effect of watching eyes to the behavior of the human

effect of watching eyes to the behavior of the human

Abstract

This paper will focus on the effect of watching eyes to the behavior of the human. The article started by introducing the concept of watching eyes and the previous journals that discuss the same. The method of data collection is illustrated after entering the idea of watching eyes. The results of the analysis are depicted in the results sections. The implication of the results is obtained under discussion, and the whole project is concluded under the conclusion section. The result from the analysis obtained that watching eyes has a significant effect on the behavior of the human.

Introduction

This report aims at determining the effect of watching eyes on the behaviors of the people. The eyes give so many impressions like being alert and so on. Most human beings need to be observed to do certain things correctly. This is the reason why there are traffic lights, signs, and cameras to give the people the impression that someone somewhere is watching. The nature of human beings is so weird, and the human beings tend to like doing the wrong at all times. The same is experienced in the examinations where the students are given the impression that someone is watching them so that they may not try to cheat during the exams. The same concept is seen in the roads where the policemen conduct controls so that the drivers can follow the rules and regulations of the traffic. Naturally, human beings don’t like the aspect of being patient, and this seen during queues where most people try to come up with excuses to avoid parading along the line. The same is seen during the traffics, where most drivers feel uncomfortable waiting for the traffic to end so that they can travel to the places that they are going to. The watching eye comes into place to make sure that specific laws are strictly followed. Understanding human behaviors are something that can first be observed and seen. The watching eye influences making everything to be in line with specific imposed rules. This report will focus on whether the watching eye has a significant impact on the behaviors of the human being. This will be conducted by analyzing a real obtained data set from the study of the effect of the human eye. A research was conducted by Bateson et al. 2013 on littering behavior, which they examined the impact of both the presence of signs featuring images of watching eye and the presence of litter on the ground found that addition of the litter that was already present on the ground induced higher littering behavior.

On the other hand, the images that gave the impression of watching eyes reduced the littering behavior. The observation obtained shows clearly that the presence of the watching eye has an influence on the behavior of the people. The littering was reduced because the watching eye gave the impression that someone was watching them, and therefore, they behaved differently compared to the scene where they weren’t a watching eye.

However, they are some research that didn’t show a significant effect on the watching eyes. For instance, a study was also conducted by Ekström 2012 to determine the impact of watching eye on the charitable giving obtained that there was no significant support to shows that watching eye had a significant effect on the generous giving; the picture of the watching eyes had no general effect on charitable giving. This is contrary to what many scholars obtained from their research. A series of experimental studies have been conducted using multiple groups of scholars found that displaying images of watching eye made people behave more prosaically. However, it is not yet clear whether the watching eyes led to an increase in prosocial motivation to people. In the current world, people like to be recognized when they do something useful, such as doing charity. Studies that were previously conducted showed that people were more generous to others when they are other people watching them, or they are the gaze of watching of eyes. There is a high possibility that observation causes a directional increase in the level of prosociality. The hypotheses have been supported by many scholars, including Sylwester & Roberts (2010). Also, experimental studies have shown that even the artificial images of eyes can induce more prosocial b

ehavior Fehr & Schneider (2009). Therefore, more excellent observability action leads to more display of generosity. This is also common in politics where the politicians tend to give more many and goods to the poor or to the people who have been faced with disasters in the presence of other people, but it is very difficult for the same politician to provide money when someone pops into their offices. Thus, watching eyes make people to be and to feel more concerned with conforming to local norms because of watching eyes. The hypotheses created by the scholars suggested that the watching eye makes people conform strictly to local norms compared with the absence of watching eyes (Chudek & Henrich 2011). The study conducted by Fathi, Bateson & Nettle (2014) to determine whether the watching eyes led to increasing charitability showed that there is no significant evidence to support the claim that watching eyes led to an increase in the generosity.

The research question that needs to be answered by the study is; does watch eye affects human behaviors?

