People really DO donate more to charity when they're being watched! Just a photograph of a pair of eyes is enough to guilt someone into giving up their cash, study finds
- Researchers from the University of Virginia collected data on 34,100 people
- Found that the mere sight of eyes can trigger a desire to be more generous
- Across all visitors, this sign would put donations up 80 per cent a week.
Extensive: Researchers from the University of Virginia collected data on 34,100 people
People donate more money to good causes when they are being watched – even when the eyes aren’t real.
Just a photograph of a pair of eyes on a sign is enough to guilt someone into giving up their money, a study has found.
When a sign including eyes was put on a museum donation box, people gave almost a penny more on average. Across all visitors, this sign would put donations up 80 per cent a week.
The research, from the University of Virginia, is the latest to find that people behave more charitably when they think they are being watched. A photograph of eyes can remind people they are in public and at risk of being judged for behaving kindly or badly.
The experiment collected data on more than 34,100 people visiting a children’s museum in the US over 28 weeks, counting up their donations when faced with a sign including eyes, ears, a nose or chairs.
The eyes increased the average person’s donation by one cent (three quarters of a penny), the results show. As more than 1,200 people visited the museum each week, this added up to 15 dollars (£9.10 a week), which almost doubled voluntary contributions.
Lead author Caroline Kelsey, from the department of psychology at the University of Virginia, said: ‘The presence of eyes enhances people’s reputational concern and motivates them to engage in self-presentational behaviours.’
Eyes have such a powerful effect because people tend to cooperate and act socially responsibly when they are being watched.
Previous studies have found people put more money in supermarket charity buckets when there are eyes painted on the bucket, and recycle more often when a photograph of eyes is on top of a recycling bank.
The psychology behind it: Eyes have such a powerful effect because people tend to cooperate and act socially responsibly when they are being watched, experts believe
The latest study, published in the journal Human Nature, was done in a public place, so the pictured eyes could remind people of the eyes all around them.
The money box had the message ‘donations will be appreciated’ and pictures of various facial features or chairs were alternated at random. The one cent extra donation was seen for the eyes pictures compared to images of chairs.
The study states: ‘Participants donated more when they were exposed to eyes than to inanimate objects. We thus replicated the previously reported watching-eyes effect.’
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