I think she would probably react negatively if you grabbed her son and gave him a lollipop, too. If his father, however, grabbed the son and started hitting him on some pretense or other, a certain percentage of mothers sampled probably would not protest.
Good point, we need a control group where we grab the son and then do nothing. Then we compare the reactions to the group where we grabbed the son and tortured him.
I think she would probably react negatively if you grabbed her son and gave him a lollipop, too. If his father, however, grabbed the son and started hitting him on some pretense or other, a certain percentage of mothers sampled probably would not protest.
Good point, we need a control group where we grab the son and then do nothing. Then we compare the reactions to the group where we grabbed the son and tortured him.
I would expect the negative reaction to be much more severe in the case of torture.
Certainly. But there is something of a confounding factor involved.