1

Running Head: THE LOOKING-UP EXPERIMENT

The Looking-Up Experiment

A Filipino Social Experiment

Carlo Alexie J. Roxas

Chester Santi E. Diaz

Esmer Joy D. Lagunilla

Franceen R. Restubog

Juliemar Esther B. Bea

Divine Word College of Legazpi

 2
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
Abstract

This experiment recreates Stanley Milgram’s (1968) gawking experiment in part of his research

for obedience. Milgram’s gawking experiment was one of the many experiments he conducted to

measure the obedience of people. This study is supported by the Social Influence Theory.
 3
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
The Looking-Up Experiment: A Filipino Social Experiment

In 1968, the social psychologists Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence

Berkowitz decided to cause a little trouble. First they put a single person on a street corner and

had him look up at an empty sky for sixty seconds. A tiny fraction of the passing pedestrians

stopped to see what the guy was looking at, but most just walked past.

When Milgram (1968) repeated the same experiment but this time with two people, more

passersby stopped to look at the sky, doubling the results. Finally, when Milgram placed fifteen

(15) people to look up, forty-five (45) percent of the people stopped to look. This study was said

to be a demonstration of people’s willingness to conform at first glance however it illustrated

“Social Proof”.

Social proof (also known as informational social influence) is a psychological

and social phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct

behavior in a given situation.

Human behavior is influenced by other people in countless ways and on a variety of

levels. The mere presence of others—as co-actors or spectators—can stimulate or improve one's

performance of a task, a process known as social facilitation (and also observed in non-human

species). However, the increased level of arousal responsible for this phenomenon can backfire

and create social interference, impairing performance on complex, unfamiliar, and difficult tasks.

This is the idea that we look to the actions of others in a given situation to determine what

is the socially acceptable and correct way to behave (Cialdini, 1993)

 4
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
Method

Hypothesis

If people see someone looking up, then more loiterers will conform than those who are

busy.

Participants

Our participants consisted of the general public of Daraga and Legazpi City, Albay

province particularly the passersby in ten (10) distinct locations. Five each for the experimental

and control groups. For the experimental group, the passersby were from the following locations:

In front of the Ibalong Central School, outside the Daraga National High School, along the curve

of Peñaranda, in front of the Pacific Mall and in front of 7/11 Legazpi. For the control group, our

passersby were from: In front of LCC Mall Legazpi, in centro Daraga, at the front of 101, in

front of Ayala Malls Legazpi and in front of Dunkin Donuts.

The target participants for the experimental group were the unoccupied

bystanders/loiterers and for the control group, everybody else aside from the bystanders/loiterers

regardless of other factors.

Materials and Procedures

We first searched for the viable locations to conduct the experiment. For the experimental

group, we usually targeted the places with food stalls and waiting sheds. For the control group,

we targeted the main roads where there were many passersby. We also took into consideration

the time we performed the experiment to have as much participants as circumstance allowed.
 5
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
For shooting the video, we used a 16-megapixel camera phone in a hidden location where

people would most likely not spot the videographer so as not to affect the results of the

experiment. The experimenters, one by one in each of their designated locations, looked up to the

sky with no gestures, no expressions, and no accomplices nearby for five minutes.

Two experimenters are stationed on either side of the experimenter looking up and

another was stationed at a strategic location for filming. The experimenters stationed at the left

and right side of the experimenter looking up will be the ones counting the participants

conforming. Participants on the left side of the looking-up-experimenter will be counted by the

experimenter stationed on the left; counterclockwise, the one stationed on the right.

For the experimental group, we only counted the loiterers regardless of other factors such

as age, gender, PWD (Persons with disability) etc. For the control group, every passerby other

than the loiterers was counted. Exclusion in the tally is participants that were told to look up by

their companions.

Results

Social Proof and Conformity

The number of participants that conformed in the experimental group was minimal

compared to the control group. In the location outside the Pacific Mall where there was an

abundant crowd loitering, waiting for the Pacific Mall to open, zero (0) people conformed

despite the experimenter gawking at the center of the huddled people. In another location, at the

outside of Ibalong Central School, only three (3) people conformed despite the same situation

where there was an abundance of loitering people. In the third location, at the Peñaranda drive,

four (4) people conformed. The fourth location—Legazpi City, in front of 7/11—ten (10) people
 6
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
conformed. And the last location, outside Daraga National High School, sixteen (16) people

conformed. This is the experimental group results.

For the control group results, at the front of LCC Mall Legazpi, five (5) people

conformed. At the front of Dunkin Donuts, thirty-one (31) people conformed. Outside the Ayala

Mall Legazpi, eight (8) people conformed. Outside the 101 Legazpi City twenty-six (26) people

conformed. At the final location, Daraga Centro, thirty-one (31) people conformed.

Gender Preference

In the control group, Franceen Restubog had thirty-one (31) participants that conformed

in the control group; four (4) in the experimental group. Juliemar Esther Bea had twenty-six (26)

people that conformed in the control group; ten (10) in the experimental group. Esmer Joy

Lagunilla had thirty-one (31) in the control group; sixteen (16) conformed in the experimental

group. Chester Santi Diaz had five (5) that conformed in the control group; three (3) in the

experimental group. Carlo Alexie Roxas had eight (8) that conformed in the control group; zero

(0) in the experimental group.

 7
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
Discussion

When Milgram conducted the gawking experiment with one (1) person looking up, very

few people conformed. He repeated the experiment with more and more people until the target

participants increased exponentially. The results seeming to be conformity, was actually Social

Proof.

Like the result of Milgram’s gawking experiment, the more people that look up, the more

people conform. It was observable during the experiment. Only one experimenter at a time looks

up in the span of five minutes. While measuring the control group, the participants came in

waves—sometimes in numerous groups and sometimes not. The people that could be counted as

in the ‘Social Proof’ was those that passed separate from the crowd while the people that could

be counted in ‘Conformity’ would be those that looked up while many others were looking up as

well. To those that were counted in the Social Proof, a lot of the participants, looked at the

experimenters first and then conformed afterwards. Then mostly in the experimental groups only

looked at the experimenter rather than conforming. An instance of this happening was in Roxas’s

experimental group where in there was an abundance of people. The people only looked at him

rather than look towards where he was looking. In control groups, people simultaneously

conform when people before them do so. This results to conformity through group pressure.

Also, some of the participants in both experimental and control conformed after they walked past

the experimenter.

According to the results of the experiment, participants looked more often when the

experimenter was female rather than to male, may it be in experimental group or control group. It

was regardless of the participants’ gender, whether they’re male or female, that they looked more

to the female experimenters. For example, female participants looked minutely longer at the
 8
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT
female experimenters just as much as the male participants however, when it came to the male

experimenters, participants scarcely spare a glance; male and female participants alike. This

results in a gender preference—that people usually look at females. The participants gave their

attention to the female experimenters more wholeheartedly than the male experimenters. This

happened in both the control and experimental groups.

This experiment concludes that the hypothesis, “If people see someone looking up, then

more loiterers would conform than those who are busy,” is null.
 9
THE LOOKING UP EXPERIMENT