'Big Brother' Eyes Make Us Act More Honestly 399
dylanduck quotes a NewScientist.com article that says "We all know the scene: the coffee room with the 'honesty box' where you pay for your drinks — or not, because no one is watching. But researchers have discovered that merely a picture of watching eyes trebled the amount of money paid." That's a pretty deep-rooted fear of getting caught, which could be useful for crime prevention perhaps. But whose eyes?"
wow. (Score:4, Interesting)
if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you mind being watched?
Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:5, Insightful)
It's entirely possible that the people who were just taking coffee before thought the coffee fund to be more of a faceless corporate operation run by management at their company. Perhaps they thought they weren't paid enough and so it was 'ok' to take coffee.
They didn't feel like they were doing something wrong because they could easily justify their free coffee--plus it made them work harder! Even better for the company providing it.
If you look at the eyes, they look very concerned and hurt. I think that this probably triggered emotions of the coffee fund being an employee thing and you weren't taking coffee from the company but your fellow man. That's why this is interesting and that's why I don't think that the people who were taking coffee ever thought they were really doing something wrong.
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:5, Funny)
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down?
We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.
- Jack Handy.
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:3, Insightful)
Mount some speakers.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Mount some speakers.. (Score:4, Funny)
I just can imagine what Greenpeace would do in situations where trees can scream.
This is getting soooo offtopic
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:3, Interesting)
The eyes working only works because there is only one pair, watching the coffee pot, and that's it.
You -can't- apply it generally and make society more honest by wall-papering the city with eyes; that's equivalent to the trees that scream all the for no good reason.
We would rapidly become completely desensitized to them.
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:5, Interesting)
BTW, interesting mental manipulation experiment
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:3, Funny)
What picture of eyes would you be honest around?
-Smiling Womans
-Concerned Mans
-Breasts
-CowBoyNeal is Watching
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:3, Funny)
And then sales of blank CDRs will sky rocket and consumers will respond to surveys by saying that they just loved the puppy dog eyes on their CDs that they buy packs of 100 just because they are so cute!
Angry librarian. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of an "angry librarian" complex, I think. You're not really sure what happens if you piss it off, but it might not be pleasant so you just avoid finding out.
Re:Angry librarian. (Score:5, Funny)
You get banana skins thrown at you and have to deal with 200 pounds of extremely annoyed ape. Just make sure you do not call him monkey, cause in that case you are likely to have your head screwed off.
Re:Angry librarian. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow. That's a whole other experiment right there, we're all seeing different things. To me, they didn't look concerned, hurt, or angry. In fact, it looks rather devoid of any strong emotions. Like the look you get if you happen to ask the stranger next to you what time it is (when he's actually telling you, not when he's initially surprised that you talked to him).
I'm an EE,
Re:Humanizing the Coffee Fund (Score:2, Insightful)
(@) l (@) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wow. (Score:2)
Re:wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wow. (Score:2)
Re:wow. (Score:5, Funny)
And if this truly works, does that make xeyes a productivity tool?
Anti-theft screensaver? (Score:2)
Honesty Box (Score:5, Funny)
I hardly ever pay for my drinks in regular coffee shops so why would I start paying in some honesty box?
We all know the scene, you go into the starbucks and order the double. Before paying you pretend you have to run to the washroom. When you get back the coffee is waiting for you so you snatch it and run out the door screaming "rape." Or you can just live here in Japan where some places you pay after you drink. In that case you pretend to go to the washroom after you finish your coffee and simply climb* out the window (shouting "rape").
* Note: There might be a bit of a fall if the shop is on the third floor**.
** This may or may not have been learned through experience.
Re:Honesty Box (Score:3, Funny)
Or you can just live here in Japan where some places you pay after you drink. In that case you pretend to go to the washroom after you finish your coffee and simply climb* out the window (shouting "rape").
Considering you live in Japan, shouldn't that be "teentacle wape"?
