It's no surprise that people are more honest when they know that they're being watched. But what about just reminding them of the idea of being watched, without them actually being watched?
For years, people at the University of Newcastle's Division of Psychology have an honor (or trust) system where they are requested to deposit payment for coffee in an "honesty box." There was a note saying how much they should pay.
In 2006, Melissa Bateson and colleagues decided to do a little experiment: they placed an image above the note. They alternate between two pictures: one week they would use a picture of eyes and the other week, flowers.
After 10 weeks, they plotted the amount of money received versus drinks consumed and found that people paid nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed!
Here's the study: Link [PDF] - via Think or Thwim
Very interesting little piece of research. And very telling. (assuming it was conducted true).
Democracy = entropy and failure.
Authority = balance and functionality.
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
But again, there are only two men, two woman and what i can only guess is an androgenous vampire in the middle there...
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.