Comments on: The Honesty Experiment

By: ferrocyanide

ferrocyanide — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:14:45 +0000

Notice that the eyes looking straight forward cause the greatest reactions. The first flower picture from the top made people pay more than the second eye picture. Maybe it’s about symmetry or something.

By: Johnny87

Johnny87 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 19:11:16 +0000

I think people are reading too much into the significance of the flowers. The way I saw it was, flowers are a generic decoration that you wouldn’t associate with the coffee, whereas the eyes make people think “What’s with the eyes? Big brother or what? Oh yeah, the coffee…”

Be interesting to repeat this with some method of working out whether more people were paying up, or whether the people who pay were paying more. Maybe a secret camera, but that might defeat the object by validating people’s paranoia.

By: donna

donna — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:18:15 +0000

Flowers are generally a gift, so maybe people perceived that they didn’t need to pay since they were being given a “gift”…

By: Pudifoot

Pudifoot — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 05:40:46 +0000

i don’t think it is the eyes that make people honest. It seems to me that flowers make people evil!!!!

By: robgonzo

robgonzo — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 20:36:00 +0000

so from now on I’m going to put a picture of eyes on anything I leave in the breakroom fridge…

By: AWOL

AWOL — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 19:41:02 +0000

I know the picture is a very limited sample, but it’s kind of interesting how the men’s eyes seem to generate more “honesty”.

But again, there are only two men, two woman and what i can only guess is an androgenous vampire in the middle there…

By: estapler

estapler — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:14:15 +0000

Veronica Loughran: “How much money did you leave up there?”
Dante: “Like three dollars in mixed change and a couple of singles. This time in the morning, people just get a paper or coffee.”
Veronica: “You’re trusting.”
Dante: “Why do you say that?”
Veronica: “How do you know they’re taking the right amount of change or even paying for what they take.”
Dante: “Theoretically, people see money on the counter, no one around, they think they’re being watched.”
Veronica: “Honesty through paranoia.”

-Clerks

By: Vako

Vako — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 15:43:35 +0000

Flower-power vs. Big Brother… One is good for productivity and function. The other is dysfunctional.

Very interesting little piece of research. And very telling. (assuming it was conducted true).

Democracy = entropy and failure.

Authority = balance and functionality.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:49:53 +0000

Look at that last set of eyes - I can see why people were the most honest that week.

By: Zach

Zach — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 14:38:51 +0000

This has been done. I think I read about it in Freakonomics. It was a man who sold bagels on the honor system at offices. He added eyes and stealing decreased.

By: k

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:33:41 +0000

That’s really cool. I like how big of a difference there is from picture to picture.