The 'No Free Lunch' Mindset

Psst, wanna free £5 note? That’s the experiment that Tim Moss of loan price comparison website moneysupermarket.com ran in England one day. Surprisingly, he found that most people actually couldn’t be bothered to claim free money!
Representatives from price comparison website, www.moneysupermarket.com wandered the streets wearing sandwich boards offering a free £5 note to anyone who asked. Despite encountering over 1800 people, only 28 passers by bothered to take advantage of the offer.
The experiment also found a stark difference in the attitudes of men and women. On the streets of London and Manchester, all but 7 of the people who claimed the free cash were men and the research backed this up further. In a poll of 2000 people almost two thirds of women (64 per cent) said they would not claim the free fiver, compared to 41 per cent of money-shy men.
Additionally, the experiment found that Londoners were more reserved than their Manchester counterparts. Whilst just 1.2 per cent of people took advantage of the offer in London, this figure increased to 3.1 per cent on the streets of Manchester.
The research also found that the older the person, the less likely they would be to act on the free offer. Whilst some two thirds of under-twenties say they would claim the free cash, this steadily drops the older we get, declining to only a third (35 per cent) of over 70s who claim they would ask for a free fiver.
New York Times piece HERE