You have to hand it to Kurt Gray, a doctoral student at Harvard. He knows how to spin a set of three small experiments he conducted to make headlines. Here’s what Gray had to say about his findings:
“By perceiving themselves as good or evil, people embody these perceptions, actually becoming more capable of physical endurance.”
and
“But in fact, this research suggests that physical strength may be an effect, not a cause, of moral acts.”
Did Gray actually measure a person’s inherent “goodness” or capacity for evil (or did he measure artificial situations created in a lab that may or may not actually mimic these qualities)? And if so, did he also measure physical strength (or simply one small aspect of strength, physical endurance)?