Return Your Shopping Cart

You have probably heard of the "shopping cart theory." It's basically become a meme by now, but it came from an actual study. The study examines why people return - or don't - shopping carts. In internet retellings of the study they add that the shopping cart is a perfect morality test. This is because there is no punishment for not returning it, a clerk will take it back into the store regardless, and there are always plenty of carts available inside the store for customers. Returning your shopping cart is a choice with a universally agreed answer (everyone thinks its better to return it), but yet not everyone does it.

The shopping cart theory is an example of how people value their obligations to society. Norms in society are not usually required - in most cases, you won't be arrested for breaking a societal norm. Despite this, social norms help keep society functioning well. Take sportsmanship as an example. In sports, you must respect your opponent and honor the spirit of the game. Sportsmanship keeps sports as games of skill and prevents them from turning into violent feuds between two opponents. Apply this to all of society. Good societal norms keep society functioning well. At the supermarket you may have to wait in a long line to get to the checkout. Notice how everyone waits in a single-file line? That is a societal norm. Technically you could push and shove your way to the front. You might not even be stopped by anyone. But if everyone did this, supermarkets would be a worse place for everyone. 

An unreturned shopping cart. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Tdorante10)

I return my shopping carts and I think you should, too. We all exist because of this society and therefore should be good participants in it. I recognize my societal obligation and understand that returning the cart is not that much of an ask. Poor behavior is contagious - the shopping cart study from earlier found that when a parking lot was dirty with many carts strewn about, less people returned theirs. When we don't take care of society, it decays, and that decay only serves to make it worse. 

We all depend on society. We are social animals after all. At a fundamental level, we all contribute to society and take from society. What happens when norms go away? If enough people stopped doing the "little things" - like respecting the rules of the road, being kind to strangers, and respecting others - society as we know it could degrade, even to the point of collapse. To borrow a recent example from media, take Christopher Nolan's Odyssey. The concept of "Zeus's Law" is repeatedly reinforced throughout the film. That is, the concept of hospitality and treating others with respect, as you never know who is a god in human clothing. Zeus's Law would begin to break down following the end of the Trojan War, explicitly attributed to Odysseus's use of the Trojan Horse, leading to mass chaos and unrest across ancient Greece. A gift - the horse - was used as weapon of war, destroying the careful peace that existed around the region. 

That is the danger of losing societal norms. Good norms exist in the background - do you honestly spend much time thinking about them? They are either things you do instinctively, or things you don't even think about doing. You don't really think about people waiting their turn, they just do. I like living in a society where good norms are followed, one where we take care of each other. It is up to all of us to build the world in which we live, which means at times we must do certain things, like returning your shopping cart. 

Further reading:

Scientific American on the Shopping Cart Theory: https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/anthropology-in-practice/why-dont-people-return-their-shopping-carts/