If you asked how much of the variance in the “punishment” scale could be explained by the specific scenario—the particular legal case, as presented to multiple subjects—then the answer, even for the raw scores, was 0.49. For the rank orders of the dollar responses, the amount of variance predicted was 0.51. For the raw dollar amounts, the variance explained was 0.06! Which is to say: if you knew the scenario presented—the aforementioned child whose clothes caught on fire—you could take a good guess at the punishment rating, and a good guess at the rank-ordering of the dollar award relative to
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