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Cues of Being Watched Enhance Cooperation in a Real-World Setting

October 2006
Biology Letters 2(3):412-4

DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0509

Source
PubMed

Authors:

Melissa Bateson

Newcastle University

Daniel Nettle

Newcastle University

Gilbert Roberts

We examined the effect of an image of a pair of eyes on contributions to an honesty box used to collect money for drinks in a university coffee room. People paid nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather than a control image. This finding provides the first evidence from a naturalistic setting of the importance of cues of being watched, and hence reputational concerns, on human cooperative behaviour.

Pounds paid per litre of milk consumed as a function of week and image type.

…

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Biol. Lett. (2006) 2, 412–414

doi:10.1098/rsbl.2006.0509

Published online 27 June 2006

Cues of being watched

enhance cooperation in

a real-world setting

Melissa Bateson

, Daniel Nettle

and Gilbert Roberts

Evolution and Behaviour Research Group, School of Biology and

Psychology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Henry Wellcome

Building for Neuroecology, Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne

NE2 4HH, UK

*Author for correspondence (melissa.bateson@ncl.ac.uk).

We examined the effect of an image of a pair of

eyes on contributions to an honesty box used to

collect money for drinks in a university coffee

room. People paid nearly three times as much

for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather

than a control image. This ﬁnding provides the

ﬁrst evidence from a naturalistic setting of the

importance of cues of being watched, and hence

reputational concerns, on human cooperative

behaviour.

Keywords: cooperative behaviour; altruism;

reputation; eyespots

1. INTRODUCTION

People tend to be generous, even toward unrelated

individuals (Fehr & Fischbacher 2003). This is true

even in situations where there is no prospect of repeat

interaction, and hence no potential for direct recipro-

city (Gintis et al.2003). A possible mechanism

maintaining generosity, where direct reciprocity is

absent, is the motivation to maintain a pro-social

reputation (Alexander 1987; Roberts 1998).

Theoretical models show that cooperation in sizeable

groups can, in theory, be maintained where potential

partners have information about a person’s past

behaviour and use it in making decisions about intera-

ction (Nowak & Sigmund 1998; Panchanathan &

Boyd 2004). In indirect reciprocity models of this

kind, individuals with a history of non-cooperation

are shunned and thus pay a long-term cost for their

behaviour. Consistent with such models, laboratory

experiments have shown that people increase their

levels of cooperation when they know their behaviour

is being observed by others, and also use reputational

information in deciding how to interact with others

(Milinski et al. 2002a,b; Wedekind & Braithwaite

2002; Barclay 2004).

Recent studies have shown that even when subjects

are told they are anonymous, they respond to subtle

cues of being watched, such as the presence of eye-like

spots on the background of the computer on which they

complete the task (Haley & Fessler 2005; Burnham &

Hare in press). However, these studies were based on

artiﬁcial laboratory scenarios, and the effects of such

cues on naturally occurring cooperative behaviour

remain to be demonstrated. Here, we investigate

whether subtle cues of being watched can increase

contributions to a public good in a real-world setting

where people have the option of contributing or not,

using their own money. Speciﬁcally, we test the

hypothesis that participants will contribute more money

to an honesty box (also known as an honour box) in the

presence of an image of a pair of eyes than in the

presence of a control image of ﬂowers.

2. MATERIAL AND METHODS

Participants came from a population of 48 members (25 females

and 23 males) of the Division of Psychology at the University of

Newcastle, who had the option to pay for tea and coffee via an

honesty box. This system of payment for drinks had been in place

for several years prior to the commencement of the current study.

