Anonymous Money: A Social Experiment

By: P. Karl Benzforte

30 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.

The end of Day 1 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
The money as it appeared
likely to be returned. Anonymity is a powerful variable in this
on Day 7 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?
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.

The money as it So as it stands now, workers in this office have become

appeared on Day 13 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
Day 20
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.
 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
Day 29. Value $8.56
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.
 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.
Thus if our humor has changed perceptions of Day 33. Prior to theft.
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
Day 54. Close up of replaced message. 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
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
Contributions from others 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.