Re:wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
But people are not being watched. They only feel like they are. Important distinction.
Re:wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Err.... Exactly, that's why they used to the "Big Brother". Thanks for pointing out that comparison for those of us idiots who though Big Brother was just a TV show though.
Re:wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you mind being watched?
This is why I feel the Government should be very careful with this line of thought. I turn it right back on them. If the Government isn't doing anything wrong then why should they mind us watching them.
Democracy in action.
Re:why not just use google to be a big brother (Score:3, Interesting)
but CCTV is just a camera and you don't know if anyone is paying attention
speaking of which there is a neat google hack that you can look at unsecured video cameras around the world. most of this are just public web cams people setup. most are in Japan or in Europe and even some of them have movable cameras
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=inurl%3A%22Vi ewerFrame%3FMode%3D%22 [google.com]
Re:wow. (Score:3, Interesting)
What a weird question.
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, why should you mind being hit on the head?"
The reasons why being watched bothers us is built deeply into our monkey brains. Most chimpanzees, most of the time, need some privacy. So do most humans. If this were not the case, we wouldn't have stalls in public toilets and the like.
Beyond that, of course, is the kind of answer you're trolling for, which is so obvious and has been
Maybe.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Maybe.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite. Flowers generally signify gifts. The researchers should have used a neutral figure for their control.
Monitored Transactions (Score:5, Interesting)
I once was very good friends with a card shop owner. In the back two corners of his store, he had two very huge obtrusive obnoxious surveillance cameras angled into the store. I had been in the back of the store to play cards with him every now and then and had never seen any television sets. So I asked him one day where the feeds went on his cameras so that he could catch people shoplifting. He just laughed and told me that the feeds didn't need to go anywhere. And if I looked closer, those cameras were fake.
I would suspect that anything symbolizing or triggering our mind to think of surveillance would cause us to be more honest. It would be interesting to instead of eyes use pictures of surveillance cameras pointed at the coffee. Or, perhaps simply the words, "We are watching you!" I mean, it's only natural for us to react to what we see.
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:4, Interesting)
The fake camera [fakecameras.com] gag has been around for quite a while....proof that it works.
What's surprising, however, is that a mere picture of watching eyes also works, despite the fact that no person could have possibly thought the eyes were real.
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:5, Funny)
You've never watched any Scooby Doo cartoons at all, have you?
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:2, Funny)
Causes paranoid response, not good (Score:5, Insightful)
-Eric
Re:Spotting fake cameras (Score:3, Informative)
Here is what a real Sanyo dummy camera looks like. It even takes real lenses.
http://www.camerasuperstore.com/simdumcam.html [camerasuperstore.com]
Re:Spotting fake cameras (Score:2)
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:3, Interesting)
"Sorry dude, your pictures are in Texas by now. Put the gun down and walk out and we won't prosecute, but you could nuke the entire block and you wouldn't get rid of that footage."
Or just claim you've done that. Might work, might not.
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Monitored Transactions (Score:3, Insightful)
Wal-Mart does this, I think. (Score:3, Interesting)
I did an estimate once, and in the Super Wal-Mart in my area, there would have literally been hundreds of cameras. While perhaps they're all real (if anyone would take surveillance to that obsessive a level, it would be Wally World), they don't all need to be. They could just have 25% or 50% of them actually set u
Re:Wal-Mart does this, I think. (Score:3, Interesting)
great idea for toilets! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:great idea for toilets! (Score:2)
Re:great idea for toilets! (Score:3, Funny)
Ok, here's how to do it:
Select one of the shells. Type "wipe ass" and press Enter. The rest is automatic.
So why are there three C shells? Well, redundancy, of course. It would be a shitty experience if one of the shells fails when you need it, and there's no replacement
Re:great idea for toilets! (Score:5, Funny)
Which is the worse human trait? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to think the better of my fellow man, but this story just tells me that I'm probably not being honest with myself.
