The Princess Alice effect

By Bora Zivkovic | September 6, 2012 | 3

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Video of the Week #59 September 6th, 2012:

From: Imaginary Presidents and Imaginary Gods: The Real “Empty Chair” Effect by Jesse Bering at Bering in Mind.

Source: Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman

This week’s video is a re-enactment of Jesse Bering’s ‘Princess Alice’ study from the latest episode of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman. Bering’s work examines how the behavior of children is affected by an invisible person watching over them. The Princess Alice effect shows that children are less likely to cheat when they believe in an invisible figure looming over them – an interesting and rather timely piece based on certain shenanigans at the Republican National Convention this week.

About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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3 Comments

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1. meliesq 9:40 pm 09/7/2012

CURIOSER ! CURIOSER ! CURIOSER ! Sincerely, MAMIANI ELIE
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2. marclevesque 11:46 am 09/10/2012

So much dramatization. Half of those studies make me “cringe”.

Sometimes I wonder if the apparent rise of Intelligent design and Creationist views in the media are in part a reaction to the way the simple results generated by some studies end up being presented to the public.

We are social animals, we need to care what others (whether we see them or not) do, think, and know.
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3. marclevesque 8:01 pm 09/10/2012

2. marclevesque

replace simple with basic
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