Two eyes are enough to influence our behavior

Having worked in marketing for many years, I've realized that people often overestimate themselves and their ability not to be influenced by external stimuli.

I'm sure instead that we are more easily influenced than we sometimes think.

In this regard, some studies are meaningful.

The instinctual perception of being seen elicits cooperative behavior

In a Newcastle University experiment in 2006, researchers placed simple images of pairs of eyes staring at people in their university coffee room. 

In the coffee room there was also an honesty box where anyone could freely leave a contribution to repay the tea, coffee and milk they had drunk.

Finally, “people paid nearly three times (2.76) as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather than a control image” depicting flowers.

According to researchers, “although participants were not actually observed in either of our experimental conditions, the human perceptual system contains neurons that respond selectively to stimuli involving faces and eyes” - who knows if this can also explain the universal success of emoticons?

“It is therefore possible that the images exerted an automatic and unconscious effect on the participants’ perception that they were being watched”.

On the other hand, the researchers themselves admitted the possible limitations of their experiment: what would happen in a place where, unlike the coffee room usually frequented by the same people, “the population is more transient and the costs of not cooperating fall on strangers”?

Another doubt: what if the eye effect depended on verbal instructions that indicated prices and invited people to pay (according to this hypothesis, eyes would “only” serve to grab people's attention, directing it towards verbal instructions)?

An eye effect that arouses respectful and responsible attitudes

That’s why the same Newcastle research team returned to this subject a few years later with another experiment, which this time took place in a university cafeteria where customers may or may not clean up their table after consuming. 

This time around, the odds of patrons clearing tables of their waste doubled “in the presence of posters featuring eyes, as compared to posters featuring flowers”.

The eye effect, therefore, also unfolded in places (such as the self-clearing cafeteria) frequented by hundreds of different people who could not know each other.

Plus, the effect did not seem to depend on verbal messages: “this effect was independent of whether the poster exhorted litter clearing or contained an unrelated message”.

Moreover, the "eye effect" intensified when the cafeteria was not crowded: in short, the inanimate gaze became more penetrating when there were few people around - in the presence of real people, their animated gaze is much more influential.

The two experiments had an indisputable strength: they both took place in a real life context (a coffee room and a cafeteria), guaranteeing their ecological validity, and people didn't know they were participating in an experiment, thereby producing spontaneous behaviors.

Tacit cues of social scrutiny could also work in anonymity

Much research suggested that cooperation and prosocial behaviors are deeply fueled by the chances of forming and consolidating a good reputation. 

After all, the need for social approval seems so strong that it reveals even when the two eyes gazing us are just a trivial photo.

Over the years, moreover, many other studies highlighted how cooperativity can be stimulated by cues that usually indicate social scrutiny, even in a situation of anonymity.

In 2004, researchers from the University of California ran an experiment to figure out how decision making and intuitive judgments can be influenced by subtle and tacit cues of observability. 

To this end, they “conducted five dictator games, manipulating both auditory cues of the presence of others (via the use of sound-deadening earmuffs) and visual cues (via the presentation of stylized eyespots)”. 

Unlike earmuffs, “eyespots substantially increased generosity, despite no differences in actual anonymity; when using a computer displaying eyespots, almost twice as many participants gave money to their partners compared with the controls”.

Cooperative and altruistic behaviors, therefore, are also performed in anonymous games that consist of a single interaction, without any possibility of improving one's reputation.

Designing a social setting is about leading choices and behaviors

These and other studies urge us not to overlook those apparently-residual environmental signals, which can unknowingly influence our decisions and behaviors.

And this is true both for a physical (the coffee room or the cafeteria) and a digital setting (the interface of websites and mobile apps): small cues can steer choices and actions. 

It's controversial: what differentiates an organization aiming to promote selfless actions (such as making donations to a charity) from an organization that uses the same techniques for less noble goals (such as selling products or influencing voting)?

However, we must keep all of this in mind.

We must keep this in mind as communication players - when we have to design an appropriate context to receive our message.

We must keep this in mind as communication recipients, when our perceptions can be influenced by apparently slight environmental signals - even if we often don't realize it.

Think of two simple printed eyes staring at us, leveraging our ancestral need for social approval.