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Introduction
The 'Goldman dilemma' 1 is one of the most cited results in the antidoping literature, becoming accepted 'wisdom' regarding the choices elite athletes make regarding drug use in sport. The dilemma presents a Faustian bargain to athletes, asking if they would trade longevity for Olympic success by taking a drug that not only guaranteed a Gold Medal but also their death in 5 years' time. Goldman is reported to have presented this dilemma to world-class athletes biannually between 1982 and 1995. He reported a remarkably stable set of results with about half accepting the gold for death deal. 2 There has been little in the way of replication of the Goldman dilemma since 1995, with sporadic adaptations for different contexts showing athletes of various levels to be less likely to take the bargain. 3 Despite the extensive reporting of Goldman's results and the adaptations, questions remain around the validity and reliability of the dilemma to accurately capture an athlete's willingness to trade longevity for Olympic success. 4 This paper begins an exercise to test the properties of the Goldman dilemma in preparation for a large-scale replication among contemporary elite athletes.
The first weakness of Goldman's work is that no comparable measure of acceptance exists among the general population. That is, there are no data to suggest whether the athletes are responding in the same manner or differently to members of the general population. Contemporary data suggest that the general population take a very conservative approach to the dilemma; out of a representative sample of n=250 Australians, only two respondents accepted the bargain. 4 These data provide an indicator against which comparisons can be made. That is, if athletes respond to the dilemma in the same way as the general population, approximately 1% of athletes would take the Faustian bargain.
The second weakness in Goldman's work is found in the wording of the questions. The question presented the outcome (Olympic gold) followed by the consequence (death). As Connor and Mazanov 4 assert, 'Goldman dilemma responses may represent a positive response bias as a function of wording, necessitating replication using the counterbalanced presentation' (p. 872). The current project tested whether the counterbalanced presentation identified effects in terms of substance legality (legal vs illegal), mortality (death vs...