Effect of sexual BDSM preference on the scoring students in the „ticking bomb scenario“ moral dilemma
Creators: name: Flegr, Jaroslav
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Life Sciences
subject: Arts and Humanities
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences

description: About 300 students of the Faculty of Science will fill a complex anonymous internet questionnaire containing about 200 questions and tasks, including several performance tests. In the second part of the questionnaire, they will be offered the following three versions of the ticking bomb scenario: 1) “You are part of the Counter-Terrorism Commission, legally immune from prosecution for acts within the scope of your profession. An atomic time bomb is planted in the center of Prague. If you could locate it, you would save over a million innocent people from certain death. You have captured a major terrorist who has the information you need to stop the time bomb. It's clear he won't give up the information willingly. Would you be willing to order a harsh interrogation method (= torture that can leave permanent damage or even lead to death) if you were absolutely 100% certain you would get the information?” 2) “The situation is the same as before, but you are only 10% sure of getting the information. Would you be willing to order an enhanced interrogation method (= torture that can leave permanent consequences or even lead to death)?" 3) “The situation is similar to the previous ones. Again, you are 100% sure to get the information. In this case, however, you have to torture the terrorist yourself. Will you torture?" The students should answer using the 6-items scale anchored with 0-definitively no and 6-definitively yes. After about 50 questions on health, infections, altruism, and fairness, the students will be asked to respond block of questions on their sexual life (containing e.g. SOI questionnaire). The block will contain also the following two questions: “Are you also sexually aroused by your own helplessness, humiliation, or pain?” “Are you also sexually aroused by someone else's helplessness, humiliation, or pain?” Again, the students should answer using a 6-items scale anchored with 0-definitively no and 6-definitively yes. We will test following hypotheses: 1) Subjects with BDSM preferences will score higher in the willingness to torture terrorist. 2) This correlation will be stronger in subjects who are more aroused by someone else's helplessness, humiliation or pain. 3) This correlation will be stronger for the third scenario In the exploratory part of the study, we will search for the factors that positively and negatively affect the responses of students in the ticking bomb scenario (IQ, memory, reaction times, health, altruism, fairness, etc.) We will analyze the data using a one-tailed partial Kendall test (age and sex controlled). In the post hoc tests, we will analyze data of men and women separately and will search for possible effects of potential confounding variables, such as current study performance, health, etc. The experiment will run on Jan. 3, 2022. The preregistered hypotheses are distinct and independent. Therefore, no correction for multiple tests will be done. Ethical note: The study will run during a written exam from evolutionary biology. This exam (4-choices test, 30 questions) will be a “zero term exam” – the students will be allowed to refuse the grade on the test and take part in three regular terms of the oral exam. In the informed consent, they will be informed that they can skip all questions of the questionnaire and just write the test from evolutionary biology.