People Are More Honest than They Think They Are Imagine that you found a wallet in the street containing a stranger’s co

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问题                                              People Are More Honest than They Think They Are
        Imagine that you found a wallet in the street containing a stranger’s contact details but no cash. Would you go out of your way to return it to its owner? Now imagine that the same wallet contained a few crisp banknotes. Would that alter your response? Does it depend on the amount of money? And how do you think other people would react in similar circumstances?
        Honesty makes the world go round. Without people trusting in one another, at least to a certain extent, society would fall apart. Honesty is therefore studied academically. Most work in the area, though, takes place under controlled conditions in laboratories. Moreover, it often features well-off and well-educated Westerners as its subjects. By contrast Alain Cohn of the University of Michigan and his colleagues have taken such behavioral economics around the world.
        As the team report this week in Science, from Canada to Thailand and from Russia to Peru, Dr. Cohn’s research assistants entered public buildings like banks, museums and police stations. They handed in a dummy wallet to an employee in the reception area, saying they had found it on the street outside, before making a hasty exit. Each wallet was a see-through plastic card case containing three identical business cards (with a unique email address and a fictitious native man’s name), a shopping list (in the local language) and a key. Crucially, some wallets also included $13.45 in the local currency, while some had no cash. Then, the team simply waited to see who would email the "owner" about returning the wallet.
        In 38 of the 40 countries, the wallets with money in them were returned more often than those without (51% of the time, compared with 40% for the cashless). While rates of honesty varied greatly between different places (Scandinavia most honest, Asia and Africa least), the difference within individual countries between the two return rates was quite stable around that figure of 11 percentage points. In addition, wallets containing a larger sum of money ($94.15) were even more likely (by about another ten percentage points) to be returned than those with less, although the "big money" experiment was done in only three countries —at least when it comes to lost wallets and petty cash Intriguingly, though, such personal probity is not reflected in people’s expectations of their fellow men and women. When Dr. Cohn and his team surveyed a sample of 299 (admittedly exclusively American) volunteers, most respondents predicted that the more money there was in a wallet the more likely it was that it would be kept. They also asked the question of 279 top academic economists, who did only marginally better than the man or woman in the street at getting the answer right.
        A certain cynicism about the motives of others is probably good for survival, so the response of the general population may be understandable. But the warm inner glow derived from "doing the right thing" is also a powerful motivator. How this altruism evolved is much debated by biologists and anthropologists—particularly when it extends, as in Dr. Cohn’s experiments, to strangers whom the altruist has no expectation of ever meeting. Be that as it may, as this study shows, such altruism is real and universal. The study also suggests, from the responses they gave, that quite a few e conomists have not yet truly taken this point on board.
What can we infer from Dr.Cohn’s team’s study?

选项 A、People who lose wallets in Asia and Africa are more likely to find them.
B、Economists can make much better prediction than people in the street.
C、It is more likely for a wallet with more money to be returned.
D、Men are less likely to return a lost wallet than women.

答案C

解析 推断题。题干:我们能从科恩博士团队的研究中推断出什么?A项“在亚洲和非洲丢失钱包的人更有可能找回钱包”,选项关键词为Asia and Africa,根据关键词定位到第四段第二句“While rates of honesty varied greatly between different places(Scandinavia most honest,Asia and Africa least),the difference within individual countries between the two return rates was quite stable around that figure of 11 percentage points.”由此可知,在科恩博士团队的研究中,斯堪的纳维亚地区最诚信,亚洲和非洲最不诚信,所以在亚洲和非洲丢失钱包的人更不可能找回钱包,A项错误。B项“经济学家比大街上的普通人做出的预测好多了”,选项关键词为economists,根据关键词定位到第四段最后一句“They also asked the question of 279 top academic economists,who did only marginally better than the man or woman in the street at getting the answer right.(他们还向279名顶尖的学术经济学家提出了这个问题,这些经济学家在回答这个问题时的表现仅略好于普通大众)”,由此可知B项中的much better表述有误,B项错误。C项“有更多钱的钱包更有可能被归还”,根据第四段中的“In 38 of the 40 countries,the wallets with money in them were returned more often than those without (51% of the time,compared with 40% for the cashless)…In addition,wallets containing a larger sum of money ($94.15)were even more likely (by about another ten percentage point) to be returned than those with less,although the ’big money’ experiment was done in only three countries”可知,钱包里有钱的钱包比没有钱的钱包被归还的概率更高,此外,钱包里装有更多钱的钱包比钱包里装钱少的钱包更有可能被归还,C项正确。D项“男性比女性更不可能归还丢失的钱包”,文章并没有提及男性与女性谁更有可能归还丢失的钱包,故排除。故本题选C。
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