Researchers into behaviour at the University of Newcastle, in northeast England, conducted a sly experiment on their colleagues, by using the psychology department’s common room, or leisure area, as a test site.
The room has an honesty box in it, in which academics are asked to pay for the tea, coffee and milk they use. Over ten weeks the researchers placed a sign on the door of the cupboard where the box was. Pictures of flowers, on the sign, were then alternated with pictures of eyes.
On the weeks when the eyes were shown takings in the honesty box were up 276 percent than during the weeks when the flower picture was there.
But why were the eyes so effective? The researchers believe shame could be the answer, writing in their study to be published by Britain’s Royal Society, that people are "strongly attuned" to subconscious cues about behaviour which could damage their reputation.