Bypassing bypassing John Protzko & Jonathan Schooler The purpose of this study was to test whether judgments of responsibility for good compared to bad outcomes would be differentially sensitive to bypassing -the tendency for uncontrollable factor (e.g. action caused by a brain tumor) contributes to a behavior. Our prediction was that people would be sensitive to bypassing for bad behaviors but not good ones. Accordingly, we predicted that when a tumor is implicated in causing a person’s behavior that that person will not be held responsible for the behavior when it is bad but will be held responsible when it is good. This will be true even though the bad behavior is more normative than the good one. Participants read two separate scenarios about someone with a brain tumor that makes them behave in a certain way. The two versions are: extreme good and mild bad. All participants read both, and were randomly assigned to either read the bad version first or the good version first. In addition, they will learn about someone named Alex, or someone named Mark. All participants will get one Alex scenario and one Mark scenario. This will be randomly ordered for each scenario and which comes first for all participants. All participants were first told: “Please consider the following hypothetical scenario": Extreme good: Alex/Mark is 35 years old with a good job. Alex/Mark also donates all of his money that is not used for rent, groceries, and a bus pass, to charity. Alex/Mark only owns a few pairs of clothes and shoes, and lives a very frugal lifestyle. This is so he can have more money to donate to charity. Alex/Mark has been behaving like this for as long as he can remember. Never keeping any money for himself, and donating all of his possessions to different charities. It was just discovered that Alex/Mark has a brain tumor. The doctors believe the tumor has been there since Alex/Mark was a young child. The doctors go in and remove the tumor. Afterwards, Alex/Mark no longer has any interest in donating to charity, and instead spends his money on himself. The doctors say the tumor was making him behave that way. Participants were then asked the following on the same page: 1. How responsible is Alex/Mark responsible for his charitable donations? (1-5 Likert scale, Not responsible at all, Only a little responsible, Somewhat Responsible, Responsible, Very Responsible) 2. Who is the "real" Alex/Mark? [3 response options: the one who was donating to charity; both the one who was donating to charity and the one who doesn't want to anymore; the one who no longer wants to donate to charity) This page will include a timer to determine how long each participants spends on the page. On a separate page, participants were asked: 3. How much do you agree with the following statement: The tumor brought out the good in Alex/Mark? [7-pt Likert Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree] mild bad: Alex/Mark is 35 years old with a good job. Alex/Mark also habitually shoplifts from stores. Alex/Mark has been behaving like this for as long as he can remember; shoplifting from stores. It was just discovered that Alex/Mark has a brain tumor. The doctors believe the tumor has been there since Alex/Mark was a young child. The doctors go in and remove the tumor. Afterwards, Alex/Mark no longer shoplifts. The doctors say the tumor was making him behave that way. Participants were then asked the following on the same page: 1. How responsible is Alex/Mark for his shoplifting? (1-5 Likert scale, Not responsible at all, Only a little responsible, Somewhat Responsible, Responsible, Very Responsible) 2. Who is the "real" Alex/Mark? [3 response options: the one who was shoplifting; both the one who was shoplifting and the one who is not anymore; the one who is not shoplifting anymore] This page will include a timer to determine how long each participants spends on the page. On a separate page, participants were asked: 3. How much do you agree with the following statement: The tumor brought out the bad in Alex/Mark [7-pt Likert Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree]. In order to test if seeing the ‘good’ condition induces process 2 thinking, participants were asked the following question on a separate page: “If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? ____ minutes?” [Correct answer = 5 minutes; intuitive answer = 100 minutes]. In previous investigations this question has been found to be very highly loaded on a single ‘dual-process’ factor, as well as showing good variability in correct answers (56%; Protzko & Schooler, Unpublished Data). To control for the possibility that being asked this question alters the second judgement, participants were randomly assigned to get the ‘widgets’ question either in between the two scenarios or after both scenarios. After completing the evaluation of the scenarios participants were asked to indicate which is the more uncommon behavior, specifically indicating. “Which behavior would you say is more uncommon Chronically shop lifting is more uncommon Chronically giving virtually all one’s earnings and possessions away to charity is more uncommon [randomly ordered so either of these two can come first] The two behaviors are equally uncommon.” To stay consistent with the previous literature, we then asked all participants measures