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Comment by drdeadringer

5 years ago

> If you feel you are being watched, you change your behavior.

I feel like this has been known for a long time. For example: If you walk into a Kindergarten class and watch the children play, once they notice you watching them they change behavior away from "natural play" to "observed play". I believe Cory Doctorow made this observation a spell ago.

Edit: I'd like to add that one of my parents was a teacher in a school with two-way mirrors for observation. People could secretly observe a given class in session either for observing the teacher and//or observing the students live but without the "observer effect". The entire school building was designed for this purpose and whilst everyone knew it it appeared to work as intended. "Out of sight is out of mind" is real. Yes, this particular parent was on both sides of the glass.

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drdeadringer

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giancarlostoro  5 years ago

What kind of schools do that? I'm not familiar with this at all, man I'd feel weird being in a classroom with a huge mirror.

  • drdeadringer  5 years ago

    UMASS Amherst, an "experimental" elementary school for phycological observation. It's now no longer in operation, but for decades it was an elementary school with an upper "secret" corridor with two-way mirrors overlooking each classroom. The understanding between UMASS and Amherst was "We let you use the elementary school, we let our psych students take a look" type of thing.

    Each classroom had a row of two-way mirrors about 30 feet overhead [weird architecture, nature of the beast] so even physically it was out-sight and out-mind because "nobody looks up".