Why is the sky blue and other random questions you always wanted to ask but never did Part 2 without Why is the sky blue

WHY ARE PEOPLE MORE LIKELY TO RETURN CASH TO A STORE WHEN GIVEN TOO MUCH CHANGE THAN TO RETURN A PIECE OF MERCHANDISE FOR WHICH THEY WERE NOT CHARGED?

More than 90% of people would return $20 to a store of given that amount in excess by a cashier. Only about 10% said they would return a $20 lampshade to the store, if the cashier had not charged them for it. Why is this the case?
Honest behaviour is motivated not only by fear of punishment but also by moral senntiments such as sympathy and guilt. The customer could keep the stuffin both cases without being caught. But the two cases are likely to trigger different sets of moral sentiments.

If the customer keeps the change, the cashier would have a $20 shortfall at the end of the day, which the cashier would have to pay out of his/her own pocket. Cashiers don't earn too much, and this causes us to feel very guilty.

However, in the lampshade case, the loser is the company, which makes millions and billions of dollars every day. $20 in this case would not cause too much of a loss to the company. This causes there to be a lot less guilt than the first case, thus the difference.

WHY DO COMPANIES GIVE "FREE" CARS INSTEAD OF AN EQUIVALENT CASH BONUS?
Companies retain employees by giving higher salaries. However, many companies are now giving employees cars instead of cash.
The care aren't really free, of course. Each costs about $9000 in leasing and insurance. But if companies had given employees $9000 a month instead, no one should have been worse off, and at least some would be better off.

Or would they?

The best gifts are often things we're reluctant to buy for ourselves. People want something, but cannot justify spending so much. Having someone else make the decision for him bypasses this. If you consider different gifts for friends, people generally choose the more expensive variety, for example people generally give, say, a $10 000 pair of shoes etc. as a wedding gift, and not 100 pairs of $100 shoes. The same logic applies to the cars. The employees prefer the cars because they want it but are not able to justify their buying otherwise.


WHY DO KAMIKAZE PILOTS WEAR HELMETS?!?!?
Japanese military forces launched a campaign of kamikaze attacks in which pilots attempted to crash planes into American warships. Their planes were heavily laden with explosives, so a crash meant almost certain doom for the pilot. Why did these pilots wear helmets?

One reason is that these pilots sometimes survived these missions. Some would experience severe turbulencebefore reaching their targets, and in these cases there were clear reasons why they wanted to be adequately protected. More importantly, the aviation helmet had becomme symbolic of what it menat to be a pilot. Kamikaze pilots were pilots, and all pilots wore helmets.

But the most compelling reason is that it was not for practical purposes. Usually there would be such heavy anti-aircraft fire that survival would be unlikely. Other times the only way to deliver the explosives was to crash the plane. But the hope was that the pilots would return safely, even though the expectation was that most would not.



If you have any more irrational questions please comment, and I will attempt to explain them.

Cheers,
CY