Our lives are becoming increasingly public and archived. Social psychologists have known for a long time that being watched can change the way people behave, but the concept of “being watched” might mean something very different in the age of Google Earth. What can contemporary research tell us about the effects of surveillance on behavior?
Earlier this quarter, I was sharing some of the ideas outlined below with my friends at Cal Poly’s Pony Prints office. They have an “honor system” for students buying Scantrons, blue books, and other supplies, and I suggested that they might receive more payments if they applied the findings of Bateson, Nettle, and Roberts (2006) described below. Having an image of eyes apparently makes people feel “watched,” and they’re more likely to behave prosocially. We’ll see, but it looks like there is quite a bit of money in that container now!
Classic Psychological Studies of Self-Awareness
In 1950, Henry Landsberger used the term “Hawthorne Effect” to describe the impact of being observed on worker productivity at a Western Electric factory of the 1920s and 1930s. The intent of the original studies was to assess the ideal amount of light for worker productivity. Instead, the studies showed that the attention paid to the workers had a far more potent effect on their productivity. These studies are usually raised during discussions of the use of naturalistic observation as a research method. Observers always run the risk that their presence will
influence the way their participants behave.
In addition to enhancing worker productivity, being observed can also affect a person’s moral judgment. Beamer, Klentz, Diener, and Svanum (1979) conducted a series of studies in which young children were instructed to “take only one candy” at a Halloween trick-or-treat stop. When a mirror was placed above the candy bowl, allowing each child to see his or her image, compliance with the instructions was increased.
Deindividuation and Self-Awareness
Deindividuation refers to becoming anonymous. Deindividuation can occur in groups, such as mobs of looters, leading to antisocial behavior. Deindividuation is a reduction of self-awareness, and just as self-awareness has been associated with more positive behavior, anonymity is associated with more negative behavior. Attempting to remain anonymous through the use of a mask or disguise while committing a crime might simply be self-preservation, but other evidence points to the ability of anonymity to encourage negative behavior in those who might otherwise behave prosocially. For example, the level of uncivil discourse on message boards that are anonymous is much higher than insituations like Facebook where a person’s comments are matched to his or her identity.
In the Beamer et al. (1979) study mentioned above, reducing children’s deindividuation by asking them to state their names and addresses also had a strong effect on their compliance with the “one candy” rule.
Being Watched and Prosocial Behavior
In an update of the Beamer et al. Halloween candy study, Bateson, Nettle, and Roberts (2006) observed people’s behavior at an honor coffee bar when a poster with two eyes alternated with posters of flowers above the bar. People were more likely to pay for their share of coffee taken during the weeks featuring the eye posters than during weeks featuring the flower posters. If just the illusion of being watched promotes more prosocial behavior, what happens when we are really being watched?
Controversial cases in which individuals were killed by police officers have led to much interest in body cameras. Do these actually have an impact? A preliminary one-year study in Rialto, California suggests that they do. Use of force by police in Rialto was 2.5 times higher before the cameras were used, and complaints against the police dropped by 87%. The cameras appear to have played a preventive role for both police and the individuals with whom they interact through their ability to record evidence of an interaction.
The Future of Being Watched
Human beings are adaptive. Although we currently appear to respond to surveillance by behaving in more prosocial ways, there is no guarantee that this will always be the case. For many people today, the concept of being “on camera” is still novel. As time progresses, we may habituate to the ubiquitous cameras and we may simply “behave.” Only time and more research will show us if being watched will continue to have the same effects as today.
15 Comments
emmanishimura96 · December 4, 2015 at 11:14 pm
I found the idea of being watched and how it will evolve in our modern society to be a very interesting concept. I and many others worry that growing technology will lead to “too much surveillance”, stripping us of our freedoms and privacy, but I never stopped to think about the fact that all of this could actually make our behaviors more pro social. In my opinion, the small effect that this would have on making people behave better is still not enough to make total surveillance a good option. However I would like to see the complete data on the study to see how large of an effect being watched truly has.
hannahphelps · January 27, 2016 at 2:12 pm
Learning about this phenomenon was very thought-provoking for me. I took social psychology last year and a lot of what was discussed reminded me of concepts explored in this article. In reading about deindividualization, I thought of groupthink, defined as the “psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome”. It seems to be the same idea that, when one does not feel the pressure (or eyes) on him/herself, antisocial behavior may be more likely. This connects to the studies on the eye posters, etc. mentioned in that the pressure from others to act in a moral way given an “honor system” type situation can be manipulated by observers/outside factors.
