A growing body of research has demonstrated that images of watchful eyes can promote prosocial behavior in a variety of settings. However, studies on the impact of eye cues on prosocial behavior in economic games yield ambiguous findings and thus provide no clear answer to the question whether these nudges have the potential to cause significant behavioral change. Moreover, the underlying mechanisms of watchful eyes remain unclear. We investigate whether cues of being watched positively affect prosocial behavior in the dictator game when a recipient is physically present. In a post-experimental questionnaire, we gathered additional information on attitudes towards trust and voluntary cooperation and on emotional responses to eye images. The weak effect observed in our study suggests that images of human eyes may increase cooperative behavior in the dictator game, providing support for the idea that the ‘watchful eyes effect’ is caused by a concern for avoiding bad reputation. Individual differences in attitudes towards trust and voluntary cooperation did not account for this effect. Furthermore, data from our post-experimental questionnaire provided mixed support for the theory that the watchful eyes effect may ultimately stem from higher levels of negative emotions related to the feeling of being watched caused by the exposure to human eye images. While we found no difference in the positive or negative affect schedule (PANAS) related to eye images and flowers after a long exposure during the experiment, participants in the control group associated lower levels of pleasure and a more dominant feeling (SAM) with the eye images after a short exposure to both stimuli. Referring to a relatively large variability of cooperativeness among participants in the eyes condition, we need to interpret the weak watchful eyes effect cautiously and conclude that eye cues do not make people more cooperative and prosocial across the board.

越来越多的研究表明，警惕的眼睛图像可以在各种环境中促进亲社会行为。然而，关于眼睛线索对经济博弈中亲社会行为影响的研究产生了模棱两可的发现，因此对于这些推动是否有可能导致显着的行为改变的问题没有提供明确的答案。此外，警惕眼睛的潜在机制仍不清楚。我们调查了当接收者在场时，被监视的线索是否会对独裁者游戏中的亲社会行为产生积极影响。在实验后的问卷中，我们收集了关于对信任和自愿合作的态度以及对眼睛图像的情绪反应的额外信息。在我们的研究中观察到的弱效应表明，人眼的图像可能会增加独裁者游戏中的合作行为，为“警惕的眼睛效应”是由避免不良声誉的担忧引起的观点提供支持。对信任和自愿合作态度的个体差异并未解释这种影响。此外，来自我们的实验后调查问卷的数据为以下理论提供了混合支持，即注视效应可能最终源于与暴露于人眼图像引起的被注视感相关的更高水平的负面情绪。虽然我们发现在实验过程中长时间曝光后，与眼睛图像和花朵相关的正面或负面影响时间表 (PANAS) 没有差异，对照组的参与者在短暂暴露于两种刺激后，将较低水平的愉悦感和更具支配性的感觉 (SAM) 与眼睛图像相关联。考虑到眼睛状况参与者之间合作性的相对较大的可变性，我们需要谨慎地解释弱注意眼睛效应，并得出结论，眼睛提示不会使人们更加合作和亲社会。