Deducing from the tram dilemma and the footbridge dilemma, we can observe a deep-rooted propensity of people to show an aversion to evil. People generally say they are unwilling to harm others. However, countless acts of violence throughout history have shown us that there is a disparity between what we say and what we actually do. This essay will summarize and discuss the implications of a study by FeldmanHall and colleagues (2012) on this topic. The questions this study seeks to address are how and why behaviors following hypothetical moral scenarios differ from those of real moral scenarios. Study 1a involved conducting a survey asking 53 participants whether they thought future participants would be more or less likely to avoid harming another for significant personal gain (e.g. monetary incentives) if the stakes were real compared to the hypothetical one. A significant 74% of participants believed that harm aversion would exert a greater influence in the real-world condition. Study 1b examined whether the above opinions would be performed under experimental conditions. Contrary to the results of Study 1a, the experimenters hypothesized that when motivational forces are real, self-gain incentive would become more compelling than harm aversion. To test the hypothesis, two experimental conditions were formulated. In the real PvG condition, participants performed a Pain vs Gain (PvG) task. In this task, participants were initially given $20. Participants faced 20 trials, in which they could pay up to $1 per trial to reduce the intensity of the shocks ($0 for full shock, $1 for no shock) delivered to a recipient, who they believed was another participant, but who was actually a confederate. The shock absorbers were fake, but many measurements... half of the paper... extremely important study. Works Cited FeldmanHall, O., Mobbs, D., Evans, D., Hiscox, L., Navrady, L., & Dalgleish, T. (2012). What we say and what we do: The relationship between real and hypothetical moral choices.Cognition, 123(3), 434-441.FeldmanHall, O., Dalgleish, T., Thompson, R., Evans, D., Schweizer, S. and Mobbs, D. (2012). Differential neural circuits and self-interest in real and hypothetical moral decisions. Sociocognitive and affective neuroscience, 7(7), 743-751. Pastötter, B., Gleixner, S., Neuhauser, T., & Bäuml, K. H. T. (2013). To push or not to push? Affective influences on moral judgment depend on the decision-making framework. Cognition, 126(3), 373-377.Patil, I., Cogoni, C., Zangrando, N., Chittaro, L., & Silani, G. (2014). Affective basis of judgment-behavior discrepancy in virtual experiences of moral dilemmas. Social neuroscience,9(1), 94-107.