Most people would probably say they would be more honest if they were being watched. This is human nature, isn’t it? A team of researchers at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom decided to test this proposition by creating an experiment.
The setting for the experiment was the often seen coffee station set up in a department break room where faculty and staff could help themselves to coffee, tea, or milk during the day and then place their payment for the refreshments in a jar or a box. The “honor system” was requested because there was no one at the station to monitor whether people actually paid or not. The department had been using an “honesty box” for people to place their money in for years.
The researchers decided to post the prices for the coffee, tea, and milk on a poster that featured a banner across the top that contained images that were alternated without announcement from week to week. The poster was placed above the coffee station. The alternating images included a set of eyes and a picture of flowers. The image of eyes was varied in their gender and position, but they were always situated so that they appeared to be looking directly at the person.
The research team collected the money each week and recorded how much had been placed in the box. The team calculated that, on average, the amount collected when the “eyes poster” was present was 2.76 times the amount collected when the flowers poster was there. The researchers concluded that the effect of being “watched” had the subconscious effect of improving people’s honesty. But, the researchers were surprised at how large an effect resulted from being watched.
Later, the question was raised whether using “watching eyes” could curb dishonest behaviors in other settings. A police department in Birmingham, U.K. decided to test whether it worked to deter crime by posting pictures of staring eyes all over the city. Time will tell whether this approach to keeping crime at bay will work.
1. Was it unethical for the research team to conduct this experiment without telling people it was going on?