from the Extraversion scale of the HEXACO battery as a covariate. In previous investigations, however, we found that the extraversion scale is composed of three smaller subscales. In a pilot study, only one of these subscales (termed Extraversion:meek) uniquely predicted responsibility scores. Thus, only those questions will be used. On a separate page, participants read the following: "On this page you will find a series of statements about you. Please read each statement and decide how much you agree or disagree with that statement. Then write your response in the space next to the statement using the following scale: 5 = strongly agree 4 = agree 3 = neutral (neither agree nor disagree) 2 = disagree 1 = strongly disagree Please answer every statement, even if you are not completely sure of your response." 1. I rarely express my opinions in group meetings (Reverse coded); 2. I sometimes feel that I am a worthless person (Reverse Coded); 3. I tend to feel quite self-conscious when speaking in front of a group of people (Reverse coded). These questions were administered in random order. Finally, participants were given the Cynicism subscale of the Revised Philosophies of Human Nature Inventory (Wrightsman, 1964), also see (Lupfer & Wald, 1985) They were told "Please indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statements” [1-5 Likert Scale, Strongly Disagree - Strongly Agree] 1. If most people could get into a movie without paying and be sure that they would not be seen, they would do it. 2. Most people are honest because they are afraid of getting caught. 3. The average person is conceited. 4. Most people would cheat on their income tax if they had a chance. 5. Most people would tell a lie if they could gain by it. 6. When the chips are down, most people would behave dishonestly. These questions were administered in random order Analysis Plan: Critical DV: We tested the basic responsibility difference by comparing good vs. bad in only the scenarios that participants rated first. For responsibility, this was done with a 1-way ANOVA on "responsible" with group as the IV. We tested whether including Extraversion:meek as a covariate changed the results. We predicted that people would hold the person more responsible for good, rather than bad behaviors. As an exploratory investigation, we also tested whether these results were moderated by cynicism (factor-analysis extracted scores using Maximum Likelihood estimation on a single factor). Further Investigations Responsibility: We then tested whether the asymmetry between good and bad was seen for the second judgement. We first tested whether being asked the ‘widgets’ question alters the second judgment (ANOVA: responsibility = DV, IVs = good/bad [binary], widgets in between [binary], interaction of widgets-in-between and good/bad). Providing no interaction, we collapsed across the groups of widgets in-between or after). Then, we just tested whether the asymmetry was seen in the second scenario. We predicted that it would not. To better understand why the asymmetry would not be seen, we tested our two possible mechanisms. The first was likelihood of getting the widgets question correct. This was done using a probit regression on getting the answer right (coded 1 = 5, 0 = all other answers), with the order (in-between, after, binary coding), whether the first scenario was the good one (binary coding) and their interaction. It was predicted that, if seeing the good scenario induces process 2 thinking, then we would see lower probability of getting the widgets question correct only for those who saw the bad scenario first and only in the in-between question (as all participants had seen the good scenario at the end of the 2 scenarios). We also tested whether participants submitted their answers faster in the bad-first compared to the other 4 groups. This was done using an ANOVA on time to submission with good/bad (binary coding), first or second scenario (binary coding) and their interaction. We predicted that, if seeing the good scenarios induce type 2 processing, then participants should respond fastest in the bad scenario but only for the first scenario they saw (as all participants would have seen the good scenario at the end of both scenarios). For identity: we used a multinomial logistic regression with good/bad as the only predictor variable. We also included a simple chi^2 analysis to view the pattern of results. We predicted that people would be more likely to say that the "real" Alex/Mark was the one who was both the person before and after the tumor in the good conditions, but in the bad conditions they would more likely be the one who "no longer..." (the one without the tumor). As an exploratory investigation, we tested whether these results are moderated by cynicism (composite from the cynicism subscale) Then, we tested whether people’s first judgments were different from their second judgement on responsibility for good vs. bad behaviors. If given two scenarios back to back, we predicted that this difference only occurs in the first, not the second scenario. This was done by testing the interaction of display order and whether the scenario was good with responsibility ratings as the DV, display order as the within-subjects variable, good/bad and the interaction of good/bad and display order as IVs.