Final Paper

Running Head: METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 1

METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Kaytlin De Los Santos

Florida International University

METHODS, RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 2

Methods, Results and Discussion

Methods

Participants

One hundred and thirty-nine participants were randomly selected and requested to fill a

questionnaire during the study. Every one of the 48 researchers looked for about 3 participants

each who were strangers to them or students at FIU. The participants needed to have not taken a

psychology research methods class in the fall of 2019.

Male participants for the study were 53 which accounted 38.1% while female participants

were 86 which accounted for 61.9% of the total number of participants (N=139). Caucasian

participants were 36 (25.9%), Hispanic participants were 55 (39.6%), and Native Indian

participants were 3 (2.2%), African Americans were 24 (17.3%) Asian Americans were 9 (6.5%)

and other ethnicities had 12 (8.6%) participants. The minimum age for the participants was 17

years while the maximum age was 59 years. The median age was 22 years, the mode was 21

years, and the mean age M was 24.09 years and the standard deviation S.D was 7.522.

Materials and Procedure

The participants were requested of an oral consent to participate in the study. The

researchers explained to prospective participants that the research they were carrying out was for

their psychology research methods and requested for the participants’ consent to participate.

Participants who consented were presented with one of three research study questionnaires. The

participants were asked to read through the instructions on top of the questionnaire and read

through a scenario on a Facebook page. The participants were asked to read through a Facebook

post by a user named Abigail Foster who had cheated in a statistical test. Apparently, she had

been finding her statistical class daunting and while she was working very hard revising, she was

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sure she would not perform very well in the test. When the instructor was handing the tests to

students, she was accidently handed her with an answer key which she used and get high scores

which made the instructor not to curve scores as he would had everybody failed. Abigail

therefore asked her friends for help since she was feeling bad about it. Facebook page contained

a picture of Abigail, its owner, as well as background picture of her university. In the about

section, generic information about Abigail was included. There was a list of her friends with

profile pictures of their selfies. There were also fake adverts to make the page appear real. Below

the Facebook posts were eight comments from her friends.

The Facebook post comments consisted of the first part of the survey. The comments

sections were tailored in three different conditions in each of the three surveys that were used for

the study. The first survey exclusively contained comments of Abigail’s friends who

unanimously supported her for cheating citing that it was her luck and she had not intended to

cheat at the first place. The second survey exclusively contained comments from Abigail’s

friends who unanimously opposed her decision to cheat citing such sentiments as it was wrong,

unethical and immoral. The third survey contained comments that were mixed. That is, some

comments were opposing and others supporting Abigail’s behavior. Each participant was

presented with a survey that contained only one of three conditions. That is, where comments

were either unanimously supportive, unanimously opposing or mixed. As such, a third of the

participants received comments that were unanimously supportive, a third received comments

that were unanimously opposing while the other third received surveys with comments that were

mixed.

In part II of the survey, the participants were asked to rate their impressions of Abigail’s

performance on a scale from 1(strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). The rates of were

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expected to be different for each of the above-named conditions. Those who received surveys

with support consensus were expected to give ratings closer to 6(strongly agree). Those who

received surveys with oppose consensus were expected to give rates closer to one while those

with mixed consensus condition would give rates around the center of the ratings (Brida, &

Alvarez, 2017).

In part III, participants were asked to rate a number of statements on how they would

advise Abigail. This was the manipulation check question. The statements “I would advise

Abigail to keep silent”, “I would try to comfort Abigail”, and “I would give Abigail the same

advice that her friends gave her” were given the first three positions. The fourth and fifth

statements were aimed at establishing how the participants would respond in a similar situation

testing for social desirability bias. The other statements from sixth to twelfth consisted of

competency/ warmth scales as developed by Fiske (Fiske & Neuberg, 1990).

In part IV of the survey, the participants were asked to provide other dependent variables.

The dependent variables were in the form of demographic variables. The participants were asked

to provide demographic data. Any questions that they found uncomfortable answering they were

asked to pass. The data that was asked for included participants’ age, gender and ethnicity.

