Wallet

I lost my wallet yesterday evening.

When I found about the missing wallet and thought about the credit cards and the Octopus card, I felt the flutter of trepidation in my gut. I paced around to search, and wished that my wallet was hiding somewhere at home. Except it wasn't.

Stomach in knots, I was seized by the urge to call the bank to cancel my credit cards. Deactivating all cards would make sense, that much is clear.

A small voice inside me than said, "Excuuuuusee me, can I have a reason to feel hopeful about retrieving my wallet?" No sooner did I make up my mind to report lost cards than I thought of something better: a global study on the likelihood of returning lost wallet. I learned about this study from the book Collective Illusions.

The behavioral scientist researchers conducted a series of experiments to calculate the return rates of lost wallets and published their results in Science. The researchers "lost" over 17,000 wallets in 40 countries. Each wallet contained three business cards with a clear ID and an email address, a key and a grocery list in the local language. Some contained no cash; others held about $13; and others contained $100. 

And what did they find? In almost all countries, people tried to return the wallets. In all but two countries, people tried even harder to reach the owner if there was money inside. The more cash, the better return rate.

The little-known moral and altruistic nature of human is best reflected by another survey conducted by the same group of reseachers asking people to estimate the return rate based on whether the wallets contained no money, $13 or $100. Both laypersons and professional economists projected a lower return rate for wallets with money, and the lowest when there were more money. The opposite is true, as it turns out.

Putting these findings together, I decided to temporarily block my credit card and wait with a jolt of optimism. So when twelve hours passed and I hadn't received news of my lost wallet, I began to get a little edgy. Okay, I worried.

I got a phone call more than half day after I lost my wallet, and was told that a stranger wanted to return my wallet. I hadn't even noticed that my mouth was hanging open.