The Shopping Cart Theory

I've never liked the shopping cart theory.

You know the one.

The internet says the ultimate test of whether someone is a good person is whether they return their shopping cart. There's no law requiring it. No reward for doing it. No punishment for leaving it. Therefore, the theory goes, returning the cart is the purest measure of character.

The first time I heard it, I was honestly taken aback.

Not because I leave shopping carts all over the parking lot. I don't.

I'll never leave one in the middle of a parking space. I'll never leave one where it can roll into someone's car. If the parking lot is sloped, I'll even put the front wheels up on the curb so it can't move.

But I don't always return it to the cart corral.

Sometimes the corral is a hundred feet away. Sometimes there's an employee in a bright orange vest collecting carts. I've always thought, "That's part of the job."

Apparently, according to the internet, this makes me morally suspect.

The more I thought about it, though, the less I questioned my cart and the more I questioned the test.

A good test isolates what it's trying to measure.

The shopping cart theory doesn't.

Instead, it introduces variables.

Is it a giant warehouse store with employees whose job is collecting carts? Or is it a small family-owned grocery store with one cashier trying to do everything?

Is the corral ten feet away or across the parking lot?

Is the person eighty years old? Chasing a toddler? Recovering from surgery? Running late to pick someone up?

None of those variables disappear just because the internet wants a clean thought experiment.

Maybe that's what has always bothered me.

The theory pretends that human beings are simple.

We're not.

I've noticed something else over the years.

Whenever the shopping cart theory comes up, people aren't really talking about shopping carts.

They're talking about other people.

More specifically, they're talking about how quickly they're willing to judge someone they've never met.

One abandoned cart becomes evidence of laziness.

Or selfishness.

Or poor character.

That's a pretty remarkable leap.

It's an example of something psychologists call the fundamental attribution error: our tendency to explain other people's actions by their character instead of their circumstances.

Someone leaves a cart?

"They're inconsiderate."

Someone cuts us off in traffic?

"They're a jerk."

We rarely stop to ask if there's another explanation.

Ironically, the rush to judge might reveal more about us than the abandoned cart ever could.

If I wanted to measure kindness, I don't think I'd start with shopping carts.

I'd ask different questions.

Did you notice the person struggling to load groceries into their car?

Did you stop to help someone whose battery died?

Did you return the wallet you found?

Did you stay with the friend everyone else quietly walked away from?

Those moments don't involve corporations or parking lot design or social norms.

They involve another human being standing right in front of you.

That's where character shows itself.

Ironically, ever since I learned about the shopping cart theory, I've started returning my cart every time.

Not because I think it makes me a better person.

But because I learned that many people see it as a small act of consideration, and that's reason enough.

The shopping cart theory changed my behavior.

Just not for the reason it intended.

It didn't teach me how to judge people.

It reminded me how complicated people actually are.