How can I get others to do “the right thing” when nobody is looking?

Answer: Put up a picture of “watching eyes”.


We humans are more likely to do “the right thing” when we feel others are watching us. In fact, research has shown that, by simply putting up a picture of “watching eyes”, we can trigger a feeling of being watched in people.

In one study, researchers at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne examined the effect of “watching eyes” on payments for tea and coffee to an honesty box in a university coffee room.

Each week for 10 weeks, the researchers alternated a picture of watching eyes with a picture of flowers.  Amazingly, people paid nearly three times as much for their tea, coffee and milk during the weeks when the watching eyes were looking at them than they did when the flowers were looking at them!

The researchers were very rigorous in their testing:

“Instructions for payment remained constant throughout the experiment, 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.”

Click here to read the whole article: Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting by Melissa Bateson, Daniel Nettle and Gilbert Roberts.

The research team then tested to see whether “watching eyes” could persuade cafeteria users to dispose of their litter at the end of their meal. They found “a halving of the odds of littering in the presence of posters featuring eyes, as compared to posters featuring flowers.”

Furthermore, the “watching eyes” worked regardless of the message on the accompanying notice, ruling out the possibility that the “watching eyes” were simply acting to direct people’s attention to the “please dispose of your litter” message.

Click here to read the study summary.

How can we exploit the “watching eyes” effect in our real world?

Well, I’d whack up a picture of watching eyes, for sure, wherever I had an honesty box system going or where I was wanting people to do “the right thing”, such as to roll up gym mats neatly and return gym equipment to its right spot in the cupboard.

And, most definitely, I would put up some “watching eyes” inside my company’s stationery cupboard!