Hope people from different cultures
Able to understand, respect and trust each other,
Let the world less extreme thoughts,
More science and rationality.
Yang Qian, Professor of Zhejiang University
Gezhi Lundao Issue 108 | December 23, 2023 Beijing
Hello, my name is Yang Qian, from the School of Public Health of Zhejiang University. Today, I would like to share with you a scientific research story about the controversy over the honesty of Chinese citizens.
Cohn et al., Science published on 2019/06/20
The origin of this story should start from this article published in the international top academic journal Science in 2019. Its title is very straightforward. It is called Global Citizen Honesty. Scholars from Europe and the United States have carried out field studies in 40 countries around the world, taking some public places as experimental points, including hotels, banks, post offices, police stations and some cultural venues. Then ask a German research assistant to hand in a wallet at the front desk of these venues, and tell the front desk attendant in English: "Hello, I found this at the corner of your door. Please handle it. I have an urgent matter to leave first."
Let's take a look at this so-called "wallet". It is actually a transparent clip with a business card inside. In addition to the name and position information of the person, there is only one contact information on the business card, which is the e-mail address. In addition, it has a note, a key, and some money in it.
The author of this article uses "the proportion of emails sent to this email address by the front desk" as the only criterion to measure the honesty of global citizens. This is a major figure in the paper, which ranks these 40 countries in terms of honesty. Have you found where China is? Yes, it was ranked last.
After the article was published, the news media in more than 10 countries reported the article, which also caused great controversy in China. As a researcher in the field of social and cultural sciences, I think this result is directly contrary to my major. First, the Chinese nation has always taken honesty as a virtue; Secondly, our country has completely lifted out of poverty. Do you think there will be so many people who disregard the principle of being a man for the sake of tens of yuan in their wallet?
This is not only my personal point of view, but also the common question of many researchers. Soon, Professor Zhou Xinyue of Zhejiang University and Professor Sun Yacheng of Tsinghua University published a refutation in the review area of the original Science magazine, pointing out that the experiment was hard hurt. However, the editors of Science thought that they did not carry out targeted replication experiments, so they did not give substantive responses. Later, because of too many comments, I even closed the comment area of this article.
Therefore, we focus on targeted replication experiments. I am lucky to be a member of the Chinese Society for Health Policy and Management (CHPAMS). We have a WeChat group of "behavioral economics". The group leader is Zhang Qi, a professor in the Department of Community and Environmental Health of Ou Daoming University in the United States. He and several senior founders of the society together called for such targeted replication research. As one of the first responders, I invited Mr. Zhou Xinyue to join us. Then, by snowballing, an interdisciplinary cooperation team in the field of social sciences was formed that can support the national multi center field research.
What is the ultimate replication?
We believe that it is our bounden duty as scholars to provide complete and rigorous evidence to restore the truth and correct the misunderstanding of China's honesty.
Although this is just a replication study, it is actually difficult to carry out. First of all, most of our collaborators are researchers in the field of public health, and doing social psychology experiments is cross-border; Secondly, no one in our team has ever published an article in the main journal of Science - although the text of the original text is only 5 pages long, its supplementary materials are 93 pages long. To make a complete and rigorous replication of this experiment, it is necessary to understand and accurately grasp every detail of the experiment; In addition, in order to start the experiment as soon as possible, we have no time to apply for special funds, which are supported by the existing funds of the leaders of each center.
In addition, I also have a personal concern: in recent years, many classic experiments in psychology have been questioned as unrepeatable, so can we draw a credible conclusion by using social science methods? This is also the answer I want to pursue.
Reliable experiments require extreme replication. Look at this wallet. We will not only copy the material, shape and color of the wallet, but also its weight and size. Looking at the name on the business card, it is easier to think of a man or a woman? Male, right? So the note inside is also written by boys. In addition, the clip we ordered from Taobao is brand new. Before using it, we have to throw it on the ground and trample it twice with our feet to restore its fidelity. The amount of money was also adjusted from 49 yuan to 52 yuan according to the inflation rate.
In the original experiment, after the experimenter handed over his wallet, he went home and waited for the reply of the email. But what happened between the two things? What is most intriguing in the social psychology experiment is the black box between stimulus and response, and the biggest loophole is the abandonment of the black box in the original text. Therefore, we must find a way to understand the process of wallet processing and its whereabouts.
This requires us to design new experimental links on the basis of the original experiment. We believe that, Honesty is a polyhedron. People in different cultures have different definitions of honesty. If only a single measurement method is used, the results will be biased. The original research assistant was a foreigner, so we also hired a foreign research assistant and provided him with a sound recording pen with noise reduction function, which was put in his coat pocket for covert recording. However, this does not display the screen, nor can it track the processing of the wallet after the handover. Therefore, a teacher in our team believes that it is necessary to add two more Chinese research assistants, one is responsible for covert tracking and photography of the wallet processing process, and the other is responsible for measuring and recording environmental variables.
