Research Paper II

Running head: COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 1

Counterfactual Thinking: Appointing Blame

Former Student

Florida International University

Commented [RW2]: Do you know how to enter a header? Click on the “Insert” menu at the top of word, click on “Header”, and then type in the header whatever you want. There is even a box that you can check that allows you to have a different header on the first page than subsequent pages.

Commented [RW3]: The title page here is essentially the same one from Paper I. It has the title (in APA format), author name, and university affiliation. Want my advice? If you did well on the Paper I title page, reuse it!

Commented [RW4]: The good news is that this example paper is on the same topic as the example paper from Paper I. I’m going to show you the progress of the paper throughout the semester, so you can see how you will eventually combine Papers I, II, III, and IV into Paper V. Let’s continue looking at counterfactual thinking!

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 2

Methods Participants

One hundred and twenty six students from Florida International University were

randomly selected to participate in our study. Of these 126 participants, 37% (n = 47) were male

and 63% (n = 79) were female. Ages ranged from a minimum of 17 to a maximum of 58 with an

average of 22.32 years (SD = 6.30). Our sample population consisted of 68.3% Hispanic

Americans (n = 86), 8.7% African Americans (n = 11), 19% Caucasians (n = 24), 1.6% Asians (n

= 2), and 2.4% who did not specify their ethnicity (n = 3). See Appendix A.

Materials and Procedure

In accordance with the standardized guidelines for informed consent, prospective

participants were notified of the potential risks and benefits of participating in the study before

being introduced to the research material. If the student verbally agreed to participate, he or she

was given one of three different documents, each of which consisted of four parts or sections. In

part one of the study, the participant read a short scenario concerning a paraplegic couple, Tina

and Eugene, who requested a taxi for a night out with friends. Each of the three documents

depicted the same initial situation with alternate conditions (changeable, unchangeable, or

neutral) that ultimately led to different outcomes of events.

In the changeable condition, the taxi driver arrived to pick up the couple, only to

promptly decline their fare upon seeing that they were both paraplegic. Without enough time to

call for another taxi, Tina and Eugene decided to take Tina’s car, which was handicap equipped.

In order to reach their destination, they had to cross a bridge that had been weakened the night

before due to a severe storm. The damaged bridge collapsed mere minutes before the couple

reached it. Unable to see the missing portion of the bridge in the night, Tina and Eugene drove

off the road, into the river below, and drowned. The taxi driver, who had left 15 minutes earlier,

Commented [RW5]: The word Methods here is centered and bolded, as is recommended by the APA

Commented [RW6]: Participant (also bolded) is flush left

Commented [RW7]: When a number starts a sentence, spell out the number

Commented [RW8]: Note the mean and standard deviation here, which is helpful for knowing about the makeup of the sample. The mean, of course, is the average

Commented [RW9]: Make sure to provide your demographics charts in your appendix. I expect to see one for gender, one for age, and one for ethnicity

Commented [RW10]: Also bolded and flush left. You will notice that this author combined materials and procedures, which was good for this simple study. She could have separated them, though, and talked about the taxi scenario and questionnaires in a “materials” section and the procedure separately in the “procedure” section. I like this combined choice, though, for this design.

Commented [RW11]: Noting the IV helps a lot. You can tell the author knows what his IV is. There is only one, with three levels

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 3

managed to make it safely across, before the collapse. In the unchangeable condition, the

situation remained mostly the same with the exception that the taxi driver arrived at the bridge

after it had collapsed and plummeted into the water as well. He managed to make it out of the car

and swim to safety, but Tina and Eugene drowned. In the neutral condition, the taxi arrived to

pick up the couple but promptly refused their fare as soon as he realized that they were both

paraplegic. In this condition, the taxi driver did eventually agree to take Tina and Eugene to their

destination downtown, albeit after much argument. Due to the recently collapsed bridge, the taxi

driver drove his passengers and himself off the road and into the river below. He barely managed

to make it out of the car before drowning. Tina and Eugene’s outcome remained the same.

After reading one of the scenarios described above, the participant continued on to the

remainder of the study, which was composed of a series of open, partially open, and close-ended

questions. In part two, the student participating in the study was asked to procure as many ‘If

Only’ statements as possible, meaning that they had to list all the factors they could think of that

could have possibly changed the outcome of the event. In part three, the participant was

presented with a series of questions about their thoughts regarding the specific situation they read

about. After reading each question, the participant was asked to record his or her response in a

scale of one to nine. These questions included how avoidable they thought the accident was (1 =

not at all avoidable, 9 = very avoidable), the causal role of the taxi driver in the couple’s death (1

= not at all causal, 9 = the most important cause), their thoughts on how much control the taxi

driver had (1 = no control, 9 = complete control), the negligence of the taxi driver (1 = not at all

negligent, 9 = completely negligent), how much money for damages the taxi driver was

responsible for (1 = no money, 9 = as much as possible), the foreseeability of the couple’s death

(1 = not at all foreseeable, 9 = completely foreseeable), and how much blame the taxi driver

Commented [RW12]: Notice how thorough the description of the scenario is here. If you wanted to replicate this study, you would know exactly what to do because the author tells you exactly what she did. Make sure the description of your IV is equally clear.

