Artificial surveillance cues do not increase generosity: two meta-analyses
Northover and colleagues asked whether artificial signs of being watched, such as pictures of eyes, make people more generous. Earlier studies had suggested that anonymous people who see such cues behave as if real people were watching, but several replications had failed. The authors pooled the experiments in two meta-analyses, one on how much people gave and one on whether they gave anything at all. They found no evidence that the cues increase generosity on either measure, and concluded that surveillance cue effects should be interpreted cautiously. The paper concerns generosity and does not address whether such cues reduce antisocial behaviour.
Northover and colleagues asked whether artificial signs of being watched, such as pictures of eyes, make people more generous. Earlier studies had suggested that anonymous people who see such cues behave as if real people were watching, but several replications had failed. The authors pooled the experiments in two meta-analyses, one on how much people gave and one on whether they gave anything at all. They found no evidence that the cues increase generosity on either measure, and concluded that surveillance cue effects should be interpreted cautiously. The paper concerns generosity and does not address whether such cues reduce antisocial behaviour.
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Northover, S. B., Pedersen, W. C., Cohen, A. B., & Andrews, P. W. (2017). Artificial surveillance cues do not increase generosity: two meta-analyses. Evolution and Human Behavior, 38(1), 144-153. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.07.001