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Experiment of an Environmental Issue

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Introduction

People tend to act their best when they know they are being watched (Clive, 2006p. 5). Even

though this seems so obvious, you don't have to use a person to make someone feel like they're

being watched. A group at the University of Newcastle tried to test behavior using only pictures

and boards. They went to Daniel Nettle's center for behavior and revolution, where they showed

an experiment using only posters with eyes looking at people to help change their behavior

(Mackenzie, 2006p.2). For 32 days, it was all about keeping track of how people threw trash

away in the University cafeteria. They did this by counting how many people cleaned up after

each meal. Researchers found that there was a difference in how people reacted to posters with

written words, faces of women or men, or flowers instead of faces (Clive, 2006p. 4). The

scientist noticed that twice as many students cleaned up before leaving when the posters with

flowers were changed to ones with eyes staring at eye level.

Brian Hare and Terence Burnham wrote an article about how people are and how many people

choose to work together in commercial computer games when they are being watched by robots

with eyes that look like human eyes. Most of this kind of research is done outside of the lab so

that researchers can record and study responses that happen in the real world (Mackenzie,

2006p.3). Scientists have noticed that the brain works differently in different environments.

Many psychologists now know for sure that people's behavior changes when they are exposed to

different environments. People learn these things by getting used to them over time. When a

child grows up in a place where money is easy to get, he or she will start stealing money slowly

and get worse and worse at it. This is a habit that grew out of the environment (Clive, 2006p. 5).
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Changes can be made to that kid's environment to change the behavior he or she has learned.

Newcastle University did a study on a coffee station where everyone could serve themselves

coffee and then put money in a tray. This showed that the environment has a slow effect on how

people act (Clive, 2006p. 5). The owner of the coffee shop was sad to see that the amount of

money donated was not very good. People realized that when no one was looking, they could just

grab a cup of coffee and leave. First, a picture was put near the coffee and tray, but it didn't work

as well as the picture that looked right at the people. They start to think that they are being used,

which is true. In another study, the police in Birmingham put up posters of eyes with the slogan

"We've Got Our Eyes on Criminals" around the city (Mackenzie, 2006p.4). Researchers said that

this helped cut down on vandalism and crime, which worked great in the city. The places we live

can change our minds and have big effects on our mental health. The interesting thing is that all

of the parts of this are controlled by systems that people don't have to use.

Hypothesis

People's minds are affected by their surroundings. Changing a person's environment can make

them think differently, which can make a big difference in how they think.

How the experiment was set up

The person in charge of human resources at a small milling company was very nice to his

employees and loved them. Because of this, he bought sweets and put them in a tray outside his

office. He told his employees to take one sweet when they came to work in the morning and

another one when they left at night. Since he was new to the company, he wanted to know how

honest it was. When he left his last job, it was said that he wasn't honest. The workers were

happy, and they behaved well during the first week. One day, a worker only picked two sweets.
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The manager was so busy that he didn't even have time to look into the problem. Every week, his

secretary dropped off six packages with 600 chocolate candies. This was enough for the whole

week if each worker took two candies, one in the morning and one in the evening. Two more

weeks went by, and then something strange began to grow. On Friday night, the secretary and

some other workers couldn't get sweets. She didn't care about this and moved on because she

didn't know how important this exercise was and didn't want to tell the human resources manager

about it. After a month, many of the workers said they could no longer get sweets on the sixth

day of the week in the evening. In a week, no one would be able to get any sweets in the evening.

The experiment was carried out

The person in charge of human resources heard about the problem and made sure with his

secretary. He was aware that there was dishonesty in the company and took it very seriously. He

was very upset by the dishonesty of his workers, which seemed to have been going on for a long

time. He talked about the problem and decided to paint on the wall near the tray of sweets a hand

with a finger pointing and a picture of a camera with a lens that looked like a human eye. Below

the picture, he wrote, "Pick only one sweet." He wanted to know how well CCTV could prevent

theft and wrongdoing at the company. People didn't take as many sweets because they thought

someone was watching them, even though the drawing was just pictures. On the sixth day of the

week, 100 sweets were meant to stay.

The results of the experiment

The number of sweets that were left over on the last day after a week was written down in a table

to try to show how the workers reacted on the drawings. The percentage kept going up every
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day, so fewer workers were willing to pick more sweets. Because some workers were known for

being bad, the number didn't go down to zero. 50 people worked for the company. On the sixth

day of the week, 100 sweets were supposed to be on the tray in the morning. In week 4, the

number went up because the paintings were shown.

No of weeks

How many sweets are left on the sixth day of the week?

Week 1 100 percent Week 2 94 percent Week 3 72 percent

No of weeks

Week 4: 99% Week 5: 97% Week 6: 92% Week 7: 83%

Week 8 77 percent

A bar graph that shows the number of weeks and the percentage of sweets left.
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Conclusion

As many people as there are in the world, everyone has a different way of thinking and acting

because they are exposed to different things. When a figure with an arrow was drawn on the wall

near the candy tray, people stopped picking so many sweets. When eyes were drawn in the wall,

the behavior went down by even twice as much. When toy cameras came out, even though they

didn't connect to anything, people became so suspicious that they stopped doing what they were

doing. Even animals have a way for their brains to work that is designed to find and understand

facial features, such as the eyes.

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Bibliography

Clive T. The Eyes of Honesty New York Times December 2006.pp 1-13

Herbohn, K., 2005. A full cost environmental accounting experiment. Accounting, Organizations

and Society, 30(6), pp.519-536.

Linden, S.(2011) How the Illusion of Being Observed Can Make You a Better Person Scientific

American.pp.2-7

Mackenzie, D., (2006) “Big Brother’ eyes make us acts more honestly” New Scientist.pp.1-9.