However, other collaborators believe that the presence of others will promote social approval behavior, and artificially increasing the number of bystanders will cause the bystander effect, which is a huge interference to real world research. In those days, every teacher in the WeChat group learned from other sources and felt that the relationship was about to break.
Finally, through discussion, we reached a consensus that, in addition to the original condition of having money or not, half of the points were randomly selected, and the Chinese research assistants entered 15 minutes in advance, and continued to shoot until the wallet was processed to a static state. While the other half of the points did not follow the camera, Chinese research assistants withdrew after completing all environmental variable measurements and records, and foreign research assistants entered again.
With this design, we can not only test whether the bystander effect exists through comparison, but also retain half of the observation on the whereabouts of the wallet. There have been more than one such debate on the details of the experiment, which often makes people feel that the boat of friendship is in jeopardy. However, the more the truth is argued, the clearer it becomes. The interdisciplinary discussion not only makes our experimental design more reasonable, but also enables us to achieve four years of perseverance through sincere cooperation.
Measure more environment variables
After the general process of the experiment was determined, Hangzhou, where I am, was selected as the pre experimental point of the whole experiment. We not only measured all the environmental variables in the original text, but also added many environmental variables that we think may also affect honest behavior, including temperature, humidity, slogans posted on the wall, traffic conditions at the door, crowding degree of people, etc.
After several rounds of short pre experiments, we found a fact: foreign research assistants mainly focus on communicating with the front desk, so they are biased in recording some simple and important facts, such as the most important and simple, how many people around them do not remember very accurately. This further proves the importance of designing new experimental links.
Follow up in a week
Another important innovation of the experiment is that one week later, the Chinese research assistant will play the role of the owner of the wallet or the friend of the owner will return to the place where the lost wallet was reported to claim it. When the front desk staff returned their wallets or asked them for the identity information on their business cards, we uncovered the secrets of the experiment and interviewed them. This is also to meet the ethical requirements of deceptive social experiments, because we need to explain the whole experiment clearly to the masked participants, let them know, and obtain their understanding and subsequent consent.
We will ask who is involved in the whole process, whether you have no regulations on the disposal of lost property, whether you have sent an email, who sent it, whether you can take a picture of this email, and what do you think of the integrity of Chinese people.
Deploy experiments in 10 cities nationwide
It is worth mentioning that to carry out such deceptive social experiments, the experimenters have to face enormous pressure, because they not only have to face the anger and questioning of the hoodwinked staff, but also carefully complete the interpretation and interview of the experiment.
For example, one of my graduate students failed to correctly name the name on her business card due to excessive pressure during the pre experiment. The receptionist thought she was a liar and refused to give her her wallet. Another foreign research assistant is a little girl from Russia. She was questioned in particular when she entered the country, so she confided to me on WeChat: "Teacher, I'm afraid of the police uncle." In the face of this situation, I can only continue to cheer up my research assistants, give them support and encouragement, and help them complete the process from self doubt, hesitation to rebirth.
In order to better protect students, we also made a lot of preparations, such as telling them to bring their student cards, issuing letters of introduction from various schools, helping them copy the ethical approval documents for carrying, and even drawing a road map for them to enter and exit these venues.
After solving the problems in the pre experiment one by one, we were able to start formal research in other cities across the country. Here, I would like to pay tribute to all the partners: Han Youli from Capital Medical University and Lv Xiaokang from Nankai University are the leaders of the northern area; I, Zhou Xinyue and Lv Jun from Fudan University are the leaders of the eastern area; Jiang Donghong from Shenzhen University, Qu Chen from South China Normal University and Gong Wenjin from Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine are the leaders of the southern area, The western area is Liu Shiyong from Beijing Normal University, Zhang Weiwei from Southwest University of Finance and Economics, his doctoral student, and Nie Jingchun from Shaanxi Normal University.
Finally, there are two new cities, Nanjing and Harbin. The team leader is Liu Rugang from Nanjing Medical University and Jiao Mingli from Harbin Medical University. Teacher Jiao volunteered to join. She said that Northeast China is such an important region in China, and the original text did not have any on-site experimental points, which was too wrong!
By the end of 2019, 500 test sites across the country will be completed
We must complete the experiment in the shortest time, because once such research has aroused the interest of the media and ignited public opinion, the data will no longer be reliable, and we can only terminate the project. After everyone's hard work, the experiment took half a year to complete. It was Sheng Xia when Hangzhou started the preliminary experiment. The students were running outside in the heat of 40 degrees, while heavy snow was falling at the scene of the final end of Harbin. It is particularly fortunate that more than 500 sites across the country have completed the experiment before the end of 2019. As we all know, it will be extremely difficult to carry out such field dependent experiments in the next few years.
Then there is the heavy and long data processing work. Due to the huge amount of data and diverse data types, the reliability and authenticity of data can only be ensured through self inspection, cross inspection and final verification. The work that Dr. Zhang Weiwei is responsible for has occupied a lot of years of her doctoral career, and she is also the only student among the author of the thesis.
