Previous research indicates that explicit surveillance should induce subjects to attribute their performance at a task to the surveillance; hence, such subjects should persist to a lesser extent than subjects not exposed to such surveillance. Two forms of explicit surveillance were utilized: human and camera, as well as the appropriate opposites (human non- and camera non-surveillance). Subjects were directed to perform a model construction task, then were unobtrusively observed during a post-task “waiting period.” No difference in persistence was found for type of surveillance utilized. However, as predicted, subjects exposed to surveillance persisted less with the task materials than subjects not exposed
