Research - Obstacles

Our third idea that we had was based on creating obstacles which would be in someone's way and like a social experiment almost, test to see whether people would walk under it, or around it or pick it up or leave it. Examples of this which we came up with was setting up a ladder, and seeing if people would walk under it or around it, basing it down to how many people are superstitious. For this we could then make a series of superstitious things and test it; smashed mirrors, ladders, putting up an umbrella inside and seeing who tells you off, etc.
An example of these kind of experiments would be Derren Brown. He did a social experiment based on good luck, where he placed a statue of a dog in a park, and convinced people that if they went and tapped the dog on the head it would bring them good luck. He then set up things where by doing so he would forge them to receive lucky things, by patting the statues head. Its all about trickery of the mind, and playing on old superstitious stories we have been told whilst growing up.
With the ladder story, my nan told me a story of when she was younger, she walked under a ladder, and the same day she was crossing the road and got hit by a car. She survived with minor injuries, but telling her story today she always says that she shouldn't have walked under the ladder, because she believed it was the reason for her accident, causing her bad luck. This then made all of my family really superstitious about the ladder myth, and none of us will do it, even though we know it was a coincident, we don't want to risk it.
Something we would do with this idea, is to set a ladder up, for example in the busy square outside of the SU, and set up a camera, hidden away, and see how much this superstitious impact has on lots of students. Another idea we had was to set yellow tape in the form of an 'X' on the ground, and look to see who avoids walking over it, as X is a symbol of 'do not cross', and see how signs and symbols affect the way people do things.
Another idea we had was based on putting money on the floor, and seeing who would go to pick it up. We would either place down a coin and glue it to the floor, or a fake note, and seeing how many people would attempt to pick it up, and how long they would stay there trying, even though it is glued to the floor. We would do this in a busy area, maybe outside the SU, and see how many students attempt to pick it up. Another Derren Brown example, where he did an experiment of leaving a wallet full of money on the floor in a busy street and drew a yellow circle around it, and watched to see if anyone would pick it up. The experiment showed that by drawing a circle around it, made people aware of not to touch it, again, showing how symbols react with the brain.