Oh how we love social experiments! Unlike pranks which are more for fun than anything, social experiments explore people’s natural reactions to situations around them through research-based methods. It’s one of the ways scientists and people observers like you and me can understand how much of us are innate and how much are driven by social constructs, among other things.

Our latest favorite social experiment is by Fanpage.it, considered as Italy’s first and most successful online newspaper. Fanpage.it gathered boys under 11 and asked them to interact with a girl. Toward the end, the narrator orders them to slap her hard, and the boys’ reactions are just precious. We hope it will make you think whether or not we’re doing a great job in pressuring boys to “man up.”