Commented [RW13]: You know exactly what the DVs are here, and you know the range for each scale. This is VERY important. If you tell me the scale was 1 to 9 but that is it, I won’t know if 1 is a good score or a bad score. Does 9 mean they could avoid it or they could not avoid it? I need to see both the scale AND the labels for the DV to make sense

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 4

deserved for the event (1 = no blame at all, 9 = total blame). The last question of part three was a

yes or no question that asked the participant whether the taxi driver agreed to drive the couple or

not. This final question served as an attention check, which informed us if the participant was

actually attentive to the study and allowed us to exclude potentially misrepresentative responses

form our data. Part four asked for the participant’s demographic information, including gender,

age, ethnicity, their first language, and whether they were a student at Florida International

University. Concluding the study, the participant was debriefed on his or her contribution to the

study as well as our insights on counterfactual thinking and our main hypothesis.

Although we had several dependent variables, our primary focus involved the perceived

blameworthiness of the taxi driver, the number of ‘If Only’ statements the participants could

create, and the manipulation check regarding whether the driver agreed to take the couple. We

hypothesized that participants would find the taxi driver more blameworthy for the couple’s

death in the changeable condition, since he refused to drive Tina and Eugene while safely

passing over the bridge himself. We also predicted that the participants in the changeable

condition would generate more counterfactual (‘If Only’) statements than in the unchangeable or

neutral conditions.

Results

Using survey condition (changeable vs. unchangeable vs. neutral) as our independent

variable and whether participants recalled whether the taxi driver picked up the paraplegic

couple as the dependent variable, we ran a manipulation check in which we saw a significant

effect, X2(2) = 93.95, p < .001. Participants in the changeable and unchangeable conditions

correctly said the taxi did not pick up the couple (95.2% and 90.5%, respectively) while few

participants in the neutral condition said the driver picked up the couple (4.8%). Phi showed a

Commented [RW14]: You can see her procedure, right! Very clear, very step-by-step

Commented [RW15]: Results is centered and bold. The results section comes right after the methods – there is no page break

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 5

large effect. This indicates that participants did pay attention to whether the taxi driver picked up

the couple. See Appendix B.

For our main analysis, our first One-Way ANOVA test revealed significant differences

among our independent variable, the scenario conditions (changeable, unchangeable, or neutral)

and our dependent variable, perceived blameworthiness of the taxi driver, F(2, 122) = 3.55, p =

.032. A subsequent Tukey post hoc test supported our hypothesis by demonstrating that

participants were more likely to blame the taxi driver in the changeable condition (M = 4.51, SD

= 2.06) than in the unchangeable condition (M = 3.38, SD = 2.14).. However, there were no

significant difference for perceived blame between the neutral condition (M = 4.36, SD = 2.11)

and either the changeable or unchangeable conditions. These results indicate that in situations

where the outcome is perceived as mutable (changeable), individuals are more likely to assign

blame to the actor who could have acted differently (unchangeable). See Appendix C.

We were also interested in the number of ‘If Only’ statements generated for each

condition. We ran a One-Way ANOVA test using the different conditions (changeable,

unchangeable, or neutral) as our independent variable, and the number of counterfactuals

produced as our dependent variable. The results revealed that the relationship between condition

and number of ‘If Only’ statements produced was not significant, F(2, 123) = 1.79, p = .171. Our

initial prediction that participants would develop more counterfactuals in the changeable

condition was not supported since the number of counterfactuals generated in the changeable

condition (M = 5.41, SD = 2.21), the unchangeable condition (M = 4.57, SD = 2.04), and the

neutral condition (M = 4.88, SD = 1.85) did not differ. Since the p-value for the ANOVA test

was not significant, there was no need to run post hoc tests. See Appendix D.

Discussion

Commented [RW16]: The chi square here is useful for data that is nominal in nature (that is, there is no numerical difference between factors). Here, they either read about a taxi picking up the couple or they didn’t. We cannot look at a mean or average value here (what is the average between yes and no?), so the chi square looks at the number of people who say yes and the number who say no. Here, we want the participants in some conditions to say yes (if the taxi picked up the couple) and no (if he didn’t pick them up)

Commented [RW17]: I’ll need to see the tables for the crosstabs in the appendix as well. Include both the crosstabs table and the chi square table and make sure the numbers in the paragraph align with the numbers in the table

Commented [RW18]: A One Way ANOVA is appropriate here since there are three levels to the single IV and the DV is on an interval scale (it ranges from 1 to 9)

Commented [RW19]: The student here provided an exact p value. This is acceptable, though you can also use p < .05, p > .05, or p < .01 where appropriate

Commented [RW20]: As you can see, this student did find significance, so she ran post hoc tests on the ANOVA using Tukey. But what if there was no significance,? Well, look what happens in the next ANOVA!

