Scientists Discover People Act More Altruistic When Batman Is Present (futurism.com) 63
Psychology Today reports:
In a study conducted in Milan, Italy, and published in November 2025, the sight of a person dressed as Batman led to a nearly doubled rate of people giving up their seat to a pregnant woman. Over the course of 138 subway rides, researchers found that people who saw "Batman" standing near the pregnant woman were far more altruistic than those who did not.
Researchers are calling this the "Batman effect," suggesting a form of "involuntary" mindfulness may be at play. Noticing these subtle social cues appears to shift people's typical, automatic reactions. Most interestingly, 44 percent of the people questioned reported they did not even consciously register Batman's presence... The superhero costume serves as a visual nudge, pulling us out of our default, self-focused mode and into a more generous, attentive state.
More from Futurism: Batman showing up is just one — albeit striking — way of promoting what's called "prosocial behavior," or the act of helping others around you, via introducing an unexpected event, the researchers write. "Our findings are similar to those of previous research linking present-moment awareness (mindfulness) to greater prosociality," said study lead author Francesco Pagnini, a professor of clinical psychology at the Università Cattolica in Milan, in a statement about the work. "This may create a context in which individuals become more attuned to social cues."
Thanks to Black Parrot (Slashdot reader #19,622) for sharing the article.
Researchers are calling this the "Batman effect," suggesting a form of "involuntary" mindfulness may be at play. Noticing these subtle social cues appears to shift people's typical, automatic reactions. Most interestingly, 44 percent of the people questioned reported they did not even consciously register Batman's presence... The superhero costume serves as a visual nudge, pulling us out of our default, self-focused mode and into a more generous, attentive state.
More from Futurism: Batman showing up is just one — albeit striking — way of promoting what's called "prosocial behavior," or the act of helping others around you, via introducing an unexpected event, the researchers write. "Our findings are similar to those of previous research linking present-moment awareness (mindfulness) to greater prosociality," said study lead author Francesco Pagnini, a professor of clinical psychology at the Università Cattolica in Milan, in a statement about the work. "This may create a context in which individuals become more attuned to social cues."
Thanks to Black Parrot (Slashdot reader #19,622) for sharing the article.
They're really aiming for that Ig-Nobel Prize (Score:4, Funny)
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That research sounds improbable.
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And no batwomen? I call sexism.
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That'll be Robins instead.
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Good point.
Re:They're really aiming for that Ig-Nobel Prize (Score:4, Interesting)
As whacky as the research sounds, theres precedents, albeit less funny ones.
Back in the 1980s where I lived, supermarkets used to always stick cardboard cutouts of policemen around the shop, cross-armed and staring. Apparently those where really effective.
Nobody actually thought it was a real policeman staring, but the psychological effect was enough that people felt too *observed* to actually go and do the crimes. I can only assume what this shows is it doesnt really matter what the authoritarian figure is , be he commissioner gordon, or batman, its enough to make people feel anxious about wanting to do good, or rather to be SEEN as doing good.
As the philosopher foucault observed, panopticon doesnt work by the prison guards doing the discipline, but the discontinuous sense of being observed made the prisoners discipline themselves.
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> I've never seen any actual controlled studies showing those were effective
Related studies:
Watching-eye effect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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No, actually theres plenty of studies. You have to look first if you want to know!
Look up "watching eye effect supermarket" in google scholar or your academic search engine of choice. Theres literally hundreds of studies.
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Has anyone noticed youtube altruism? (Score:2)
Can altruism be monetized with youtube advertising revenue? Do Matt's OffRoad Reco ery (doing free off-road recoveries that normally cost thousands) and Matthew Parker (who does mobile repairs for free) point the way to altruistic real economy acts financed by virtual profits?
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Those are probably on the TANSTAAFL combined with "Pay it forward" level - letting someone else pay. But for those that get the help it could be worth a lot compared to their income.
I have seen a few of the recoveries and they range from complicated to just giving advise to those that got stuck to let them work their vehicles free themselves. Teaching others how to get out of trouble is worth a lot.
Knowledge is invaluable, sharing knowledge is also improving your reputation. Some do share their work while s
Re: Has anyone noticed youtube altruism? (Score:1)
"Those are probably on the TANSTAAFL combined with "Pay it forward" level - letting someone else pay."
If advertisers pay for Matt's offroad recoveries, might they be getting the money from non-zero-sum stock market returns? Where does the money for NVidia's market cap come from unless TANSTAAFL is violated?
