Post by Tamrin on Dec 24, 2012 9:36:30 GMT 10
Then, Brethren, let us remember that wherever we are, or whatever we do, His all-seeing eye observes us, and whilst we continue to act as faithful Craftsmen, let us not fail to discharge our duty to Him with fervency and zeal.
Please bear-in-mind that the all-seeing eye is a common emblem in many cultures, predating its known usage among Freemasons.
Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting
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.
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 experiment, and were posted on a black and white A5-sized (148 mm high X 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 X 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 approximately 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 manipulation 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 anonymous, 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.
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: F1,7 = 11.551, p = 0.011) but not week (F1,7 = 0.074, p = 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 (mean ± s.e.= 0.417 ± 0.081 £ per litre) than with flowers (0.151 ± 0.030 £ per litre). There was no evidence that image type affected consumption.