LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

Study of liars, cheats and wobbling willpower sheds light on a human dilemma

In the recesses of your brain, there is a little courtroom where the
temptation cases are argued. The judge and jury listen, weigh the evidence.

Sometimes they decide to bend the law in your favor. "Go ahead. The apple
looks tasty; besides, nobody will miss it."

That's more or less the way David Bersoff, a psychology professor at the
University of Pennsylvania, explains the workings of temptation. He studies
stealing and lying, and he's fascinated by the subtle mental adjustments
people use to preserve their self-esteem even as they reach for forbidden
fruit.

New research such as his may shed light on a human dilemma dating back to
Adam and Eve. And while temptation has always commanded the attention of
the clergy, science is now busy trying to measure the way moral failings
work.

In research to be published in the Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, Bersoff explores the kind of rationalizations used to justify
such common trespasses as pilfering office supplies -- studies suggest one
in three employees steal at work -- or quietly pocketing a cashier's
overpayment.

It's with good reason people pray "lead us not into temptation," said
Bersoff. He has watched the moment of surrender closely and it's not an
enviable place to be.

In his research, he recruited university students to take part in what they
were led to believe was a product test. The participants were then overpaid
$2 for their efforts.

The first group was told a big foreign company was sponsoring the test. The
subjects were paid by an impersonal cashier. In that group, 80 percent
kept the extra money.

The next subjects were told the test was being run by a graduate student
and being paid for out of his own funds. ``Now the victim has a face. It's
harder to deny harm," said Bersoff. Half of that group accepted the
undeserved money.

In the next scenario, the cashier counted out the money on her desk then
asked: "Is that right?" The question made it necessary to tell a lie to get
the undeserved $2. Forty percent did so.

Giving the victim a face

In a final scenario, subjects were told a graduate student was paying for
the test, and the cashier asked if the payment was right. So there was a
victim to hurt and a lie required. Still, 20 percent took the extra $2.

He concluded that people are more likely to give in to temptation when they
can remain passive, and when they feel no one is being harmed. Each
complicating factor made it harder and harder to "find in your mind a way
to justify this," said Bersoff.

"I don't believe people are bad," he said. "But certain situations play on
their weakness and lead them to do bad things. I think that is the whole
nature of temptation."

Meanwhile, researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland will
soon publish the results of a study using a chocolate-chip fatigue test
that they say helps prove willpower is like a muscle that gets tired under
stress.

The researchers asked subjects to skip a meal before they came in for
testing. On a table in the testing room were a plate of cookies and a plate
of radishes.

"We told them it was a test of taste impressions and memory and that your
assignment is going to be (only) radishes," said social psychologist Roy
Baumeister, who headed the research.

`"We left the person alone in the room to increase the temptation," said
Baumeister. "We observed in secret to make sure they didn't cheat."

Some people studied the cookies. Some went as far as to pick up a cookie
and smell it, said researcher Ellen Bratslavsky, who ran the test. Others
couldn't bear to even look at the cookies. They pushed the plate away. But
none of them cheated.

They ate radishes instead. Their forbearance, however, cost them. The
radish-eaters were asked to work on a confounding mental puzzle as long as
they could. They gave up on the puzzle much faster than both a group of
subjects allowed to eat the cookies and a group of subjects who were asked
to perform the puzzle without being offered any food at all.

"The point is, resisting temptation is draining. It takes something out of
you," said Baumeister.

For Baumeister, self-control is "a muscle that gets stronger with
exercise." It's also "something that gets used up. It needs time to get
replenished before you use it again."

Everyone has felt willpower tested and found its limits.

Watching alcoholics

Howard Rankin, a clinical psychologist at the University of South Carolina,
has conducted extensive studies of those limits.

He got his start years ago at the University of London, observing
alcoholics do battle with the cravings that arose when they sat next to a
bottle of booze. In the years since then, Rankin has developed a
"temptation management" regime that teaches people to imagine themselves
resisting temptation until they are actually able to do it.

"They go through a crisis and come out the other side. They feel empowered
because they've survived," he said. "The power of the temptation lies in
your approach to it rather than any intrinsic energy it has on its own. The
core principle is impulse control, learning to tolerate frustration."