The question requires the formulation of the hypothesis that will be used to answer the question. The hypotheses to be used are;

H₀: There is no significant effect of watching eyes on the behavior of human beings

H₁: There is a significant effect of watching eyes on the behavior of human beings

Method

Research Design and Participants

The research was a conclusive design where the study was aimed at answering specific questions at the end. The participants were volunteers who agreed to be included in the study. The age (categorical variable) of the participants was recorded; the ethnicity of the participants was also determined (categorical variable). The order of which the participants recorded the questions was also determined (categorical variable) and finally the score of the participants when they were in front of flowers and the watching eyes was recorded (numeric variables)

39 participants took part in the research. There were general-knowledge multiple-choice exam questions that were supposed to be answered by the clients. The questions were supposed to be answered in two different conditions, i.e., in the FLOWERS condition, when they were seated in front of a picture of flowers and the EYES condition when they were sitting in front of a picture of eyes. The exam was designed to provide the participants with the opportunity to cheat. The participants were told to mark the right answers, and they were compensation for every correct answer. Therefore, the controlled the amount they would be paid. There were two exams, i.e., Exam A And Exam B, each containing 50 questions. The exam was based on the Life in the UK test, which addressed the UK’s culture, traditions, events, people, etc. All the gender were involved in the research. Only the participants who volunteered to be part of the study were allowed to be involved in the study.

Procedures and Materials

1. Participants signed up for the study via SONA.
2. Participants were provided an Information Sheet (see Appendix A) upon arriving in the lab for their session with the investigator.
3. Participants were asked to complete a Consent Form (see Appendix B).
4. Participants were asked to complete one of the exams in the FLOWERS condition first. Participants were invited to sit at a desk in a research cubicle. On the wall facing participants was a 150 x 35 mm banner with a picture of flowers (see Appendix D). For every correct response, participants were promised £0.05. After 15 minutes, participants were provided with an answer key, and they were asked to calculate the number of correct responses; the investigator recorded this number. The exam was not collected or marked by the investigator.
5. Participants were asked to complete the other exam in the EYES condition second. Participants were invited to sit at a desk in a different research cubicle. On the wall facing participants was a 150 x 35 mm banner with a picture of eyes (see Appendix D). This condition was otherwise identical to the FLOWERS condition (e.g., participants again calculated the number of correct responses, and the investigator recorded this number). Half of the participants were randomly assigned to complete Exam A (see Appendix E) in the FLOWERS condition followed by Exam B (see Appendix F) in the EYES condition (AB), while the other half were randomly assigned to complete Exam B in the FLOWERS condition followed by Exam A in the EYES condition (BA).
6. Participants received 0.75 credits of RPS for their 45 minutes of participation.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

1. Gender

Table 1.1: Distribution of gender

Table 1.1 shows that 12 Males (30.8 %) participated in the research, while 27 females (69.2 %) participated in the study.

The above information can also be displayed graphically using a pie chart as shown below

Fig 1.1: Bar Chart showing the distribution of the gender

1. Ethnicity

Table 1.2: Distribution of the ethnicity

The table above shows that out of the 39 participants who took part in the research, 16 (41 %) were black and other minority ethnicities, while 23 (59 %) of the participants were white.

The above information can also be displayed graphically using a pie chart as shown below

Fig 1.2: Bar Chart showing the distribution of the Ethnicity

• Order

Table 1.3: Distribution of the Order

The table above shows that 20 participants (51.3 %) started with Exam A followed with Exam B, while 19 participants began with Exam B, followed by Exam A.

The above information can also be displayed graphically using a pie chart as shown below

Fig 1.3: Bar Chart showing the distribution of the Ethnicity

1. Age, Flower, and Eyes

Table 1.4: Descriptive Statistics of Age, Flower, and Eyes

The table below shows that the average age of the participants who took part in the study was 22.62 years (M =22.62). The median age was 22 years. The deviation of the age from the average age was 3.258 (SD =3.258). The distribution of the age was slightly skewed to the right (skewness = 0.618). The average score of the participants who took part in the study with flowers placed in front of them was 35.15 (M = 35.15). The median score was 35. The deviation of the score from the average score was 5.815 (SD = 5.815). The distribution of the score was slightly skewed to the right (skewness = 0.134). The average score of the participants who took part in the study by watching eyes placed in front of them was 32.32 (M=32.22). The median score was 32. The deviation of the score from the average score was 6.888 (SD = 6.888). The distribution of the score was slightly skewed to the right (skewness = 0.378) (Cox, 2010; Chang, Christoffersen & Jacobs, 2013; Kerstens, Mounir & Van de Woestyne, 2011; Jones, Rosco & Pewsey, 2011).

