Ah, but do you immediately believe they’re telling the truth, and the WHOLE truth? Maybe there will or won’t be a shock, and maybe there will or won’t be a shock the second time, and maybe there will or won’t be a shock AND CAKE the third time, etcetera. People will do a lot of weird things if there might be cake. Certainly if the researchers have the budget to wrangle with an institutional review board long enough to get the experiment off the ground, they have a big enough budget there could be cake.
This is one of these times when a general Big Five personality traits personality test would be in order, to see how well idle self-zappiness correlates with other aspects of personality. Openness to new experience is the obvious one to expect, but humans are surprising enough that I wouldn’t put a LOT of money on it.
