Chapter 124 Question 112

Why is it that people are often willing to return the cashier's extra change, but if an item is not charged, few people return it? (Bradley Stanzak) In an informal survey, more than 90 percent of respondents said that if a supermarket cashier made an extra twenty dollars, they would give it back to the store.But if the cashier forgot to charge for a $20 lampshade, only 10 percent of the subjects were willing to return it to the store.Why would people be more willing to act honestly in the former situation? Philosophers have long said that people act honestly not only because they fear punishment, but also because they are motivated by moral emotions such as sympathy and guilt.Whether it's keeping extra change or an uncharged lampshade, customers don't have to fear punishment.However, these two different actions may trigger different moral emotions.

If the customer left change, at the end of the day, the cashier's register would show a $20 shortfall, and the cashier would have to pay for it out of pocket.The income of most cashiers is not high, and most customers will feel embarrassed to think that such a person who has just come into contact with them face-to-face has to sacrifice one-third of his daily salary. But if the customer doesn't take the initiative to say that the twenty-dollar lampshade is not charged, the result is that the supermarket's annual profit is reduced by this amount.Twenty dollars is nothing compared to the company's total profits, and it will be shared among shareholders whose customers have never seen it but who think about it and feel very rich.From any moral point of view, these facts are not a valid reason to keep the lampshade.But they do help explain why customers are more likely to behave honestly, driven by moral sentiment, when they have extra change.

In traditional economic models, money is a perfect substitute.No matter what purpose the holder wishes to achieve, they can use money to achieve it.So, in theory, cash prizes outperform other prizes of equal value.But people tend to prefer other forms of rewards.Behavioral economics helps us better understand these preferences by looking at the factors that constrain people to spend money as they please.