The Lost Letter Technique Revisited<sup>1</sup>

Simmons, Carolyn H.; Zumpf, Connie

doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1983.tb02333.x

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The continuing success of research using Milgram-style polling techniques (see Bridges et al, 2001 for a recent addition) indicates that people clearly attend to information printed on an envelope when deciding whether or not to mail a lost letter; hence it is fair to assume that participants processed the experimentally manipulated feature and that it simply had no effect on their altruistic behavior. Likewise, it is plausible that the three studies reported here should have sufficed to detect an effect of the experimentally manipulated feature, as a Milgram-style polling study by Simmons and Zumpf (1983) using somewhat smaller sets than those employed here produced results that accurately mirrored subsequent voting patterns on a contested state ballot measure.…”

mentioning

confidence: 71%

Return of the lost letter

Fessler

2009

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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confidence: 71%

Return of the lost letter

Fessler

2009

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization

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“…These in turn had a higher rate of return than those letters addressed to political groups (Jacoby & Aranoff, 1971). Simmons and Zumpf (1983) offered Sears' hypotheses as a reasonable explanation for their higher return rate across conditions (kinds of addressees) for lost letters addressed to individual persons rather than to groups, e.g., committees, and for their high overall rates of return of letters. Sears (1983) explained that the reason why machines and animal characters with human names were evaluated more positively was because the application of names changed their positions on the "personhood" dirnension.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Affiliation, Community Size, and Person-Positivity Effect in Return of Lost Letters

2000

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A study using 1,008 "lost letters" was designed to test the hypotheses that returned responses would be greater in smaller rural communities than from cities, that addresses' affiliation with a group opposed to physical education in schools would reduce the return rate, and that a person-positivity effect would influence return rates. Community Size and Person-Positivity conditions were not significantly associated with different rates of return even though returned letters from the smaller rural communities were more frequent than those from the cities across addressee conditions. Findings seem to suggest no community bias in the willingness of people to help a stranger in need by returning a lost letter. Person-Positivity conditions did not seem to improve the technique. Both addressee' affiliations alone and community size and addressee' affiliations were associated with significantly different rates of return in smaller rural communities, with rates of return greater in the smaller rural communities than in the cities (except for the addressee opposed to physical education in schools).

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“…In yet another example, Simmons and Zumpf (1983), placed 30 letters for each of seven study conditions and noted that: "The letters were dropped in shopping center stores… or placed under the windshields of cars parked in shopping center lots." (p. 512)…”

Section: Methods In Prior Ll Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lost and Found, Letters and Methods: Assessing Attitudes toward Chiropractic and Medical Care

Kern

Yeaton

2010

JMMSS

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Attitudes toward traditional and chiropractic medicine were compared using Milgram's lost letter technique. A total of 192 letters were placed on the windshields of vehicles in parking lots at six restaurants and department stores in each of four quadrants of a medium-sized, Southeastern city. These letters were addressed to "Admissions" at either a fictitious Institute of Medicine or Institute of Chiropractic Care. Return addresses included either a male or a female name. Thus, those who found a lost letter were faced with the option of returning or not returning a letter from either a male or a female, addressed to an Institute of traditional or non-traditional medicine. After examining previous studies which had used the lost letter technique, numerous methodological improvements were implemented. For example, letters were randomly assigned to potential drop spots for each of 24 study locations (six study locations in each of four city quadrants), and a Latin square design was used to control for possible order effects in the four study conditions that were implemented. Nearly 65% of the letters (124 of 192) were returned. We found: 1) letters addressed to a fictitious Institute of Chiropractic Care were just as likely to be returned as those addressed to a fictitious Institute of Medicine; 2) letters with female return addresses were as likely to be returned as those with male return addresses; 3) there was no interaction between study conditions; 4) based on what was essentially a replication study, a comparison of the pattern of returns using the first and second cycle of lost letters (n = 96 for each cycle) revealed an equivalent pattern of no-difference findings. DOI:10.2458/azu_jmmss_v1i1_kern

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The Lost Letter Technique Revisited¹

Cited by 10 publications

References 11 publications

Return of the lost letter

Return of the lost letter

Affiliation, Community Size, and Person-Positivity Effect in Return of Lost Letters

Lost and Found, Letters and Methods: Assessing Attitudes toward Chiropractic and Medical Care

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The Lost Letter Technique Revisited1

Cited by 10 publications

References 11 publications

Return of the lost letter

Return of the lost letter

Affiliation, Community Size, and Person-Positivity Effect in Return of Lost Letters

Lost and Found, Letters and Methods: Assessing Attitudes toward Chiropractic and Medical Care

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

The Lost Letter Technique Revisited¹