Dataset for "I Don't Care About Social Control": Why the Eye Image Effect Does Not Reduce Illegal Pedestrian Behavior in France

Dataset for  “I Don't Care About Social Control”: Why the Eye Image Effect Does Not Reduce Illegal Pedestrian Behavior in France

Abstract

Pedestrians can display dangerous behaviors in urban environments. Crossing on a red lights is the most common of these. Some people do so intentionally, knowing the risks, while others do so unintentionally by following other pedestrians. To decrease the former behavior, a visual device known as a nudge (a sign depicting eyes as a form of social control) has been tested on three sites in Strasbourg. Neutral “child’s eyes” and “woman’s eyes” signs from a server were used as experimental conditions and compared to two control conditions, one with and one without a sign that depicted flowers. Individual, social, and environmental variables were recorded for 2967 pedestrians arriving at a red light, using video analysis. Generalized linear models were then realized to test the effect of eye images. The different signs did not have any effect or opposite effect of those desired results. Neither of the two eyes signs had a significant effect on the rate of red-light crossings. However, the sign for “child’s eyes” tended to reduce waiting time at the pedestrian crossing. The results also show that the “flower” control sign significantly increased pedestrian risk-taking behaviors when crossing at a red light. Gender, age, the presence of distractors or other pedestrians, and the site itself is said to influence pedestrian behavior. Although previous studies have shown the effectiveness of nudges with eyes signals, these images do not appear to have a desired beneficial effect on pedestrian crossing behavior.

Keywords: Nudge, illegal crossing, social control, Waiting time, Risk Taking

Suggested Citation:

Jay, Mathilde and Vandroux, Romane and Lecouvreur, Lorelei and Sueur, Cédric and Pelé, Marie, “I Don't Care About Social Control”: Why the Eye Image Effect Does Not Reduce Illegal Pedestrian Behavior in France. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4123207 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4123207