From: The Economist

Time to be honest

The Economist:

“IS SIN original?” That is the question addressed by Shaul Shalvi, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, in a paper just published in Psychological Science. Dr Shalvi and his colleagues, Ori Eldar and Yoella Bereby-Meyer of Ben-Gurion University in Israel, wanted to know if the impulse to cheat is something that grows or diminishes when the potential cheater has time for reflection on his actions. Is cheating, in other words, instinctive or calculating?

Appropriately, the researchers’ apparatus for their experiment was that icon of sinful activity, the gambling die. They wanted to find out whether people were more likely to lie about the result of a die roll when asked that result immediately, or when given time to think.

Read the whole story: The Economist

Comments

I really enjoyed this article but have two questions:

Does “pip of the die” mean each dot on the die or does it mean a “five” (from some oder use of English)?

A second experiment in the article mentions “rolling the die just once.” So,… how many rolls did each person get for the first experiment?

Thanks for any reply anyone might give…


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