Investopedia: "most transactions or trades are inherently non-zero-sum games because when two parties agree to trade, they do so with the understanding that the goods or services they are receiving are mo
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Where does the money for NVidia's market cap come from unless TANSTAAFL is violated?
Your retirement funds.
Re: Has anyone noticed youtube altruism? (Score:1)
What if they keep going up?
p-value hacking (Score:2)
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Lots of pee value on the subway.
Sometimes, Slashdot posters who are under pressure (Score:4, Informative)
P-hacking involves researcher degrees of freedom and the ability to find some signal for "something" in a bunch of data by varying how the the analysis is performed after the events themselves.
That does not seem a relevant at all in the context of this particular study, which uses a very simple method and measure for what it is testing and whose methodology was pre-registered [clinicaltrials.gov] before it was done.
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too many heard about p hacking on a podcast and think its a magical "get out of any statistic" card
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If you have some other criticism of the study, then putting "p-value hacking" as the subject is your error not mine.
Next test should be (Score:5, Funny)
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I've noticed the racists came out from hiding when Trump was in. Some are even more depraved now. It doesn't have to be a fictional character to work; as cartoonist as he is, this shit is as real as his diapers.
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I'd like to know what left-wing racism is. Curious, not important since both are not actually real things.
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Pry your head out of the sand.
So you never heard say a "black leader" say racist things?
"White people are potential humans - they haven't evolved yet."
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That's funny, I've noticed among leftists there's a tendency to call everyone you disagree with a racist.
Coincidence, perhaps, how neatly that intersects with your observation.
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Perhaps the leftist mainly disagree with racists, hence the tendency?
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...which makes it super convenient when you can just use that label on everyone, right?
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To see if people will be more devious and evil if the joker is present
They tried to do Jesus, but passengers kept calling security about a hippy boarding the plane.
Wasn't that basically the plot (Score:3)
Of the third movie in the dark knight trilogy?
Not altruism at all (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Dark Knight spawns not altruism but fear and terror in evil-doers.
Why be so negative? Some people might have been motivated by seeing an example of altruism in front of them. Despite how I personally feel, not everything is negative. That is also true regardless of how you personally feel.
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Science is a system of checks and balances, but doing checks and balances has no glory, so too many skip that. It's like playing defense roles in sports, nobody gets laid playing defense.
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They present themselves as "scientists" , like summer transcend pure elite personalities. In reality 90%+ of them are crooks.
I didn't used to think so, but the longer I live, the more convinced I get that 90%+ of all of humanity are crooks. Why should scientists be immune from that trend?
Even stranger (Score:2)
They act even stranger when Wonder Woman is around.
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They probably gave up their seat, because (Score:1)
What about Tattoo from Fantasy Island? (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Further Research Needed (Score:2)
Scientists Discover People Act More Altruistic When Batman Is Present
Ooooh...now try Jesus.
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Ask a Catholic priest.
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Hah! So in a recent interview, Quentin Tarantino said that he found the whipping scenes of Gibson's Passion of the Christ to be both funny and erotic. Make Christ into a a women with bewbs and a whole lot more men will feel the same way.
But probably not the priests. They like little boys and each other.
Batman ethos (Score:1)
Should do a control with Hello Kitty (Score:2)
Altruistic [sic] (Score:2)
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to be fair they are italians. Just writing in English is worthy of praise.
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Put Wonder Woman in the room, they'll write better.
Re: Altruistic [sic] (Score:1)
Does AI get that grammar right?
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WTF is a proper pronoun?
Are you referring to the "altruistic" in the summary? It's used correctly, as an adjective. They could have said "behave altruistically" but they did not.
More likely because people guess they are watched (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like that old study about what was the ideal lighting that will get workers to work harder. In the end, it wasn't the lighting that made them work harder, it was the constant monitoring that was known that their bosses would see that made them work harder.
Re:More likely because people guess they are watch (Score:4, Interesting)
Ie, people on average are x% likely to give up a seat for a pregnant woman if they are actively aware, but in many cases people on public transport are "zoned out" so the actual rate of people giving up a seat is lower.
The "Batman" may just be something somewhat unusual that increases people's awareness of their immediate surroundings rather than making them more pro-social.
An interesting follow up would be to try things that are "unusual" and attention level raising, but are somehow neutral and free of the sorts of symbolism that are attached to Batman.
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What if (Score:2)
Isn't Batman like a movie character? (Score:3)