research

Running head: SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 1

Scenario Mutability and Need for Cognition: Appointing Blame

Former Student

Florida International University

SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 2

Method Study Two

Participants

One hundred and sixty subjects, 90% (n = 144) university students, were recruited to

participate in study two. Of these 160 participants, 33% (n = 52) were male and 67% (n = 108)

were female. Ages ranged from a minimum of 17 to a maximum of 64 with an average of 22.38

years (SD = 5.14). Our sample population consisted of 76% Hispanic Americans (n = 122), 9%

African Americans (n = 15), 9% Caucasians (n = 14), 3% Asian American (n = 5), and 3%

Others (n = 4). See Appendix F.

Materials and Procedure

Prospective participants were asked to take part in an online study being conducted for

research purposes. If the subject agreed to participate, verbally or otherwise, he or she was

directed to the survey developed through Qualtrics software. In accordance with the standardized

guidelines for informed consent, subjects were first notified of the potential risks and benefits of

participating in the study before being introduced to the research material. Once the participant

confirmed their approval, they were eligible to continue with the rest of the survey, which

consisted of six different parts or sections.

In section one of the study, we manipulated the subject’s Need for Cognition (NFC) by

randomly assigning them to one of two possible groups. Depending on which group the subject

was appointed to, they were presented with either five low-NFC or five high-NFC statements

procured from the 18-item NFC scale developed by Caccioppo, Petty, and Kao (1984). After

reading each statement, the participant was then asked to rate how much they agreed with each

remark on a number scale. The numbers on the scale ranged from one (somewhat agree) to seven

(completely agree). For example, a participant presented with a set of high-NFC statements was

Commented [RW2]: The good news here is that the set up for the methods for study two is similar to the set up for study one. You can copy and paste a bit, but there are going to be some really IMPORTANT differences that I will highlight throughout

Commented [RW3]: The participant section in Paper IV is similar to that in Paper II, but your participants will differ. IMPORTANT: Include your sample and numbers for study two, as these participants are not the same ones you used in study one

Commented [RW4]: Note that I have Appendix F for this study, since I used appendices A, B, C, D, and E for study one. You might have your Study Two demographic appendix start at Appendix E rather than F as listed in this example paper

Commented [RW5]: It’s a new study (online this time!) so make sure to note it accordingly

Commented [RW6]: For your study, make sure to include all new relevant information. This student author used Need for Cognition as her second independent variable, so it was important to elaborate on how they was manipulated and measured in her study

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asked to rate the statement “I prefer complex to simple problems,” while a participant presented

with a set of low-NFC statements was asked to rate the statement “I only think as hard as I have

to” on the previously mentioned number scale.

In section two of the study, participants read one of two short scenarios concerning a

paraplegic couple, Tina and Eugene, who requested a taxi for a night out with friends. These

scenarios were identical to the ones used in study one. Here, however, we omitted the neutral

condition since it did not differ from the unchangeable condition. Once again, and similar to

study one, participants continued on to section three of the study, which asked them to provide 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. Subjects were able to

complete a total of ten statements, though they were not required to fill in all ten.

Similar to study one, section four presented participants with a series of 12 questions

about their general thoughts regarding the specific situation they read about. These questions

included how avoidable they thought the accident was, the causal role of the taxi driver in the

couple’s death, their thoughts on how much control the taxi driver had, the negligence of the taxi

driver, their dissatisfaction of scenario outcome, the foreseeability of the couple’s death, how

much blame the taxi driver deserved for the event, how much control Eugene and Tina had in the

event, how legally responsible the taxi driver was, how guilty the taxi driver should feel, how

fair the taxi driver’s decision was, and how difficult it was to imagine a different outcome. After

reading each question, the participant was asked to record his or her response in a scale of one to

nine. The last question of section four 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,

Commented [RW7]: You’ll notice a very brief mention of the scenarios here. Since this author talked about them in detail in the methods section for study one, there is no need to say it all again. He readers already know what the study involves now, so no need to go into detail about it once again

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which informed us if the participant was actually attentive to the study and allowed us to exclude

potentially misrepresentative responses from our data.

Section five of the survey consisted of the remaining eight manipulation check questions

for NFC. Similar to section one of the study, the participant was asked to rate eight dispositional

statements on a scale of one to seven. For example, the statement “Thinking is not my idea of

fun” would be rated from a scale of one (extremely uncharacteristic) to seven (extremely

characteristic).

The last section of the study asked for the participant’s demographic information,

including gender, age, ethnicity, country of birth, their first language, whether they are a student

at Florida International University, etc. Several questions asked about information directly

relevant to the scenario such as if the subject had ever been in a major car accident or if he or she

knew anyone who was paraplegic. Concluding the study, the participant was debriefed.

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

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

create. We also analyzed the interaction between scenario mutability and NFC for both

dependent variables.