rzehnder · January 31, 2016 at 8:29 pm
I find the concept of being watched really interesting when looking at people and what type of religion they believe in. For example, in Catholicism, Christianity, etc. the belief that a deity is constantly watching over you and judging your behavior likely has a big effect on your actions. It would be interesting to compare how people who follow these religions act to people who have faith in a religion such as buddhism.
vimorris@calpoly.edu · April 9, 2016 at 9:36 am
There are multiple areas when I have seen the changed result when there becomes associating between performance and identity as the post discusses. I played lacrosse for 8 years and players whose parents would come to watch not only games but also practices were often driven to work harder and be more aggressive. However in this instance I would argue knowing they were being watched and critiqued had a negative impact on the way they viewed the team as a whole. Winning and losing games was no longer how the team did but was taken by these players as a reflection of themselves.
estrickf · April 23, 2016 at 2:14 pm
The effects of surveillance on behavior are bound to change in the near future as privacy becomes less available via google maps, hidden cameras, and maybe personal ID chips inserted into us. It seems that there is a very high correlation between good behavior and being identified. The case studies in your article describe this phenomenon well. With the police officers that had body cameras, this idea seems like a simple solution to promote better behavior and act with more integrity. It will be interesting to see this same idea applied to individuals that have an ID chip implanted in them to see if they behave in similar ways and how it affects dishoneset actions.
estrickf · April 23, 2016 at 2:15 pm
The effects of surveillance on behavior are bound to change in the near future as privacy becomes less available via google maps, hidden cameras, and maybe personal ID chips inserted into us. It seems that there is a very high correlation between good behavior and being identified. The case studies in your article describe this phenomenon well. With the police officers that had body cameras, this idea seems like a simple solution to promote better behavior and act with more integrity. It will be interesting to see this same idea applied to individuals that have an ID chip implanted in them to see if they behave in similar ways and how it affects dishonest actions.
annahempill · May 8, 2016 at 9:15 pm
I have noticed that being watched or even having the feeling of being watched greatly influences individuals. It was very interesting for me to read this article to see the evidence for these thoughts. I was not shocked by the results of these studies because I have seen first hand how people will react differently if they are told their are video cameras in a store or see themselves on a projected tv screen in a grocery store when they first walk in. I work at Einsteins on campus and people will steal items when we are too busy making sandwiches to look up and watch every single move made by customers. Many times people will try to take orders off the counter they did not pay for, but whenever I watch an order after I place it on the counter, people think twice about trying to take it because there is a pair of eyes on them. Perhaps this has to do with the mindset that if no one saw them do it, it must not be a wrong thing to do.
Bcrowley712 · May 31, 2016 at 7:36 am
There are a lot of things that I do not realize unless they are pointed out to me. This is one of them. When looking at it I realize that I behave more appropriately when I know people are watching. When my uncle passed away about 4 years ago, I constantly did not want to do anything bad because I felt he was up in heaven watching me, shaking his head whenever I did something bad. So it makes sense to me that when people know they are being watched they will act differently. Even with google earth or google maps, people are being watched. You can look on google earth and see people out on their driveway, or playing outside, and its weird, but also it makes you think about the fact that we are constantly being watched. The more society progresses and technology progresses, the more we will be watched. It almost reminds me of 1984 and that Big Brother is always watching. With the google maps van driving around video taping people’s front lawns, or the GPS satellites that map out the entire world, its no wonder people are acting with more integrity; they’re always being watched!
alexandrabush · May 31, 2016 at 1:24 pm
I believe that people are more moral when people can see them. My philosophy teacher told us that if the best person and the worst person were both given the ability to be invisible, they would act the same way. This is because invisibility corrupts. People are more likely to do something wrong if they believe that they can get away with it. Most people are not going to steal or cheat if they think they will get caught. People that do those bad or immoral things believe that they can get away with it. When someone believes that they are being watched, they will put on their best behavior and do everything that they are supposed to out of fear.
