Hypothesis & Variables

Constance is conducting a study on the influence of toys on marital conflict. She feels that the type of toy will have an impact on marital disagreement. More specifically, she feels that “evil” toys will increase marital disagreements. She has 20 couples and tells them they are part of a study on perception. She brings each couple individually into a room and tells the couple to sit at a round table across from each other. She then instructs them to look at slides of various objects and tells the couple that they must come to an agreement on which category to place the object in. For 10 of the couples she has a plush teddy bear in a chair next to the couple. For the other 10 couples she has a doll of Chuckie (the killer doll from Child’s Play) on the chair. Constance then watches the couple from a two-way mirror and records the number of disagreements each couple had. For the 10 couples with the teddy bear she found 10, 11, 08, 12, 09, 12, 15, 23, 04, and 00 disagreements. For the 10 couples with Chuckie she found 19, 18, 11, 09, 08, 28, 19, 09, 02, and 05 disagreements. The correlation coefficient between evilness of toys and number of disagreements is 0.18.