The researchers behind the psychology experiment told a group of participants to imagine that they’d been granted a superpower by a magic genie and were suddenly as invincible as Superman — bullets bounced off them, fire couldn’t scorch their skin, and “a fall from a cliff wouldn’t hurt at all,” Bargh writes in his book. The study’s control group was simply told to imagine they could fly.

Then the researchers asked the participants to weigh in on some political statements, including whether they “would be reluctant to make any large-scale changes to the social order,” and whether “it’s okay if some groups have more of a chance in life than others.”

Liberal participants’ attitudes on social issues didn’t shift at all. The conservative participants, on the other hand, started adopting more liberal views on social issues (though not economic ones.)