Social experiments reveal how deeply beliefs shape Nepalese society

KATHMANDU: We live in a society where people believe in various ideologies that influence their behavior.

As a result of these influences, people tend to follow those ideologies. Humans, as social animals, exhibit peculiar social behaviors, which have been the subject of formal and systematic study since ancient times.

In the particular context of Nepal, we see a large community of people with their own ideologies.

Through this work, we attempt to discuss the general behavior of people based on social experiments as a qualitative study of human society.

We begin with a simple demonstration in the Kathmandu Valley. In Kathmandu Valley, the local government conducts garbage and waste management according to a schedule, sending trucks and workers to collect waste from various localities.

A worker whistles while walking down the road. Upon hearing the whistle, people recognize it as a signal to bring and dump their waste at the truck or a designated place where vehicles later collect it for disposal. The author conducted a social experiment in the streets of Jorpati, Kathmandu.

Wearing ragged clothes, he walked blowing a whistle through the streets of Jorpati, and as expected, people immediately came out carrying waste. The author then showed them the place where the waste would be recovered later.

This social experiment was conducted without anyone noticing. The outcome was striking—people in society had become so conditioned that every time they heard a whistle and saw a person outside, they immediately brought out their waste to the vehicle provided by the local government. People rushed out without questioning whether the whistle was just for fun or actually meant for garbage collection. This was a social experiment based on physical-world behavior.

Now, turning to the digital world, people nowadays prefer exchanging information online rather than face-to-face. A social experiment was conducted on the social networking platform Facebook. The author tagged a friend in a post with the caption, “Congratulations! You have achieved something that seems impossible for others. May God be with you.” The author then waited patiently, and as expected, “Congratulations” flooded in—but not a single person asked why the friend was being congratulated or what the special occasion was. This experiment on a digital platform demonstrated a similar social behavior as observed earlier: people respond automatically to certain cues based on beliefs shaped by long-term mental conditioning.

These two social experiments demonstrate that Nepalese society heavily relies on long-term mental memory and beliefs, which have become part of their pop culture. This reliance has also contributed to crimes, as people are easily deceived by fake information that appears as polished truth.

The prank culture is increasingly becoming prevalent; when discussed ethically, it is seen as a social experiment, but when discussed unethically, it becomes a tool for crime. As depicted in the Bollywood movie PK, people even worship a stone placed with incense sticks, turning it into a religious site.

In the Western world, social experiments are conducted under strict monitoring by concerned authorities and covered by media outlets such as daily newspapers. Such practices should be introduced and encouraged in Nepalese society so that we can better understand our behavior and take preventive measures against loopholes that arise from our beliefs and mental cognition