The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

But above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic--their irises are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. --The Great Gatsby, Chap. 2

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby, the spectral eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg look out from a billboard over a wasteland. Some interpreters say they are a symbol of God's eyes; others focus on the "TJ" and think of the failed agrarian vision of Thomas Jefferson. In any case, those eyes are spooky and seem to pass judgment upon the careless behavior they witness in the novel.

As it turns out, Fitzgerald was on to something.

The BBC reports that a pair of big brother eyes looking out from a poster boosts people's honesty. A study from Newcastle University monitored how much money people deposited in a coffee canteen's honesty system. When the poster with prices featured flowers, people paid only a third of what they paid when the poster featured a picture of human eyes.

One of the researchers concluded "the eyes on the poster may affect people's perception that they are being watched by other people." She continued, "It does raise the possibility that you could get people to behave more co-operatively or pro-socially by putting up pictures of eyes. . . . It would work particularly in instances where people have to make a choice between whether to behave well or badly."

I don't know . . . people still behaved pretty badly in The Great Gatsby.