Your shopping cart says a lot about you if you return it — here's the science behind it

Your habits and actions speak more about you than words could ever. As per a theory posted by an anonymous user on a platform called 4chan, whether somebody puts their shopping cart back in its place says a whole lot about them.

"The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing," the user wrote in the post. 

The post also talked about the unsaid rule of returning the cart to its primary location, and added that it was the right thing to do. "Therefore, the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether the person will do the right thing or not without being forced to do it," the user said.

According to the user, the management of the supermarket should have a few rules for people to keep their carts back. "The shopping cart is what determines if the person is a good or a bad member of the society," the post adds. 

The action should not be that difficult considering that there's always several corrals in every parking lot, so it's not like the shopper has to take a long walk to be able to put the cart back, which would be the decent thing to do, as per Columbia Star. 

However, not everybody seems to promote or practice this. According to Scientific American, there are some pretty common reasons that people use as excuses when it comes to taking the cart to its designated area. Many believe the receptacle is too far from the car while others say they would have to leave their kids behind if they want to do that. Some refused to do so, because it was raining, while some simply dismissed saying that it was not their job. 

The Shopping Cart Theory has been on the internet for quite sometime now and it claims that people don't do it because there is no punishment for leaving the cart next to one's auto. Shopping cart roaming loose in parking lot really infuriated this Reddit user who took to the subreddit, r/HEB to talk about the situation. 

"People many of you, who seriously need more exercise than a trip to the shopping cart cage would be one of the first ones to file some law suit against HEB or any place if something happen between your dumb a** and a shopping cart," the user writes in the post, threatening to simply lock the cart to their car if they see a loose cart roaming around.

Many took to the post to talk about the carts, "I feel appreciated now b/c I have always taken my cart to the cart corral. Always. It’s one of my better traits tbh. And if I need one I get one that’s loose. And if I don’t need one I take the closest one to the cart corral or inside whatever’s closest is how I do that one. I needed this win lol," writes one.

"I feel like this is purely a regional thing, when I first moved to Texas my husband and I noticed how people leave carts all over parking lots here. We were baffled by it. If anyone sees you leave a cart when I’m from in Maryland no one will hesitate to shame you, honk their horn at you, or actually roll down their windows and say something. It’s very much not socially acceptable up there," writes another.