RyanRobertson · June 2, 2016 at 4:50 pm
This is an interesting topic, especially in the growing age of social media. It makes me think how people overall will change their behavior as a result of everyone’s actions ending up on Facebook or Twitter. This post reminded me of a place I used to work at that had fake cameras set up everywhere just to discourage theft and vandalism. I’m sure this is probably a common practice, but I always thought that was funny.
brittanymertzel · October 16, 2016 at 4:58 pm
Wow, what an interesting article! I feel that surveillance really is used a lot in the society today, but it just influences a person to have more integrity. I never thought about the photo of eyes placed by a “self pay” location but was shocked when reading about the poster of flowers vs. the poster of eyes. Do people think they are being watched and feel more inclined to paying? Thats definitely what it seems like. Another example was the mirror placed behind the Halloween candy. This must make the child feel like they are being “looked” at in some way. This entire article was so new to me and I will be taking this Halloween candy idea into mind when Halloween comes around in about 2 weeks! Thanks.
Charlene Niku · November 28, 2016 at 12:27 pm
I definitely see how being watched versus being anonymous can change how a person acts. Our behaviors are linked to our names and who we are. If we think about social media, what we post online can potentially be seen my anyone and therefore, we tend to post pictures and statuses that make us look good when we are using Facebook, Instagram, etc – media with a name attached to every post. However, on other forms of sites, comments can be anonymous and that is usually when the cruelty kicks in. I think the studies conducted are really interesting – from a young age, we tend to follow directions better when we feel or know we are being watched (as demonstrated by the trick-or-treat experiment with children facing a mirror). As we get older, we still tend to behave more positively if under surveillance. It seems somewhat creepy and uncomfortable to think that we are constantly being watched, but some who hold strong religious beliefs, being watched by God is a reminder of being protected, and a reminder to perform good deeds rather than being hurtful. Perhaps the studies in this article can serve as reminder that whether or not we believe in a higher power watching over us, or whether or not we are actually being “watched” at any given moment, we should aim to behave pro-socially and act as though we are being watched in order to promote kinder behavior.
rachelcarlson · March 14, 2017 at 9:43 am
I have noticed the eyes in the Poly Print shop. If I am not mistaken, they are a recent addition. I recall seeing people swiping scantrons from the library as a first year, and I may or may not have done this, too. Now that the eyes are there, it is far more intimidating.
For Christmas, my roommate received an Amazon Alexa which she set it up in our living room when we returned from break. Over break, I had heard a few stories about how Alexa is always listening: recently, in fact, she is said to have witnessed a murder. Now, Amazon is being pressed to release the recordings. What!? As if it isn’t bad enough that Alexa is constantly listening. For the first few weeks I was back, I was very suspicious of Alexa and wonder what it is she could be recording. Who is able to access this? I have definitely been more careful about what I say now that I know Alexa could be “listening”.
Amy Edelstein · May 14, 2017 at 12:29 pm
This post made me reflect on many topics that I learned in social psychology. Our behaviors are definitely linked to our names and whether or not our identity is being displayed publicly. I couldn’t help but think about social media and how we put ourselves on our platform for the whole world to see. Someone from Japan can easily find my Instagram page here in America – does this change the way I choose to display my life? I am fully aware that my social media is basically a public platform, and thus, I am much more careful with what I choose to post and share with the whole world. This brings me to my next point: catfish. While some people might be confused about the word “catfish”, it is a popular term used on social media where the person behind the screen – the person running the social media account – is not the same person portrayed in his/her pictures and posts. This trend has led to increased cyber bulling, kidnaps, and dangerous online dating. The person controlling the social media account is detached, or attempting deindividuation, through a computer screen. The computer screen or phone is blocking his/her identity, therefore, he/she feels more confident in committing negative or harmful behavior on social media sights. As today’s modern age continuously depends on the advancements of technology and communication through social media, I can only wonder if people’s morals and intentions will become increasingly negative as they become more and more confident behind the disguise of the computer screen.
Britnee Archambault · February 12, 2018 at 11:24 pm
I have always felt pressured to act more moral than I usually would when I am being watched versus not being watched. Not only do i act differently when eyes are laid on me, whether it being a picture/poster, camera, or an actual person, but I also am creeped out. I have never liked the feeling of being watched. It makes me feel under pressure, hence the reason people behave better while being watched. I doubt this concept will change in the future. I do not know why, but people’s natural instinct is to behave in a perfect manner when they are watched. When nobody is around I do things that are injustice (such as making an illegal turn when nobody is around), but when I know someone is near me and has the opportunity to watch me, I do not commit such wrongful acts because I know there are witnesses around me that may rat me out if I were to get in trouble. Another issue is that I feel as if i’m always being watched. Most of the places you go now a days have cameras and are watching your every move; there are cameras monitoring the streets, inside and outside stores, inside and outside house, and there are even people who hack into your computer and are able to watch you through your own laptop camera. #trustnobody