The Results Are In: Americans Are 93% Honest

Honest New Yorker paying for Honesty Tea during
National Honesty Index experiment. (PRNewsFoto/Honest Tea)

On Monday, Honest Tea, the nation's top-selling organic bottled tea company, released the results of the first National Honesty Index social experiment.  Among the findings:

• 93% of participants were honest
• Salt Lake City and Oakland were both 100% honest
• Women are 95% honest while men are 91% honest
• Boston baseball fans are more honest than New York baseball fans
• Redheads are more honest than blondes and brunettes
• Motorcyclists were 92% honest while Comic Book fans were 86% honest
• Men with beards were 96% honest while bald men were 85% honest

… and more than 50 other interesting match-ups, data points and statistics.


From August 8th – August 19th, Honest Tea set up more than 50 unmanned pop-up kiosks in over 30 cities across the country, with each location stocked full of Honest Tea and Honest Ade.  Signage at the stands offered the beverages for $1 per bottle with payment based on the honor system, going into a clear box on-site.  The outcomes were recorded using a customized digital tracking application by undercover observers nearby. Data collected for the National Honesty Index included geographic locations such as cities and iconic business districts; observable characteristics like gender and hair color; groupings of people including baseball fans, comic book fans, beachgoers, people with kids and more. 

"We've expanded our social experiment to measure the honesty of observable characteristics, including location," Seth Goldman, President and TeaEO of Honest Tea.  "Though our experiment might not pass muster with a social scientist, the results present fascinating and fun insights about the American population."
 
Full List of Honest Cities

Oakland, CA	100%
Salt Lake City, UT	100%
Boulder, CO	99%
San Francisco, CA	97%
Seaside Heights, NJ	97%
Boston, MA	96%
Cincinnati, OH	96%
Galveston, TX	96%
Seattle, WA	96%
Las Vegas, NV	95%
Washington DC	95%
Chicago, IL	94%
Austin, TX	93%
Cleveland, OH	93%
Palo Alto, CA	93%
New York, NY	92%
Portland, OR	92%
Sturgis, SD	92%
Tempe, AZ	92%
Atlanta, GA	91%
New Orleans, LA	91%
Atlantic City, NJ	91%
San Antonio, TX	91%
Denver, CO	90%
Anaheim, CA	90%
Philadelphia, PA	89%
San Diego, CA	87%
Charlotte, NC	86%
Miami, FL	86%
Los Angeles, CA	79%

 
Top 5 Least Honest Locations:

Atlantic Terminal, Brooklyn, NY	61%
Venice Beach, CA	76%
Chelsea Piers, NYC	77%
16th St Mall, Denver, CO	80%
South Side Chicago	82%

 
Iconic Business District Rankings:

Madison Ave.	98%
Wall Street	97%
Capitol Hill	93%
Silicon Valley	93%
K Street	91%
Hollywood	88%

 
Baseball Team Rankings:

Boston baseball fans	100%
San Francisco baseball fans	97%
Washington D.C. baseball fans	93%
Anaheim baseball fans	90%
New York baseball fans	83%
Chicago baseball fans	83%

The complete Honesty Index is available at http://www.nationalhonestyindex.com/ where visitors can check out and compare the honesty statistics of more than 30 cities and 50 different groups of people, and build customizable info-graphics, which are shareable across many social platforms.

"While the National Honesty Index measured consumers' honesty in almost three times as many cities as last year, it was great to see that by and large, people across the country are honest," said Peter Kaye, Honest Tea VP of Marketing.  "With the exception of the man who tried to steal our duct tape, it's inspiring to see these results are consistent with our efforts to be refreshingly honest in making our beverages with real, organic ingredients."

Honest Tea will match the money collected and donate it to City Year, an AmeriCorps program which unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service.  The goal of the nonprofit is to build community by helping to turn around high-need schools and get at-risk students back on track.
"Since one purpose of our experiment is to highlight the level of trust in communities across our nation, we're glad to donate the money collected from this year's experiment to City Year, which helps make our communities stronger," said Goldman.