Field experiment / PB-001

ProjectBanana

UBC Banana Experiment

TAKE ONE.
LEAVE ANYTHING.

Experiment ID: PB-001
Location: UBC Bookstore Plaza
Materials: 16 bananas, an Amazon box, a marker, banana stickers

01 / Setup

A random thought

A random thought: if I put a bunch of bananas in a public place for self-service trading, how would people react?

So I did it. Today was the first day of school, and I brought a box of bananas straight to campus. Turns out campus was packed, which made carrying out the experiment much easier (I was initially worried no one would take any).

The setup was placed at 14:32.: 14:32
By 14:52, all 16 bananas were gone.: 14:52
20 minutes in total. Much faster than expected.: 20 min

The banana box placed on a wooden platform

People walk past the box in the UBC plaza

02 / In the field

Someone stopped.

Quite a few people left nothing, just took a banana and walked away. Someone even took the marker I left in the box.

People stop to look into the banana box on the wooden platform

A participant bends down and picks up bananas from the box

A participant reaches into the box while others watch

A small group gathers around the banana exchange

People pause beside the box as others walk past

Several people look into the banana box together

Participants look inside the box in the busy plaza

The trading box remains in the plaza as the crowd moves around it

03 / Findings

Experiment results

The box now contains a newspaper, Hope cards, paper rings, a sticker and a pouch

An angled view of the traded items inside the box

The final traded items arranged inside the box

The 16 bananas turned into: some Hope, a newspaper 21 days out of date, 3 paper rings, a peeled-off sticker, and a faux-leather pouch.

Apart from the marker getting swiped, the overall result was in line with my expectations.

Going by what people generally think bananas are worth, this was clearly a loss-making Trade (my brand-new marker😭). Apart from the pouch, pretty much everything I received could be classified as worthless.

Roughly converted into monetary terms:

≈ $12 → $0.5

But to me, this was a very interesting social experiment. The value of the experiment itself far exceeded the value of the bananas, so I didn’t make a loss.

04 / To be continued

This experiment will continue.

Next, I’ll try different locations, different levels of foot traffic, and different times, and observe how these variables affect the results.

You’re welcome to stumble upon the next banana experiment on the UBC campus (I might also try somewhere off campus).