Science

It was explained to participants that although there was no way to tell if Carol had lied or had legitimately rolled an 8, people often admit to wrongdoing when placed in stressful situations. To that aim, Carol ostensibly did a cold pressor task after she reported the results of her die-roll, placing her hand in ice water for 80 s. Participants were told that they would listen to Carol being “tortured” and then judge the likelihood that she had cheated. Participants heard her react one of two ways to the cold pressor. In the pain condition, she appeared to feel significant discomfort, whimpering throughout the cold pressor. In the no pain condition, she appeared to feel little discomfort, reacting stoically to the cold.

After listening to the torture session, participants evaluated the likely guilt of the “torture victim” by answering three questions. The first two were, “How likely is it that the ‘torture victim’ had cheated?” and “How likely is it that the ‘torture victim’ is lying?” with responses made on a scale from 1 (“Not at all likely”) to 5 (“Extremely likely”). The third was “How moral or immoral do you perceive the ‘torture victim’ to be?” with responses made on a scale from 1 (“Extremely moral”) to 5 (“Extremely immoral”). As a manipulation check, participants also evaluated how much pain they perceived the “torture victim” to have felt on a scale from 1 (“No pain at all”) to 5 (“Extreme pain”).