Question

The future-alone participants made fewer cooperative moves than did participants in other conditions, F(2, 28) = 5.87, p < .01. Tukey’s HSD tests showed that the future-alone condition was significantly different from the other two conditions at p < .05 and that the future-belonging and no-feedback-control conditions were not significantly different from each other. Comparing the future-alone group with the other two groups yielded d = 1.31, a large effect. These results suggest that socially excluded individuals are still less prosocial than are others, even when their ostensible partner starts off by cooperating.

1. What kind of study design is this (experimental or correlational)?

2. If experimental, what is the independent variable?

3. If experimental, what is the dependent variable?

4. What kind of statistical test did the author run, and how do you know the used this test?

5. What do you think the null and alternative hypotheses are in this study?

Answer 1

1. This is an experimental study design.

2. The independent variable is social exclusion.

3. The dependent behaviour is prosocial behaviour.

4. The study has used an ANOVA to analyse results. This is because differences between three conditions of the experiment are being compared. Also, the f statistic is mentioned which is how ANOVA is reported.

5. Null hypothesis: Social exclusion has no significant impact on prosocial behaviour.

Alternative hypothesis: Social exclusion has a significant impact on prosocial behaviour.