Better At English - Free English Conversation Lessons Podcast

Imagine if you will, the following scenario. You’ve volunteered to take part in a psychology study, say, at your university. All you have to do is show up to the lab, sit by yourself in a little booth and play a very simple game of chance, something like flipping a coin, where there's no skill involved, only luck. You get paid one dollar just for showing up, that’s guaranteed. And if you’re lucky and win the game, you’ll get paid 5 dollars cash. But if you lose, you get nothing. Here’s the kicker: it's up to you to tell the researchers if you won or lost, they won't be able to tell. So there are three possible outcomes: you can win and get 5 dollars, you can lose and get nothing, or....you can lose, but lie and still get the 5 dollars. And nobody will know. What would you do? What do you think other people would do? As it happens, a recent study just looked at this, and there was a cunning little twist: those crafty researchers actually DID know if people won or lost. So they also knew if people told the t