The “Electric Chair” With the help of the real participant, who had been assigned to the role of “teacher,” the experimenter straps the “learner” into the electric chair. Unbeknownst to the real participant, the learner was actually a 47-year-old accountant who had been carefully rehearsed for his part in the experimental deception. The experimenter told both participants, “Although the shocks can be extremely painful, they cause no permanent tissue damage.”