Re:Which is the worse human trait? (Score:2)
Children figure this out right quick, when they discover that their parents will not follow through with threatened punishments.
Also, a lot of the time, people are dishonest because they know they won't get caught in the lie.
Re:Which is the worse human trait? (Score:2)
Application for weight loss (Score:5, Funny)
Here's [a1m.org] a picture suitable for posting on your refrigerator, to aid with dieting efforts. It combines the 'watching eyes' effect with the 'I'm gonna hurl' effect to maximize effect.
I always put change in the box. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I always put change in the box. (Score:4, Funny)
YOU SELFISH BASTARD!!
Re:I always put change in the box. (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed, most people are this honest. That's not just a gut feeling either. According to an extensive study cited in the book Freakanomics done with the help of bagel salesmen Feldman who would leave bagels with a locked donation box next to them in many office buildings, and have a sign asking for a dollar, roughly 89% of office workers would pay up. 89% is not bad at all for payment when no one is watching. Their detailed analysis
It gets better (or worse) (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to work in a store, and tried the ol' "leave a fake dollar bill" joke on people once in a while, their reactions were both interesting and hilarious. It seemed that no one would pick it up when left within our view. If it was in front of the cash register, they wouldn't reach down and grab it straight out. They would linger around it for a while, investigating it. Very funny. Now
I have an idea (Score:5, Funny)
Then again, it didn't work out too well the last time someone tried it.
Re:I have an idea (Score:2)
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Re:I have an idea (Score:4, Funny)
I think it worked just fine.
Panopticon (Score:5, Interesting)
The illusion of surveillance is as powerful as surveillance itself.
Cat's eyes (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder if the effect is the same with cat's eyes
Re:Cat's eyes (Score:2)
The eyes as a prompt (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if that's right or wrong, but the picture of the watching eyes is apparently a powerful prompt to pay for the drinks. It's a reminder that someone could be watching (but isn't), so what will you do?
It's also possible that the 'tripling effect' results from the people who think "Oh, I'll pay it later" actually remembering to pay rather than the people who never pay actually turning over a new leaf.
Tend to thine own house first. (Score:5, Funny)
I am certain that one as perspicacious as thou was not remiss in making proper use of thine Capitals and Punctuation when reprimanding yonder knave for his abuse of the King's English.
Whose eyes? (Score:5, Funny)
Interesting parallel (Score:5, Insightful)
Glass eye (Score:5, Funny)
Bah (Score:2)
Why Stop At Eyes? (Score:4, Insightful)
SUSPICION BREEDS CONFIDENCE
REPORT YOUR NEIGHBOR
OBEY
But whose eyes? (Score:2)
Replacing God (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Replacing God (Score:2)
Related news thread (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Related news thread (Score:2)
Oh good god, I'd better not start seeing these... (Score:2)
Re:Oh good god, I'd better not start seeing these. (Score:2)
Screw the big eyes -- bring back Terry Tate, office linebacker.
The Great Gatsby (Score:2)
Re:The Great Gatsby (Score:2)
Somebody's known this for a LONG time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Govt transparency (Score:2)
"Big Brother eyes make the U.S. govt act more honestly"
disHonesty Box (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe people can't pay for coffee because they don't have the cash on hand, and they will pay later.
What good does a camera do if someone makes off with free coffee? Embarass the offender?
Having a big-brother camera operation pre-supposes that people, if not scrutinized, will most likely do the wrong thing.
Or, maybe it is just better to get a pay coffee machine?
Dupe of a dupe (Score:2)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18524914.90
Points out some of the negative aspects of privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
What's interesting is that this suggests that it is one of those atavistic behaviors that happen below the conscious level. People often do more rationalization than action to suppport their self-image as honest, hard working folk.
Once I saw a cop make a good point in a talk about self-defense. Sure, if the mugger asks for your wallet, you give it to him. But the point where you must try to escape or fight is when he tells you to step off the sidewalk into the alley: he wants privacy to do something that he's not comfortable doing where he might be seen.