Commented [RW21]: For this appendix, include the descriptives, ANOVA, and post hoc tables from SPSS

Commented [RW22]: So this student ran a second ANOVA, which I think is best. But since the dependent variable used here was scaled (confidence, which is on a 1 to 9 scale), the student could have just as easily run a t- Test focusing on only two levels of the IV. Let me show you what that might look like. “We ran a t-Test looking only at the changeable and unchangeable conditions as our independent variable and number of If Only statements generated as our dependent variable. The t-Test was not significant, t(72) = 1.76, p > .05. Participants did not generate any more counterfactuals in the changeable condition (M = 5.56, SD = 2.76) than in the unchangeable condition (M = 4.36, SD = 2.06).” I could do something similar comparing the changeable and neutral conditions with a t-Test or comparing the ... [1] Commented [RW23]: Even though the ANOVA was not significant, I’d still like you to provide the means and standard deviations for the analysis

Commented [RW24]: Your discussion does not need to be extensive, but I do want you to note whether you supported or did not support your hypothesis and provide some possible reasons for your findings. You can make some educated guesses about what might be going on, but make them reasonable!

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 6

We predicted that participants would place more blame on an actor whose behavior led to

an undesirable outcome (death) when that actor could have acted differently primarily because

these participants would generate more “If Only” counterfactual statements that would lead them

to see the outcome could have been avoided. Conversely, we predicted that participants who read

about an undesirable outcome that could not have been avoided would assign less blame to the

actor and would think of fewer counterfactual “If Only” statements. Results partially supported

these predictions, as we did find more blame for in the changeable condition compared to the

unchangeable (though neither differed from the neutral condition). However, the number of

counterfactual statements that participants generated did not differ among our three conditions. It

could be that participants were unfamiliar with the counterfactual task, which requires some deep

thinking, though on a more unconscious level they could have seen the changeable condition as

evidencing more elements of blame. This begs the question: what if participants were forced to

think deeper? This is the focus of our second study.

Commented [RW25]: This question here is actually a lead-in to the student’s next study. Your own methods, results, and discussion paper can end here, but keep in mind that your final paper is only halfway done right now! In Paper III, IV, and V, you will help design a follow- up study to your first study, so as you write this paper try to think about what you would do differently and what you might add in a follow-up study.

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 7

Appendix A – Demographics – Study One

Commented [RW26]: Don’t forget to add your appendices to the paper. I need to see one for each analysis (demographics, the chi square, your first DV ANOVA, and your second DV ANOVA). Make sure they are properly labeled and that the numbers in your tables align with the numbers in your results section Also note that normally you would not submit SPSS tables to a journal. You can submit tables and figures, but not SPSS tables. For this class, though, I want to make sure you did the interpretation correctly and looked at the right tables, so I want you to include the actual SPSS output in a series of appendices.

Commented [RW27]: To add these charts, simply go into your SPSS output. You can right-click on the table and then copy it as an image. Then just paste it as an image into your appendix! Alternatively, you can use the “Snipping tool” function available on most computers. (Do a search for it!). This allows you to draw a virtual box around text and then copy it like a picture. Then just paste the picture into the appendix Finally, your last option is to do the work by hand. Insert a table with rows and columns and transfer over the information. This is the hard way, though. Both of the options above took me less than a minute. Recreating a table manually will take a much longer time!

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 8

Appendix B – Crosstabs and Chi Square – Study One

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 9

Appendix C – ANOVA Blame – Study One

COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING: APPOINTING BLAME 10

Appendix D – ANOVA Number of Counterfactuals – Study One

Page 5: [1] Commented [RW22] Ryan Winter 6/24/16 7:24:00 PM

So this student ran a second ANOVA, which I think is best. But since the dependent variable used here was scaled (confidence, which is on a 1 to 9 scale), the student could have just as easily run a t-Test focusing on only two levels of the IV. Let me show you what that might look like. “We ran a t-Test looking only at the changeable and unchangeable conditions as our independent variable and number of If Only statements generated as our dependent variable. The t-Test was not significant, t(72) = 1.76, p > .05. Participants did not generate any more counterfactuals in the changeable condition (M = 5.56, SD = 2.76) than in the unchangeable condition (M = 4.36, SD = 2.06).” I could do something similar comparing the changeable and neutral conditions with a t-Test or comparing the neutral and unchangeable conditions, but running three t-Tests is a lot. Much easier to do it with one ANOVA, which looks at all three comparisons at the same time!