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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cognitive Science
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1503766
Imagined Eye Cue Increased Altruistic Behavior towards Charity Instead of Stranger
Provisionally accepted- 1 Department of Psychology, School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
- 2 Lishui Vocational and Technical College, Lishui, China
Previous research has not established a significant link between imagined eye cue and altruistic behavior, nor has it verified whether a sense of being seen played a role in it. This study aimed at exploring how imagined eye cue affect altruistic behavior in various dictator game tasks, while also assessing the mediating role of a sense of being seen. It revealed that participants who was presented with imagined eye cue acted more altruistically than those who was presented with imagined flower cue or no cue when the recipient of the dictator game was a charity. Although imagined eye cue strengthened participants' a sense of being seen, this sense did not mediate the relationship between cue type and altruistic behavior. The findings suggest that the imagined eye cue may encourage individuals to donate generously by stimulating their internal social norms. This provides a theoretical rationale for the normative mechanisms underlying the watching eyes effect and explores a more cost-effective and accessible approach for interventions aimed at promoting charitable behavior.
Keywords: Watching eyes effect, imagined eye cue, Altruistic behavior, a sense of being seen, dictator game
Received: 29 Sep 2024; Accepted: 19 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 LV, Zhang, Shen, Weng and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jieyu LV, Department of Psychology, School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, 100081, Beijing Municipality, China
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