Honest Tea recently ran a fascinating experiment, unbeknownst to its customers.
The company set up 60 kiosks around the US where they gave people tea and requested that they deposit $1 into a dropbox as payment.
If you approached a stand with such an honor system, how would you feel? Excited that you were about to get free tea? Confused about how the setup worked? Suspicious that they were secretly watching you?
More importantly, what would you do? Pay or leave?
Feelings are strong catalysts and compasses for action. If you felt excited about free tea, perhaps you would have been one of the people who didn’t pay. However, if you felt confused about the setup, then perhaps you didn’t pay because you honestly had no idea how to pay. Or maybe you didn’t pay because you felt angry that people were trying to trick you.
By simply measuring how many people paid, you do not get the full picture of how “honest” people are being. Understanding how they felt and what motivated them is important in knowing who was being more honest.
While this is a curious look at how people respond differently to the same situation, it would be even more intriguing to see how people felt in the situation and why they did what they did.