The Lost Letter Technique as a Measure of Social Variables: Some Exploratory Findings

Milgram's lost letter technique was used to test the hypothesis that large-city dwellers are less responsive to the needs of their fellow man than are small-town dwellers. Two experiments are reported in which lost letters were dropped in major cities, medium size communities and very small towns. In the first experiment the letters were stamped, but in the second experiment they were unstamped. Significant dif-ferences were found but they did not support the hypothesis. The results suggested the presence of re-gional differences in return rates and a possible source of bias was identified. Milgram, Mann, and Harter (1965) introduced an imaginative research tool which they labeled the lost letter technique. The lost letter tech-nique consists of placing a large number of addressed, stamped, sealed, but unmailed let-ters in public places. When a person discovers one of these letters it appears to have been lost. When confronted with a lost letter, the