[bswbmb]

So you excluded Japan because there is an alternative mechanism that can cause low reporting rate. How can you be sure other countries don't have something similar (alternative mechanisms) that may account for the low reporting rate?

[paopaokade]

Exactly. I was raised in China and our culture shares many similarities with the Japanese. Some of us tend not to bother strangers unless necessary since it might be seen as rude. In these experiments, I imagine a fair number of Chinese simply decided to wait for the owners of lost items coming to them instead of the other way around.

I did not expect China to top the list or anywhere near there, but such cherry picking of data is indeed concerning. By the way, where are South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Singapore? Were these countries/regions (culturally similar to China) also excluded because the data did not fit the authors' expectations?