Results Study Two

Using condition as our independent variable and recall of the whether the taxi driver

agreed to drive the couple or not, we ran a manipulation check, which was not significant. That

is, very few participants in both the changeable (5%) and unchangeable (2.5%) conditions said

the taxi driver picked up the paraplegic couple, X2(1) = .69, p > .05. Phi showed a small effect.

This is not surprising, as we eliminated the neutral condition (in study one, this was the only

Commented [RW8]: Again, the dependent variables mentioned in this paragraph are summarized rather than getting a detailed look as they did in study one. The DVs are important to mention, but if they are identical to those in study one there doesn’t need to be a great amount of detail.

Commented [RW9]: These DVs are new (not present in study one) and are important to describe as new variables in study two

Commented [RW10]: Results are again brand new for this paper, so make sure they reflect your new Factorial design

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condition where the taxi did, in fact, pick up the couple). Thus participants did pay attention to

their condition in study two (See Appendix G).

To test our first dependent variable, we ran a 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA with NFC (high vs.

low) and scenario condition (changeable vs. unchangeable) as our independent variables and the

perceived blameworthiness of the taxi driver as our dependent variable. Results demonstrated no

significant main effect for NFC on perceived blame, F(1, 152) = 1.69, p = .196. This means that

there was no meaningful differences in the assignment of culpability between the high-NFC (M =

3.72, SD = 2.44) and low-NFC group (M = 4.12, SD = 2.49). There was, however, a significant

main effect for scenario condition, F(1, 152) = 3.98, p = .048. Participants in the changeable

condition (M = 4.27, SD = 2.35) perceived the taxi driver to be more blameworthy for the

couple’s death than participants in the unchangeable condition (M = 3.56, SD = 2.47).

Unfortunately, there was no interaction of NFC and scenario, F(1, 152) = 0.00, p = .985,

meaning that perceived culpability did not significantly differ among high NFC changeable

participants (M = 4.04, SD = 2.28), high NFC unchangeable participants (M = 3.27, SD = 2.44),

low NFC changeable participants (M = 4.56, SD = 2.44), and low NFC unchangeable

participants (M = 3.77, SD = 2.51). See Appendix H.

To test our second dependent variable, we ran another 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA with NFC

(high vs. low) and scenario condition (changeable vs. unchangeable) as our independent

variables and number of “If Only” counterfactual statements as our dependent variable. There

was no main effect for NFC on the number of “If Only” thoughts generated, F(1, 156) = .001, p

= .975. This means that there was no difference in the number of counterfactual thoughts

generated between the high-NFC group (M = 3.87, SD = 1.77) and low-NFC group (M = 3.81,

SD = 2.46). Similarly, there was no main effect between for scenario, F(1, 56) = 2.05, p = .154.

Commented [RW11]: If you look back at the example paper for Paper III, you’ll see the hypotheses for this results section. The results once again focus on two different dependent variables, but in a factorial design each DV has two main effects and one interaction associated with it.

SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 6

That is, there was no significant difference in the number of “If Only” statements generated

between the changeable condition (M = 4.09, SD = 2.28) and the unchangeable condition (M =

3.60, SD = 1.97). We also examined the overall interaction between the two independent

variables (high vs. low-NFC and unchangeable vs. changeable scenario) and the dependent

variable. We found that there was no interaction of NFC and scenario condition, F(1, 156) =

1.04, p = .310, meaning that the number of “If Only” thoughts created did not vary between the

high NFC unchangeable condition (M = 3.79, SD = 1.92), high NFC changeable condition (M =

3.93, SD = 1.68), low NFC unchangeable condition (M = 3.46, SD = 2.01), or low NFC

changeable condition (M = 4.29, SD = 2.93). See Appendix I.

Discussion Study Two

Although study two posited that Need for Cognition would impact participants and their

generation of counterfactual statements and their assessment of blame, results did not support

this contention. For both dependent variables, Need for Cognition did not result in main effects.

Despite predictions to the contrary, those high in NFC did not generate any more counterfactuals

than those low in NFC, and those high in NFC did not blame the taxi driver any more than those

low in NFC. Nor did NCF interact with scenario, despite our prediction that those high NFC

would generate the most counterfactuals and find the most blame when given the changeable

scenario compared to other conditions. However, scenario did show a significant main effect

such that participants found more blame for the taxi driver in the changeable condition than the

unchangeable condition.

Commented [RW12]: So no main effects and no interaction for this first variable. I still want to see the means, though, so include them.

SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 7

Appendix F – Demographics – Study Two

Commented [RW13]: Make sure to include your new appendices, but for all study two statistical tests. This first appendix is based on the demographics from study two, which differ from the demographics from study one (which used a different sample). To find demographics, make sure to run frequencies again in SPSS! Again, 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.

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Appendix G: Crosstabs and Chi Square – Study Two

SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 9

Appendix H – ANOVA Perceived Blameworthiness – Study Two

Commented [RW14]: She changed her title here a bit from Paper II, but still looked at a similar variable (blame) for Paper III

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Appendix I – ANOVA Number of Counterfactuals – Study Two