Chinese people are actually honest
In 2021, in our respective cities, we will see the results from this WeChat group of "Team Leaders of China". I feel relieved: I finally have an explanation! You can start writing the first draft of your paper.
First, look at the orange column on the left of the figure. This is the indicator used in the original text, "the response rate of active email contact". In its data, under the condition that there is money in the wallet, the active reply rate of China's email is 21.5%, and the condition that there is no money is 7%. Although the results of our replication experiment are slightly higher than the original, there is no significant difference between the two. This is very important, which shows that our replication of the experiment is successful. In addition, the sensitivity analysis also proved that there was no significant difference between the absence of Zhongyan.
But let's look at the additional conditions. "The passive recovery rate of wallet after one week", the green column on the right, quickly soared to 78.6% and 77%. That is to say, more than 3/4 of the total 500 wallets can be successfully retrieved. Therefore, the Chinese are actually a very honest people!
Is active contact the only measure of honesty?
Then why is there such a big difference between the two different measurement methods? When looking for wallets, we also investigated the opinions of all 500 respondents on honesty standards. Most of the front desk staff agree that if you keep your wallet for yourself, it must be dishonest; But it is not dishonest not to contact the owner. This result is also perfectly reproduced in the following national representative sampling survey: The Chinese people more agree that "safekeeping" is an appropriate method to measure honesty, but they do not agree that "active contact" is the only standard to measure honesty.
Honesty is related to collectivism culture
Then why do Chinese people's honesty view more approve of safekeeping? What theory can explain it? In fact, the classic theory of cultural psychology can. A widely known cultural difference is the difference between collectivism and individualism. We use the data of active contact ratio of more than 30 countries in the original text to conduct correlation analysis with their collectivism culture, and find that active contact is negatively correlated with the collectivism index! In other words, the higher the score of a country's collectivist culture, the less willing it is to reply to the other party by email.
This is because, In a country like China, where the typical culture of collectivism predominates, we advocate restraint, restraint and obedience of behavior, which is more recognized than the manifestation, initiative and independence of individualism. And keeping your wallet properly is a manifestation of maturity and self-control, so it is more representative of honest behavior than "sending emails actively". Therefore, we not only provide evidence of Chinese honesty, but also reveal the theoretical negligence of the original text.
Social science has a profound impact on our lives
In June 2022, our article was directed to Science magazine. Ten days later, an editor's reply was lying in teacher Liu Shiyong's mailbox. She said that since we only have one country's on-site data, we can't publish our research in the main journal of Science, but she also promised that Science will report this article no matter where it is sent later. This gives us hope for the future contribution road.
Uncover the debate over Chinese citizens' honesty: an expanded replication experiment in China
In July 2023, our interdisciplinary research team composed of 15 universities at home and abroad finally published this expanded replication experiment in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Comments by Ekeoma Uzogara, deputy editor in chief of Science
The editor in chief of Science is also very honest. On August 10, 2023, she reported our article in the column of In Other Journals of Science. She not only recognized our research paradigm, but also recognized that relying only on "e-mail response rate" would lead to bias in the assessment of citizens' honesty in different cultural backgrounds.
This 4-year scientific research story has come to an end here. I want to pay tribute to all the collaborators again. In fact, we all gained a lot during the journey. For example, Sun Yacheng, the first teacher who wrote comments for Science magazine, said that the original text made him feel offended, so his comments were emotional. However, emotion cannot usher in respect and dialogue, and evidence based on facts is far better than emotional confrontation.
These are our lovely students, who are the "heroes behind the scenes" of this experiment. We have 50 experimental points in every city, some of which are tens of kilometers apart, so they are running and recording almost from morning to night.
In the long thank-you list of the paper, we wrote the name of each research assistant and each person who contributed to this article.
Here, I also want to appeal to all of you to carry out interdisciplinary cooperation, and look forward to more truly cross cutting and organized scientific research. If you are from the field of social science, I hope you can carry out more innovative and constructive research to voice for truly important social science issues; If you are from the field of natural science, I also hope you can abandon your prejudice against humanities and social sciences and work together to build an academic discourse system belonging to China.
Social science has a profound impact on our lives. Standing on the podium of the Academy of Sciences today, I really want to recommend some young scholars I know who are from the field of psychology and have been working hard for the openness and sharing of science. They are Wang Fei of Tsinghua University, famous ID "Silent Uncle Ma"; Zhang Xin from Peking University, "Diaodaoxin"; Yu Feng of Wuhan University, the owner of the "moral little dog"; Hu Chuanpeng from Nanjing Normal University, initiator of China Open Science Community; Li Songwei, a systematic family consultant.
Finally, I would like to end with the words of Li Lianhua, a character I like very much: some people abandon their swords as if they were left behind, and some people live up to their expectations all their lives.
It is hoped that people from different cultures can understand, respect and trust each other, which can make the world less extreme thoughts and more scientific and rational behaviors.
Thank you!
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