Instructions for payment remained constant throughout the experi-

ment, and were posted on a black and white A5-sized (148 mm

high!210 mm wide) notice. The notice was displayed at eye height

on a cupboard door located above a counter on which was situated

the honesty box and also the coffee and tea making equipment; the

fridge containing the milk was below the same counter. The notice

featured a 150!35 mm banner that alternated each week between

an image of a pair of eyes and an image of ﬂowers printed above

the prices for tea, coffee and milk (30, 50 and 10 pence,

respectively). A different image was used each week to control for

any effects attributable to a single image. The images of eyes varied

in the sex and head orientation, but were all chosen such that the

eyes were looking directly at the observer. In addition to the notice,

all members of the department were informed by email approxi-

mately every six months about the arrangements for payment for

tea and coffee; the most recent reminder was sent approximately

one month prior to the commencement of this study. From the

perspective of the participants, the only change introduced at the

start of the experiment was the inclusion of the image banner on

the notice. Participants were naive to the purposes of the manipu-

lation and none reported being aware of these. The layout of the

coffee room is such that it is unlikely that anyone failing to pay

would be observed. Hence, contributions were effectively anon-

ymous, and participants could choose whether and how much to

pay for their drinks.

Each week we recorded the total amount of money collected in

the honesty box. Throughout the period of the study, supplies of

tea, coffee and milk were maintained to keep up with demand, and

each week, the volume of milk consumed was recorded as the best

index available of total beverage consumption. We computed the

ratio of money collected to the volume of milk consumed in each

week to control for weekly variation in consumption.

3. RESULTS

The ratio of money collected to milk consumed for

each of the 10 weeks is shown in ﬁgure 1, along with

the image on the banner for that week. Contribution

levels always increased with the transition from

ﬂowers to eyes, and decreased with the transition

from eyes to ﬂowers. A general linear model with

factors image type (ﬁxed) and week (covariate) ﬁtted

to log-transformed data explained 63.8% of the

variance. There was a signiﬁcant main effect of image

type (eyes versus ﬂowers: F

1,7

Z11.551, pZ0.011)

but not week (F

1,7

Z 0.074, p Z 0.794). The

interaction between image type and week was omitted

from the model because it was not signiﬁcant. On

average, people paid 2.76 times as much in the weeks

with eyes (meanGs.e.Z0.417G0.081 £ per litre) than

with ﬂowers (0.151G0.030 £ per litre). There was no

evidence that image type affected consumption.

4. DISCUSSION

Our results show that an image of a pair of eyes

appearing to observe behaviour dramatically increases

contribution to a public good in a real-world context

where participants were behaving naturally and using

their own money.

Received 14 April 2006

Accepted 2 June 2006

412 q 2006 The Royal Society

Why does an image of a pair of eyes motivate

cooperative behaviour? While it is possible that the

eyes were simply more effective than the ﬂowers at

attracting people’s attention to the notice, we do not

believe that this is the explanation for our ﬁndings.

The participants had all been informed prior to the

experiment that they were supposed to pay for their

drinks. Furthermore, the notice was positioned such

that it was not possible that anyone making drinks

would fail to see it, irrespective of the image

displayed.

Instead, we believe that images of eyes motivate

cooperative behaviour because they induce a percep-

tion in participants of being watched. Although

participants were not actually observed in either of

our experimental conditions, the human perceptual

system contains neurons that respond selectively to

stimuli involving faces and eyes (Emery 2000; Haxby

et al. 2000), and it is therefore possible that the

images exerted an automatic and unconscious effect

on the participants’ perception that they were being

watched. Our results therefore support the hypothesis

that reputational concerns may be extremely powerful

in motivating cooperative behaviour.

Our ﬁndings have practical interest for those

designing honesty-based systems, or wishing to maxi-

mize contributions to public goods. They also have

theoretical implications. Faced with the relative gen-

erosity of human cooperation, even when interactions

are explicitly anonymous and not repeated, some

scholars have argued that humans are not always

maximizers of individual self-interest (Camerer &

Fehr 2006), but instead have been shaped to be

pro-social or other-regarding by a history of group

selection (Gintis 2000; Gintis et al. 2003). A simpler

explanation is simply that humans are strongly

attuned to cues that generally indicate reputational

consequences of behaviour (Burnham & Johnson

2005; Haley & Fessler 2005). If even very weak,

subconscious cues, such as the photocopied eyes used

in this experiment, can strongly enhance cooperation,

it is quite possible that the cooperativeness observed

in other studies results from the presence in the

experimental environment of subtle cues evoking the

psychology of being observed. The power of these

subconscious cues may be sufﬁcient to override the

explicit instructions of the experimenter to the effect

that behaviour is anonymous. If this interpretation is

correct, then the self-interested motive of reputation

maintenance may be sufﬁcient to explain cooperation

in the absence of direct return.