The distribution of the above can be summarized using a histogram as shown below

Fig 1.5: The distribution of Age

Fig 1.5: The distribution of the score of the Flower

Fig 1.6: The distribution of the score of the Watching Eyes

Inferential Statistics

To determine whether there is a significant effect of the watching eyes to the behavior of the human being, we will carry out a t-test to the given data. Below is the output obtained from the t-test.

The first table of the test shows that the mean score of the Exams obtained when the picture of the flowers was put in front of the participants was greater than when a picture of the watching eyes was placed in front of the participants. The relationship between the two scores was obtained to be 59.3 %, and the relationship between the two scores was significant, i.e., P (0.00<0.05). For the t-test, the value of t is -3.142, df is 38, and Sig. is .003 i.e. t (38) = -3.142, p < .05. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected, and we conclude that there is a significant effect of watching eyes on the behavior of human beings (Westerhuis et al. 2010; Mowery, 2011)

Discussion

The results above show that the mean score of the participants when they did the exams in front of the flower was higher than when they were placed in front of the watching eyes. The p-value shows a significant difference between the score of the flowers and the watching eye. These results go in line with what Bateson et al. 2013 obtained and Chudek & Henrich 2011, which showed that there was a significant effect of the watching eyes on the behavior of the people. Thus the results obtained give a clear identification that people frequently cheat when there is no presence of watching eyes. The research design strongly obtained what was needed to answer the research questions. The design was simply perfect. However, there are some studies which showed that there was no significant effect of the watching eyes to the behavior of the people (Fathi, Bateson & Nettle (2014). Thus, future studies need to concentrate more on the effect of watching eyes to charitable behaviors.

References

Bateson, M., Callow, L., Holmes, J. R., Roche, M. L. R., & Nettle, D. (2013). Do images of ‘watching eyes’ induce behaviour that is more pro-social or more normative? A field experiment on littering. PloS one, 8(12), e82055.

Chang, B. Y., Christoffersen, P., & Jacobs, K. (2013). Market skewness risk and the cross section of stock returns. Journal of Financial Economics, 107(1), 46-68.

Cox, N. J. (2010). Speaking Stata: The limits of sample skewness and kurtosis. The Stata Journal, 10(3), 482-495.

Chudek, M., & Henrich, J. (2011). Culture–gene coevolution, norm-psychology and the emergence of human prosociality. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(5), 218-226.

Ekström, M. (2012). Do watching eyes affect charitable giving? Evidence from a field experiment. Experimental Economics, 15(3), 530-546.

Fathi, M., Bateson, M., & Nettle, D. (2014). Effects of watching eyes and norm cues on charitable giving in a surreptitious behavioral experiment. Evolutionary Psychology, 12(5), 147470491401200502.

Fehr, E., & Schneider, F. (2009). Eyes are on us, but nobody cares: are eye cues relevant for strong reciprocity?. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 277(1686), 1315-1323.

Jones, M. C., Rosco, J. F., & Pewsey, A. (2011). Skewness-invariant measures of kurtosis. The American Statistician, 65(2), 89-95.

Kerstens, K., Mounir, A., & Van de Woestyne, I. (2011). Geometric representation of the mean–variance–skewness portfolio frontier based upon the shortage function. European Journal of Operational Research, 210(1), 81-94.

Mowery, B. D. (2011). The paired t-test. Pediatric nursing, 37(6), 320. Available from: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/69931438/paired-t-test

Sylwester, K., & Roberts, G. (2010). Cooperators benefit through reputation-based partner choice in economic games. Biology letters, 6(5), 659-662.

Westerhuis, J. A., van Velzen, E. J., Hoefsloot, H. C., & Smilde, A. K. (2010). Multivariate paired data analysis: multilevel PLSDA versus OPLSDA. Metabolomics, 6(1), 119-128.

Appendix

Table 1.1: Distribution of the gender

Fig 1.1: Bar Chart showing the distribution of the gender

Table 1.2: Distribution of the ethnicity

Fig 1.2: Bar Chart showing the distribution of the Ethnicity

Table 1.3: Distribution of the Order

Fig 1.3: Bar Chart showing the distribution of the Ethnicity

Table 1.4: Descriptive Statistics of Age, Flower and Eyes

Fig 1.5: The distribution of Age

Fig 1.5: The distribution of the score of the Flower

Fig 1.6: The distribution of the score of the Watching Eyes