Being Watched By a Poster Shifts Behavior
Monday, June 6th, 2011
We behave differently when being watched. When watched most people will more consciously follow expected social norms. This ranges from not littering and begin polite to working harder on a production line. Now, according to research reported in the Scientific Amercian, this effect is induced when we are watched by eyes staring at us from a poster.
“A group of scientists at Newcastle University, headed by Melissa Bateson and Daniel Nettle of the Center for Behavior and Evolution, conducted a field experiment demonstrating that merely hanging up posters of staring human eyes is enough to significantly change people’s behavior.”
They put the posters in a cafeteria and found that they caused twice as many people to bus thier own trays and otherwise clean up after themselves. This is a statistically significant effect with strong implications for designers.
Source of Image: Sky News
