊登在美国《科学》杂志上的调查结果显示，不同国家的人对捡到钱包的态度存在显著差异，瑞士和挪威的人最为诚实。
But although rates of civic honesty varied greatly from country to country, one thing remained remarkably constant: wallets with money, as opposed to no money, boosted reporting rates.
尽管各国民众的诚实度不尽相同，但有一个现象惊人地一致：装有钱的钱包比空钱包归还率更高。
The global average for reporting a lost wallet was 40 percent, which grew to 51 percent when it had money.
从全球平均来看，丢失钱包的归还率为40%，而有现金的钱包归还率则达到了51%。
"The evidence suggests that people tend to care about the welfare of others and they have an aversion to seeing themselves as a thief," co-author Alain Cohn from the University of Michigan said.
研究报告的作者之一、密歇根大学的阿兰·科恩说：“研究结果表明，人们倾向于关心其他人的福利，讨厌视自己为窃贼。”
Researchers from the University of Zurich and the University of Utah were also part of the work.
来自苏黎世大学和犹他大学的研究人员也参与了这项调查。
The researchers then polled a group of 279 top-performing professional economists to see if they would have accurately predicted the outcome, which only 29 percent did.
研究人员还让279位顶级的经济学家参与了调查，看他们是否能准确预测结果，然而只有29%的人回答正确。
"Our results suggest that even experts tend to have cynical intuitions about other people's motivations, often exaggerating the role of financial incentives and underestimating the role of psychological forces," added Cohn.
科恩补充说：“调查结果显示，即使是专家对人的动机也持很悲观的态度，常常夸大经济诱因的作用，低估心理因素。”
The experiment, which cost $600,000, is unparalleled in its magnitude. More than 17,000 identical wallets were dropped off at banks, cultural establishments like theaters and museums, post offices, hotels, and police stations or courts of law.
这项调查耗资60万美元（约合412万元人民币），规模前所未有。研究人员将1.7万多个相同的钱包丢弃在了银行、剧院和博物馆等文化设施、邮局、酒店、警察局和法院等地。
The wallet would be placed on the counter by the research assistant, who would deliver it to an employee telling them they had found it on the street but were in a hurry and had to go.
研究助理会把钱包放在柜台上，然后把它交给一名员工，告诉他们在街上捡到了钱包，但很着急离开。
Each contained a grocery list, a key, and three business cards in the local language using fictitious but commonplace male names and an email address, signaling the owner was a local resident.
每个钱包里都有一张购物清单、一把钥匙和三张当地语言的名片，上面用的是虚构的但很普通的男性名字和一个电子邮件地址，表明主人是当地居民。
Some had no money, while others contained the equivalent of $13.45, adjusted for purchasing power in the target country.
有的钱包里没有任何现金，有的钱包里则有相当于13.45美元的当地货币。
In three countries (the US, UK and Poland), they repeated the experiment with even more money: $94.15, which boosted reporting rates by an average of 11 percentage points compared to the smaller amount.
在美国、英国和波兰，研究人员重复进行了试验，在钱包里放入了94.15美元，而归还率比现金更少的钱包平均高出了11%。
They also found that having a key boosted reporting rates by 9.2 percentage points in the three countries.
他们还发现，在这三个国家中，钱包中有钥匙使归还率提高了9.2%。
Since the key is valuable to the owner but not the finder, this pointed toward an altruism concern in addition to the cost of negatively updating one's self image.
由于钥匙对失主很有价值，但对拾到的人却没有价值，这表明除了顾及自我形象受损外，人们还有利他主义的考虑。
