I made a few generalisations based on observing the world for a while, as an attempt to understand why kids destroy things for no apparent reason other than pas

I made a few generalisations based on observing the world for a while, as an attempt to understand why kids destroy things for no apparent reason other than passing time - it's not exactly a scientific study. But ok: My hypothesis is that in many cases it's simply that they do not value the things they destroy in relation to the cost, because the costs are hidden to them. As a counter example, very few kids will cut up the seats of the sofa in their living room although it's most likely as entertaining as cutting up a seat in a bus. As it's as inconvenient to sit on a cut-up bus seat as a cut-up sofa, there must be something that differs in their valuation. I guess there are many factors in play - it's a higher risk of getting caught cutting up your parents sofa; There is a disconnect between them and the community owned bus company so the sense of ownership is limited; There are many more bus seats than sitting furniture in their living room so bus seats seems abundant in relation, and finally; They probably realise that they paid a significant amount of money for the sofa while the visible cost of using the bus seat is very small - so my hypothesis is that it reduces the perceived value. The other factors are a bit hard to change, so my bet is that if the actual costs were more visible, you'd get less vandalism. I suppose you could also try to work out a way to increase the sense of ownership, but I think it's harder than playing with visible costs. (Donating thousands of canapés to schoolkids to level things out can probably be ruled out as a solution to the problem.) It would be interesting to create an experiment where school kids would get access to free bus rides . Certain cities could be handing out free bus passes, others could instead hand out money for buying a bus pass, and the effects could be evaluated. (This assumes that they have acquired a sense for the value that money represents.)