In part V, the participants were asked to rate the feedback that Abigail received from her

friends as either opposing, supportive or mixed from what they remembered (Sijtsma et al.,

2017). The rating was nominal rather than numerical. This rating would be analyzed using chi-

square method unlike the interval scales above that were to be analyzed using ANOVA and t-

tests (Wike, 2018).

After completing the survey, the participants were debriefed about the study. During the

debrief, they were thanked for participating in the study. It was explained to them that different

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participants were asked to provide feedback regarding Abigail’s post. Different comments which

were either unanimously supportive, unanimously opposing as well as mixed was used to test

predictions regarding conformity/consensus. The first prediction being tested was that those

participants who were presented with comments that were unanimously supportive would rate

Abigail’s behavior as acceptable (Scholz et al., 2014). On the other hand, those who encountered

comments that were unanimously opposing would rate her behavior as unacceptable while those

who encountered mixed comments would give back ratings between the two extremes. The

second prediction that was being tested is that it is easier for a person to make a true opinion in

the case where the comments were mixed more than in the extreme cases of unanimous support

and unanimous opposing. These predictions, which were the study’s hypotheses would be tested

during the researchers’ method course in the semester.

Results

i. Chi-Square

The Facebook consensus condition was used as the independent variable (support,

oppose, mixed) and the participants recall of Abigail’s friends’ feedback to her, a significant χ

(4) =135.50, p<0.001. A big portion of participants in the “support” condition recalled feedback

that was supporting Abigail’s behavior (98%); most of the participants in the “opposing”

condition recalled opposing feedback (94%); and those who participated in the “mixed”

condition recalled mixed feedback (93%). This was an indicator that the participants saw the

researchers’ manipulation as intended.

ii. ANOVA

A consensus condition (support vs. oppose vs. mixed) as the independent variable and the

ratings of “I would give Abigail the same advice that her friends gave her”, we found a

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significant condition effect, F (2, 139) = 9.221, p<.05. This necessitated Tukey post hoc tests that

revealed that participants would have given the same advice to Abigail in the support condition

(M =4.5, S.D = 0.86) than participants in oppose condition (M = 3.4, S.D =1.00) as well as mixed

condition (M = 3.8, S.D = 0.73). It was also seen that participants in the mixed and oppose

conditions did not differ from each other. This supports the prediction of the researchers that

participants who had earlier been exposed to unanimously supportive comments would give

supportive advice to Abigail while those who were exposed to opposing comments, unanimous

and mixed, would give her opposing advice.

iii. T-test

A t-Test was carried out using the consensus condition (support vs. oppose) and as our

independent variable ratings of “I would give Abigail the same advice that her friends gave her”,

a significant condition effect was found, t(139) = 1.12, p > .05. As such, participants exposed to

the support condition (M =4.5, S.D = 0.86) would give the same advice to Abigail as her friends

gave to her as would those subjected to the opposing condition would (M = 3.4, S.D =1.00)).

This is an indicator that the participants are sensitive to consensus and are happy to conform to

the opinions of the consensus.

Another t-Test was carried out using the consensus condition (support vs. oppose) and as

our independent variable ratings of “I would advise Abigail to be silent”, a significant condition

effect was found, t(139) = 1.22, p > .05. As such, participants exposed to the support condition

(M =4.5, S.D = 0.86) would give the same advice to Abigail as her friends gave to her as would

those subjected to the opposing condition would (M = 3.4, S.D =1.00)As well, this is an indicator

that the participants are sensitive to consensus and are happy to conform to the opinions of the

consensus.

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Discussion

The first hypothesis in this study was that those participants who were presented with

comments that were unanimously supportive would rate Abigail’s behavior as acceptable. On the

other hand, those who encountered comments that were unanimously opposing would rate her

behavior as unacceptable while those who encountered mixed comments would give back ratings

between the two extremes. The second hypothesis that was being tested is that it is easier for a

person to make a true opinion in the case where the comments were mixed more than in the

extreme cases of unanimous support and unanimous opposing. The results supported the

hypothesis showing that participants are sensitive to consensus and are happy to conform to the

opinions of the consensus.

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