As an American, I value my privacy. But there is more than one way to run a society with respect to privacy. In some cultures, bathing or even crapping can be a communal activity. I can well imagine a "Goldfish Bowl" society in which everything anybody does is witnessed by everybody else. It would probably be the most virtuous society in history. The reason that tyranny immediate leaps to mind is that nobody ever proposes anything that radical. What they propose is that privacy be considered important in most cases (including their privacy), but not in yours. Like a mugger, they want privacy for themselves so they can do things to you. They want exposure for you so you can't do things back.
The lesson is that when your government wants to watch you but doesn't want you watching back, beware.
Re:Points out some of the negative aspects of priv (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an interesting point, but not one which follows with logical necessity. As a practical matter, any move towards a radically open society would be a step toward tyranny, because those with power would ensure that it is not done in an even handed way. It's more of a thought experiment.
However I don't think that a radically open society would logically have to be a tyranny, if we assume that nobody has any privacy at all. Because in that case every individual is a minority. It's like the nuclear doctrine of mutually assured destruction. You could not plot to go after those perverts who are attracted to women's shoes, because (a) those people would know you were plotting and (b) they would know you are a pervert who is wearing women's underwear while you are doing it. Persecution necessarily implies inequality: one party must be vulnerable, the other invulnerable. You could certainly try to go after people for being minorities, but they would know it and know your vulnerabilities.
Imagine information about people as being like a gun. It's a bad thing if only some people are allowed to have guns. If there were no guns at all (even in state hands) that's OK. And maybe if everyone has guns, on average it would be OK too, although bad things would happen from time to time as people acted with irrational hostility and in return got themselves shot in a vendetta.
The value of the thought experiment I think is this. If the freedom of the common man is important, then the privacy of the common man should be guarded closely, but the powerful should have no privacy, at least as bears on their actions that excercise power of the common people.
What happened to a concept called "conscience"? That strong urge to refrain from doing something because it feels wrong. You know that feeling, or don't you? That was an effective way of maintaining a level of cooperativeness. It made people honest without surveillance, but at the same time it was non-uniform enough to allow dissent to grow when necessary.
That simply is not true. We are social animals. The kind of theoretical ethics of personal principles are just that: theories. Our social behavior is governed by social rewards and punishments: loss or gain of status, acceptance, cooperation and so forth.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Human subject research? (Score:2)
Just a method to catch attention? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the eyes were just more noticeable than a less "eye-catching" textual reminder to pay?
So the eyes made it less likely to forget the payment, but not because of guilt or fear, and a blinking light next to the notice would have the same effect?
Clerks (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously... (Score:2)
But whose eyes?
Easy, Dr. T.J. Eckleburg's [wiu.edu]! Next question...?
Mmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect that these things will be removed once the various local governments realize they're affecting ticket revenues.
It works both ways, you know (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, you won't hear those big brother loving law-n-order types say that.
Think that's bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
The novel "1984" also featured "Newspeak", which they used to try and get rid of all "undesirable" words and concepts. Bad? Nope... "Ungood".
That's been going on for years now with people trying to force everyone else to be "politically correct" when they speak.
Mod me up! (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:Eye choice is obvious (Score:2)
Re:Eye choice is obvious (Score:2)
Re:Eye choice is obvious (Score:2)
How dare you assume to have the authority to put His eyes anywhere?
Re:Neighborhood Crime Watch (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody said it was 100% effective. Maybe the signs are working quite well. Take the signs down for a few weeks and report if anything has changed. The signs are put up where there is an existing problem. Where there is never any problem, there are rarely any signs because they are not needed.
hi, I'm an anecdote! (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally, I'd cite statistics of crime in neighborhoods with/without these programs, but that was too much work. So I decided to make an unfounded assertion and hope for +5 insightful!