Watching eyes on potential litter can reduce littering: evidence from two field experiments

• Main Authors: Melissa Bateson, Rebecca Robinson, Tim Abayomi-Cole, Josh Greenlees, Abby O’Connor, Daniel Nettle
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: PeerJ Inc. 2015-12-01
• Series: PeerJ
• Subjects: Littering; Antisocial behaviour; Watching eyes; Natural surveillance; Interventions; Cooperation
• Online Access: https://peerj.com/articles/1443.pdf

Littering constitutes a major societal problem, and any simple intervention that reduces its prevalence would be widely beneficial. In previous research, we have found that displaying images of watching eyes in the environment makes people less likely to litter. Here, we investigate whether the watching eyes images can be transferred onto the potential items of litter themselves. In two field experiments on a university campus, we created an opportunity to litter by attaching leaflets that either did or did not feature an image of watching eyes to parked bicycles. In both experiments, the watching eyes leaflets were substantially less likely to be littered than control leaflets (odds ratios 0.22–0.32). We also found that people were less likely to litter when there other people in the immediate vicinity than when there were not (odds ratios 0.04–0.25) and, in one experiment but not the other, that eye leaflets only reduced littering when there no other people in the immediate vicinity. We suggest that designing cues of observation into packaging could be a simple but fruitful strategy for reducing littering.