To be fair Batman has no superpowers either. Except being a filthy rich guy.

Let me get this straight, you think that your fellow traveller, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the world, is openly a vigilante, who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands, and your plan is to refuse offering a seat? Good luck.

I mean, I can imagine very well that you can just tell from their emotions.

Like, let's say this was their emotion timeline without superhero costume:

🧍‍♂️😃🙂😮‍💨❌

If they'd just generally be in a better mood, the emotion timeline would look like this:

🦸😁😄😃🙂😮‍💨❌

So, their mood starts higher, but there's the same rate of decline.
Whereas, if they persevere, it's more like this:

🦸😃🙂😮‍💨😔😑❌

So, similar starting mood as without costume, but the decline is only at the start until they hit the point where they would normally give up.
And then they muster the perseverance to continue, despite being in a bad mood from that point on.

Obviously, you'd need to formalize that, and not every kid will show the same emotions. But when averaged, I do think that gives you a scientific result.

I wouldn't want to be in a vulnerable position like being seated if Batman was about to get into a brawl with goons.

Why?

passangers looked up because they noticed the guy in the weird costume and then realized the pregnant woman which otherwise wouldn't have.

Because I value asking good questions rather than a) assuming, or b) just not even asking or wondering

He can buy his own seat.

Hell, he can buy his own train!

i want my batman relaxed and prepared for his fight.

we offer him the special, flushing seat the crackheads made. pregnant lady can pee later

neither is the ape

Oh... uh, hmmm... gee... thanks?
we must have had less ingenious crackheads on our busses. Some seats had definitely been toilets but I don't recall any getting flushing mechanisms.

what's a mechanism

Was it because they were dressed as Batman or because everyone assumed it was being videoed and didnt want to be recorded and uploaded as a stupid prank.

When people think they are being watched and recorded, they are more likely to polite. Dont need someone dressed as a superhero to do that part.

Yes. This would be important to differentiate between the associations with the Batman character and an eye catching abnormality.

It would also be interesting to see what the impact of the Joker would be. If the Joker would also elicit greater propensity to offer the seat to the pregnant woman, once could claim that Joker, being the antithesis to Batman, similarly leads one to think of the imperative to offer the pregnant woman the seat.

Finally, another important variation would be another eye catching character specific to this experiment rather than one belonging to a fictional franchise.

This would allow one to more clearly differentiate the impact between the control (just the pregnant woman) with the introduction of eye catching costumes and with the pregnant woman wearing something eye catching herself.

Another important experimental design consideration would be to avoid repeat passengers between the multiple trials.

You're assuming the train goers know his secret identity.

This actually really does sound like a good addition to the study. See if it's any different with a villain.

What? Why with the tab removed...? And also, wouldn't that just be someone in a black robe?

Nope, Edna won't make them anymore.

They really should try a few characters, good and bad, in different areas so people don't notice.

You're goddamn fucking right

[ cape blows in the wind ]

Need to repeat the experiment but with someone dressed as the joker.

Also with batman and joker fighting.

Were they also testing people's reactions to triplets?

and with pregnant batman vs pregnant joker

filthy rich, and access to the world's best sports science and putting in some effort to use it.
So he has at least one single actual merit: He did exercise.

bollocks, bollocks, BOLLOOOOOOCKS

Pregnancy bumps are lower...

Batman University

Amazing, it's real! I had never heard of this before.

Check the "location" section right under the seal.

I saw it in the wikipedia article, thanks.