Scientific Social Research on Civic Honesty: A Report

This report delves into a scientific social research study investigating civic honesty. The research employed a positivist approach, utilizing quantitative data and empirical evidence to understand people's propensity to return dropped wallets. The study, conducted over three years, analyzed various factors influencing wallet return rates, such as the presence of money, important documents, and the location of the drop-off. The report discusses the application of positivist social science, differentiating it from interpretive and critical social sciences. It also details the research practices, including the selection of drop-off locations, the use of transparent wallets, and the handling of ethical considerations, such as the use of fictitious names and the potential for miscommunication. The study's findings suggest that the likelihood of wallet return is influenced by factors like the amount of money inside and the presence of identification, highlighting the importance of scientific methods in accurately assessing societal behaviors and ethical considerations in social research.

Running head: SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL RESEARCH
SCIENTIFIC SOCIAL RESEARCH
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The paper seeks to find out why scientific research methods have been applied in
conducting the survey to understand that there are people who tend to return if somebody has
dropped the wallet on the road. The amount of returning the bag increases if there is more
money and mostly the wallets are returned with more responsibility if they had key or any
important documents inside. Now this paper is segmented in three different parts where the
first part will talk about why the scientific research has been employed while conducting the
survey. The second part talks about which kind of social science is applied and why it is
different from the others and the last part concentrates on two different research practices that
are implemented in the survey (Davies et al., 2016).
Scientific social research is important for it helps in collecting the exact figure which
eventually is helpful in determining the actual condition of the society. When a fact is
presented with proper number chart, data analysis, and statistical connotations it tends to
reach the accuracy (Mazzocchi, 2019). In this method, the empirical evidences are collected
in systematic, meticulous and methodical way in order to reach at the claim that the research
paper offers. The application of scientific method tends to alienate the emotions from the
research, it is easily reliable because it can be tested independently, the data which are
collected become the supporting statement to reach the conclusion, the research becomes
more confident and truthful, it is also very convenient in cases of convincing other people
because it becomes easier to present the data and human brains naturally tend to believe more
in numerical than in texts.
This study has been conducted for three years to examine that most people tend to
return the wallet if it is dropped in the middle of the road. There are three different kinds of
social sciences that are used in multiple studies in order to reach at some findings. However
in this above mentioned research that has been implemented to study the civic honesty of
people, positivist scientific social science has been put to use. It has already been mentioned

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that why a scientific research is taken into consideration in case of conducting a social
research. However before moving further into this area one must understand what are the
three available social sciences that can be applied in a research.
According to Augusto Comte the social science has gradually developed into
something extraordinary being explored in multiple ways (Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, &
Gradovski, 2019). Positivism is that particular system that uses empirical evidences to reach
at the conclusion. No assumptions are given air in this kind of research. It is also similar to
natural science because it follows that is confirmed by science. It needs to be understood that
this science is supported by quantitative data only. Surveys, experiments and the statistics
that are derived from the survey are used as the elements of the positivist social science. It is
sometimes back up by the rational choice theory and structural functional theory. The study
practices methodical observation on the subjects with deductive logic. The behaviors of the
individuals are taken into consideration and that is compared to the general behavioral
pattern. The primary purpose of the positivist social science is to reach the ultimate behavior
pattern of the human race by gathering a good amount of data in order to conclude the
research.
It is also believed that social beings are not Gods therefore it is not possible for them
to know everything that is right and true. Human beings learn new things everyday and try to
incorporate the learning in their actions. The reality always exists out of the existence of
human beings but it is not beyond the reach of human beings (Bonell et al., 2018). The
regularity that exists in the reality does not transform but the behavior keeps on changing
along with time. Therefore determinism has been emphasized upon that leads to understand
how the human behaviors can be determined through some determiners. It also tends to affect
the external behavioral pattern of human beings.

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Interpretive social science was first coined and shown by Max Weber and backed up
by William Dilthey (Babones, 2016). It is a way more emotional because it does not solely
depend on factual numbers because according to Weber a human behavior cannot be
described the best with some figures. In order to make it more humanly, one needs to
understand what exact feeling the subject is going through. Therefore removing the concept
of data was introduced and the effort was put in understanding and determining the social
context of the subject that he belongs to. The purpose of this method is to find out what
circumstances might be responsible for his behavior and why his behavioral pattern is
different from the other subject (Gephart Jr, 2017).
This kind of science needs close observation where very detailed data is collected
from the subject itself. It collects its data from the point of view of how one person is reacting
to other from the same clan and how this behavior changes when he is interacting with some
other person belonging to different clan. It analyzes whether there are discrimination in the
social behavior of a person or not. Critical social science believes in finding out hidden truths
from the cracks that is invisible to naked eyes (Albury et al., 2017). There are certain points
when the subjects might not come up with the truth so the researchers might be professional
enough to understand what has been tried to be hidden from the interviewer. This kind of
research acts with critical thinking. It depends on critical ideology where the subjects have to
go through the critical procedures which cannot go wrong according Frankfurt School
(Mykhalovskiy et al., 2019).
However it has to be seen that this research on civic honesty cannot be found out with
critical or interpretive social science because this research needed factual information only.
Therefore positivist social science has been implemented.

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The researchers concentrated on the drop off location of the wallets and they did not
want to create any mess therefore they had selected the locations beforehand. They had
deliberate chosen places where more number of people gather like banks, theatres, any
establishment associated to culture, post offices, hotels, pubs and police stations, courts etc. It
was not possible to allocate the wallets equally because the post offices were set according to
the geographical location therefore the allocation was not equal everywhere. Wallets were
placed with keeping the risk in mind that the similar wallets should not culminate at the same
police station time and again. It is true that it was kind of a pre-planned prank but it never
hurt the sentiment of the subjects therefore no ethics was hurt in this process. Another
practice that was undertaken by the researchers was dropping the wallet itself. The wallets
were skillfully chosen as transparent business cases which will help the pedestrians see
through what is inside without even opening it (Cohn et al., 2019). Now it is understandable
that the cases did not force the subjects in any form to touch it as well. Therefore the morale
of the subjects was not even disturbed at all. Hence no question of cutting down the ethics of
the research is raised. For the matter of fact no real names were used. All the three names that
were put inside the cases were purely fictitious and first names and last names were searched
from different social media and were fused then. Therefore no offence could have been
reached to any real person as well.
However the drop off procedure included some German speaking people who
carefully executed the task but it has to be understood that even though they were parts of the
plan and they did it purposefully it was very risky on a moral ground. Since it was done in a
crowded place anybody could have seen them doing it. Therefore the subjects could have
some negative impression regarding the assistant researchers hurting the ethics of the
research. The other practice which could have hurt the sentiments of the subjects were the
using of the names. In country like Switzerland and Czech Republic, two names were used

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and they were real names and these were the names of the assistant professors (Cohn et al.,
2019). There was possibility of miscommunication which could have lead to violation of
research ethics.

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