Watchful gaze that can keep you honest

A pair of staring eyes fixed upon them makes people more honest, according to a study showing that being selfish is more likely when we think we are not being watched.

Psychologists experimented on their unwitting colleagues when they placed a poster with a pair of eyes above an honesty box in their university department's kitchen. They found colleagues were more likely to pay for their coffee and tea when the poster was in place than when it was changed to a picture of flowers.

Melissa Bateson, an evolutionary behaviourist at Newcastle University, said: "I and a few colleagues were interested in seeing whether we could use a few ideas that were knocking around to see if we could manipulate people to pay more money."

Over a period of 10 weeks the scientists periodically changed the poster - which listed the prices of tea, coffee and milk - above the honesty box, alternating between a pair of staring eyes and a bunch of flowers.

They found that when the poster showed the eyes, the 48 colleagues who used the kitchen were more likely to put money in the honesty box. Almost three times as much money was collected on these weeks than during the periods when the poster depicted flowers according to the study published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

Dr Bateson said: "If you could manipulate people in this way it could be quite important in other areas of life where behaving selfishly or co-operatively is relevant... Evolution has set us up to be aware of when we are being looked at by other people. When we know we are on our own, it's probably in our best interests to be selfish."