The Worth: A Chance to Taser

“The highest proportion would Taser Donald Trump, but others pick their own Granny”

The Taser is often used for comedic effect in movies, a tool that produces laughs at temporary but physically expressed pain. We wondered whether the British public have an appetite to inflict a Taser’s pain themselves and more importantly who would they choose to Taser?

Our nationally representative sample shows that 12% of the British public would pay £20 or more to Taser a specific person of their choice. This is a low willingness-to-pay compared to topics that we’ve previously researched, showing Brits to be kind enough not to inflict pain on others just for a laugh. People are much more willing to pay for pleasant experiences, like dining with a person of their choice or getting 15 minutes of fame in a film.

The proportion who are willing to pay decreases relatively weakly as the price increases, with 8% willing to pay £250 and the top 5% of people still willing to pay more than £3,000 for the pleasure. Younger people and men are significantly more likely to pay for this opportunity, and amongst those who will pay the price seems less of a deterrent than in other researched topics.

When asked who they would Taser 40% chose politicians, with 19% picking Trump. Of the other 21% that chose politicians both May and Corbyn took equal mentions of 6% each, with other mentions going to Kim Jung Un, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bashar al-Assad.

Hopefully focusing on the comedic angle, 18% chose to Taser a friend or family member. More likely focused on the opportunity to inflict pain, 3% would Taser an ex while 3% are good Samaritans who would Taser a criminal. Another 7% would like to Taser a particular celebrity, including Jeremy Clarkson, Katie Hopkins and…Shakespeare.

Finally, we should probably be a bit worried about the 12 people who picked to Taser themselves?!