M.B. is funded by a Royal Society University Research

Fellowship. We thank T. Burnham for sending us his

unpublished manuscripts.

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aid

er litre of milk consumed

image

time

(weeks)

eye weeks

flower weeks

0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

Figure 1. Pounds paid per litre of milk consumed as a function of week and image type.

Eyes promote cooperation M. Bateson and others 413

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Full-text available

Jul 2000

Face perception, perhaps the most highly developed visual skill in humans, is mediated by a distributed neural system in humans that is comprised of multiple, bilateral regions. We propose a model for the organization of this system that emphasizes a distinction between the representation of invariant and changeable aspects of faces. The representation of invariant aspects of faces underlies the recognition of individuals, whereas the representation of changeable aspects of faces, such as eye gaze, expression, and lip movement, underlies the perception of information that facilitates social communication. The model is also hierarchical insofar as it is divided into a core system and an extended system. The core system is comprised of occipitotemporal regions in extrastriate visual cortex that mediate the visual analysis of faces. In the core system, the representation of invariant aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the fusiform gyrus, whereas the representation of changeable aspects is mediated more by the face-responsive region in the superior temporal sulcus. The extended system is comprised of regions from neural systems for other cognitive functions that can be recruited to act in concert with the regions in the core system to extract meaning from faces.

Strong Reciprocity and Human Sociality

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2000

Herbert Gintis

Human groups maintain a high level of sociality despite a low level of relatedness among group members. This paper reviews the evidence for an empirically identifiable form of prosocial behavior in humans, which we call "strong reciprocity", that may in part explain human sociality. A strong reciprocator is predisposed to cooperate with others and punish non-cooperators, even when this behavior cannot be justified in terms of extended kinship or reciprocal altruism. We present a simple model, stylized but plausible, of the evolutionary emergence of strong reciprocity.

Trustworthiness and competitive altruism can also solve the “Tragedy of the Commons”

Article

Jul 2004
EVOL HUM BEHAV

Pat Barclay

The benefits of a good reputation can help explain why some individuals are willing to be altruistic in situations where they will not receive direct benefits. Recent experiments on indirect reciprocity have shown that when people stand to benefit from having a good reputation, they are more altruistic towards groups and charities. However, it is unknown whether indirect reciprocity is the only thing that can cause such an effect. Individuals may be altruistic because it will make them more trustworthy. In this study, I show that participants in a cooperative group game contribute more to their group when they expect to play a dyadic trust game afterwards, and that participants do tend to trust altruistic individuals more than nonaltruistic individuals. I also included a condition where participants had to choose only one person to trust (instead of being able to trust all players) in the dyadic trust game that followed the cooperative group game, and contributions towards the group were maintained best in this condition. This provides some evidence that competition for scarce reputational benefits can help maintain cooperative behaviour because of competitive altruism.

The Biology of Moral Systems

Book

Jan 1987

Richard D. Alexander

The Eyes Have It: The Neuroethology, Function and Evolution of Social Gaze

Article

Sep 2000
NEUROSCI BIOBEHAV R

Nathan J Emery

Gaze is an important component of social interaction. The function, evolution and neurobiology of gaze processing are therefore of interest to a number of researchers. This review discusses the evolutionary role of social gaze in vertebrates (focusing on primates), and a hypothesis that this role has changed substantially for primates compared to other animals. This change may have been driven by morphological changes to the face and eyes of primates, limitations in the facial anatomy of other vertebrates, changes in the ecology of the environment in which primates live, and a necessity to communicate information about the environment, emotional and mental states. The eyes represent different levels of signal value depending on the status, disposition and emotional state of the sender and receiver of such signals. There are regions in the monkey and human brain which contain neurons that respond selectively to faces, bodies and eye gaze. The ability to follow another individual's gaze direction is affected in individuals with autism and other psychopathological disorders, and after particular localized brain lesions. The hypothesis that gaze following is "hard-wired" in the brain, and may be localized within a circuit linking the superior temporal sulcus, amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex is discussed.