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Ofo Bike Program Actually A Psychology 101 Study

By Netflix & Drill , in Campus Life Local News , at March 27, 2018 Tags: , , , ,

Students around campus have noticed the sudden appearance of Ofo bikes, a popular bike share option. The bikes have been brought to people’s homes, left in bushes, and stranded outside of classrooms. However, research from The Mugdown has uncovered that the program is a behavioral study for Psychology 101 classes.

Students’ use of the bikes is tracked through GPS systems and registration required to access the bikes. “The tracking system has given us the ability to observe how students behave when given free items,” said Andrew Vorster, a junior psychology major. “Most people begrudgingly attend their psychology studies required for their PSYC 101 class. So we thought we would remove the requirement and try a more covert option instead.”

The psychology department has been recording the behavior of students and how they treat the bikes. Many students leave bikes on the ground outside of buildings. Other students bring them home after one ride and never return them to campus.

“We have been able to observe that it is a small number of repeat offenders capitalizing on the free service,” said Aubrey Robertson, a senior psychology major. “For some students, the effort of registering for a bike is too much to ask. When you get get to observe a subject who really takes advantage of free things, you couldn’t ask for a better psychological study.’’

Other students have gone on to leave their bikes in their front yard or alongside the road without any explanation. “Much of this data provides insight into the behavior of college students,” said Mason Slandison, Dean of the Psychology Department. “We went so far as to paypeople to attend the studies that we made a course requirement, but even that was not enough. This has been the best study we have held to date.”

With over 500 bikes on campus for the ride-sharing program, the Psychology Department has found that the bike usage is concentrated around a few dozen users. The information has provided a useful insight into students’ decisions and now has the department looking into other free services as a means to observe behavior.

 

– Netflix and Drill