The old saying says "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me". But in anticipation of the Day Against Harassment, which occurs on May 4 of each year, a company decided to dive into the physical effects that verbal harassment can have. In a stimulating experiment carried out by the Swedish-based giant Swedish company known as IKEA, they revealed the negative effects of verbal harassment. But instead of having participants be reprimanded with verbal attacks, IKEA decided to force students to harass a plant.
It was on the YouTube channel in the United Arab Emirates of IKEA where they showed the effects of their experiment. In the video description box, the experiment is described as follows: "Plants have feelings, just like people, so what happens when you feed a plant with compliments and another with negative comments? students in a social experiment to raise awareness about the effects of bullying. #Di no to bullying. '
According to a Global News article, although the experiment is not the most scientific in terms of methods (the company admits it), the plants were kept in identical controlled environments to illustrate an important lesson for the students. In the YouTube video, IKEA described how they installed two plants in a school in the UAE and asked students to give feedback to the plants through built-in speakers in the plant enclosure.
The controls of the experiments were kept identical so that no external factor could influence the decisions. Both plants received the same amount of light, nutrition and water. The only difference was that one plant received words of encouragement and praise, while the other received insults. According to Global News, student comments were fed through rigged speakers in each room. They were encouraged to record their words of praise and to record their insults or send them through social networks. A recording device then transmitted the messages to each plant.
At the end of the thirty days, the students noticed that the plant that had been intimidated seemed less green and was much more fallen, while the plant that congratulated it was healthy, higher and much brighter. Vinod Jayan, CEO of IKEA UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Oman, said: "This is an incredibly effective initiative that has encouraged people to make room for change, has helped children and their families understand the impact that the words can have ".
However, although this experiment teaches an important lesson for children about the harm that verbal harassment can cause, many people on YouTube have criticized the lack of scientific validity in their experiment. In the Global News article, they tried to discredit the experiment by citing an Mythbusters experiment in which seven plants were tested. Two received a positive speech, another two negative, one received classical music, another death metal and the last one was left in silence. The article added: "the plant that went silently fared worse". Surprisingly, the one that flourished the most was the death metal plant.
The Mythbusters ended up deriving that it was the volume of the music that played a key role and not the sounds themselves. According to Mythbusters: "That may have more to do with the decibel level of the music than the words I heard, however, since researchers have shown that decibel levels below 45 are ideal for indoor living. That reasoning, Mozart would be as relaxing as a Silent Slayer for the common indoor fern. "In the end, it has not yet been determined whether the plants are really affected by the words. Mr. Jayan added: "It was so successful in raising awareness and reducing bullying among these children that more schools in the UAE have approached us to conduct the experiment in their locations."
courtesy : youtube
courtesy :ikea channel
courtesy: internet source