Person
Melissa Bateson
Behavioural biologist
Researcher who first demonstrated the Watched Eyes Effect in 2006, with colleagues. Her study alternated two images above an honesty-box coffee fund in a university department — a picture of flowers one week, a picture of eyes looking directly at the viewer the next — and found contributions nearly tripled in the weeks the eyes were displayed (see Bateson Coffee Fund Watched-Eyes Study). Referenced, not interviewed.
Episode 135 notes the caveat carefully: the original coffee-fund donation result has not been effectively replicated, though the broader effect has held up in other contexts including littering, bike theft and honest expense reporting.
Discussed in
- Episode 135 — 135-elizabeth-holmes-how-she-deceived-the-world-part-two