Pick or not pick?

Done by: Once upon a time
1. Jia Hui - 0736956
2. Farid - 0868680
3. Iman - 0709721
4. Thiri - 0741101
5. Farhan - 0740803
6. Fahmi - 0740816
7. Navarro Chan Hanshen - 0758457
8. Nicky pang Quan Jie - 0758684
9. Keith Ng Kah Wai - 0758697


Abstract
In this research, we aim to investigate the social perceptions, reactions and thoughts of different people. Our target audience is students of Singapore Polytechnic. We have actors dropping their money onto the floor while we waited for the reaction of the people who walked behind our actors. The whole scene is recorded by the video camera.

Aim of Research
The reaction and integrity level of people when they saw a $10 note on the floor.
Do age groups and genders play a part in affecting a person’s perspective/reaction during this situation?

Main Research Question
1. Will a person keep the money that was found on the floor without trying to look for its owner?
2. How will a person react if he is presented with an unclaimed currency note at the foyer of Food court 5?


Sub Research Questions
1. What are the environmental factors that influence the behavior of the finder of the money?
2. What are his/her thoughts when he/she is presented with the unclaimed currency note?
3. What are his actions when he or she is presented with the unclaimed currency note?
4. What are the reasons behind his/her actions?


Data Collection Methods
§ -Observational
§ -Interview
§ -Video Taking


Analysis



1. Sub research Question 1: What are the environmental factors that influence the behavior of the finder of the money?
The environmental factors include the crowd around the foyer and the location where the money was found as well as the people whom the finder was with. From scenes 1 & 3, we observed that people tend to return the money:
§ When the surrounding people is aware that he/she found the note on the floor and
§ when he/she did not have a chance to communicate with the his/her peers.
As for scene 2, we observed that when there is no one around, the finder tend to keep the money to him/herself and when his/her peers support his/her action.




2. Sub research Question 2: What are his/her thoughts when he/she is presented with the unclaimed currency note?
For subject 1, she feels that she has her own money and she does not like to take other people’s money.
As for subject 2, they claimed that they did not see the owner dropping the money hence they kept the note. However, from our observation, they saw the whole process of Nicky dropping the money. Hence, we feel that they kept the money because of greediness and dishonesty not because they did not see the owner of the note.

For subject 3, he feels that it is natural and correct to inform someone that he/she dropped their money.

3. Sub research Question 3: What are his actions when he/she is presented with the unclaimed currency note?
Out of our 3 research subjects, 2 of them thought of returning the money to the owner and 1 planned to keep the money for personal use. Subject 1 and 3 returned the money and subject 2 kept the money. Basic on our observationof these 3 subjects, 33.3% of the people will keep the money while 66.7% of the people will return the money.




4. Sub research Question 4: What are the reasons behind his/her actions?
For the 2 subjects who returned the money, their reasons were simple. They wanted to return the money to the rightful owner. They put themselves into the position of the person who lost the money. As for the subject who kept the money, he planned to use the money for personal use since the amount found was not huge. He claimed that if the amount found was more than $50, he would try to return the money to the owner.


Conclusion
There are many factors that influence the decision of the subject, on whether he/she returns the money. From our research, due to sensitive issues (i.e. background and affluence level of the finder) we can only focus on the age, gender and environment of the research.
The few factors that we could not investigate in:
§ Family background, affluence level and upbringing of the finder of the money
o We feel that it’s very rude to ask these questions as they are quite personal and sensitive.
§ Educational level of the finder of the money
o We do not know the stream of the secondary school student who returned the money.
o They poly student they come from ITE or secondary school
o Different affluence level might have different mindset toward things
§ Peer pressure?
o We didn’t have enough information of the subject and the relationship between him/her and his/her peers.
o Some people might want to return the money but because of peer pressure, they keep the money for own uses.
§ Races
§ How lecturer will react?

During our research, the 2 subjects that returned the money were a female and a young male teenage kid. The subject that kept the money was a male teenager. We observe that the gender of the actor does not matter. During the scenes for both subject 1 and 2, the money was dropped by Nicky but subject 1 returned the money.
There are also people who saw the money but did not take any action. We did a group discussion and came out with several reasons for this lack of actions by these people:
1. They feel that $10 is too little and are lazy to bother with it.
2. They didn’t process the fact that $10 was a lucky find. They were thinking about something else while they were walking toward it. Perhaps by the time they realized they should have picked it up, they already went past it or someone else had already found it.
3. They wanted to leave it for someone else less fortunate to pick it up.
Hence, we concluded that age groups, genders and environment of the situation play a part in affecting a person’s perspective and reaction during such a situation but there are many other factors which contribute to the decision too.