Forming Impressions of a Person Based on Personality and Profession

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 6

This experiment investigates how a college student who is taking a course in experimental psychology combines two different types of information, information about a person’s personality and information about a person’s profession, to form an impression of how much she or he would like that person. The hypothesis is a person will be liked more when the person is described with positive adjectives and has a socially respected profession.

Two variables are manipulated in this experiment. The first variable is the personality of the person to be rated; the adjectives used on the stimuli sheet describe positive, neutral, or negative personality traits. The second variable that is manipulated is the profession of the person who is rated: bank president, bank teller, or bank robber. This study has a 3 x 3 (Personality x Profession) factorial, single-participant, experimental design (Bordens & Abbott, 2014, pp. 314-319 & 442-445). The prediction is the professions of bank president and bank teller will be rated higher than the profession of bank robber when those professions are described with positive adjectives, but the president and teller will not be rated higher than the robber will when they are described with negative adjectives.

The participant (you) should read and sign the informed consent form (Appendix A). Then read the directions below and the 45 groups of words on the page that contains the stimuli (Appendix B). Each group of words is a different combination of two adjectives and a noun that describes personality and profession. After reading each group of words, the participant should rate how much she or he would like the person who is described. The rating should be made using a 10-point equal-interval scale ranging from 1 (dislike very much) to 10 (like very much). All of the rating scores should be recorded on the stimuli sheet.

In order to find if there is a reliable main effect for either independent variable (factor) or if there is a reliable interaction of the two factors, do a two-way analysis of variance on the rating scores using the Exp 3 SAS program.docx that is on my webpage.

1. Logon to a computer, open a web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, and go to my webpage http://courses.missouristate.edu/JRosenkoetter/

2. Click on Exp-3, then both Exp 3 SAS program.docx and Sample Third Report, then OK. The programs will open using Microsoft Word.

3. Save the files in some location where you can find them, such as, on the Desktop, in your USB drive, or in OneDrive by clicking File à Save As à Computerà Browse à Desktop (or your favorite location) à Save.

4. Close (r) the files, my webpage, the web browser, and everything else.

5. Go to where you saved Exp 3 SAS program.docx , and open it with Word.

6. Put your name on the top line.

7. Put the 45 rating scores from the Stimuli Sheet into the file by following the directions, which refer to the lines with the numbers 1. to 45. Leave at least one blank space between the professions and your number.

8. Click File à Save .

9. Next, click File à Print à Print to make a copy of the program with the data in it.

10. If you do not have SAS installed on the computer you are using, e-mail the file to me at

11. If you do have SAS installed on the computer you are using (it is installed in the Hill 311 lab and all of the other labs except Hill 305C and 309), you can use the directions from the green sheet that is titled, “Using SAS programs from Rosenkoetter’s webpage.”

12. When the Results Viewer – SAS Output window arrives, check the output to confirm that your name is on the top line, the number of observations used is 45, and you have 24 pages.

13. Open the Sample Third Report file. Go to the last page right-click and “cut” the sample figure that is there. Go to the last page of the SAS Output; right-click and “copy” the figure. “Paste” the figure from your SAS Output on the last page of the Sample Third Report. Keep a digital version of the Sample Third Report file for later use.

14. Then Print the SAS Output with File à Print à Print . (The results can also be printed by clicking on the printer icon 6 .)

15. When you are finished, leave SAS with File à Exit and OK.

Bring (a) this handout, (b) the four-page printout of Exp 3 SAS program.docx with the data entered into it, (c) the 24-page output of the Exp 3 SAS program.sas, (d) the red-colored handout about the Alpha Level, (e) the lavender-colored handout on Effect Size, and (f) a calculator (or cell phone) to the next lab. You could also bring a computer with the Sample Third Report file installed; it will be used for this report.

Before you come to lab, it would be a good idea to try to understand your results. A plot of the interaction-cell means is shown on the last page of the output. You can probably understand your results faster by studying this figure than by looking at all the numbers in the first 23 pages.

When you are ready to look at the numbers, go to page 1 of the 24-page output and check the classification level information to see if it is correct. If it is, go to page 2 to find if there is a significant main effect of personality, a significant main effect of profession, and a significant interaction effect. In the Discussion section of your report, you can discuss in detail only those effects that are statistically significant (see Bordens & Abbott, 2014, pp. 317-319 & 442-445). The Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch Multiple Range Test results for each factor are shown on pages 3 and 4.

If you do have a significant interaction effect, you can look at the differences between the means of the interaction cells, which are listed on page 23. These are called simple effects. The reliability of simple effects is determined by the Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch Multiple Range Test for each level of a factor. The Exp 3 SAS program is written to test for simple effects whether there is a significant interaction effect or not. Follow the directions in the titles on pages 5 through 22.

Your report should include an Abstract (see Bordens & Abbott, 2014, pp. 499-501) and Figure 1 (see Bordens & Abbott, 2014, pp. 518-520) based on the last page of the SAS output. An example Results section follows.

Results

The rating scores were analyzed with a two-way analysis of variance for a factorial design (ANOVA). An alpha level of .05 was used for the cutoff to decide whether there was a reliable difference between groups for all statistical tests.

The ANOVA showed that there was a significant main effect of personality, F(2, 36) = 541.88, MSE = 0.37, p .001. The magnitude of the main effect (R2) of personality was .27, which means 27% of the variation in the scores was due to the main effect of personality. The means of the rating scores for the three levels of personality, positive, neutral, and negative were 8.80, 6.75, and 3.20, respectively. The Ryan-Einot-Gabriel-Welsch Multiple Range Test (REGW) (df = 36) for personality showed . . .

The ANOVA showed that there was a significant main effect of profession, F(2, 36) = 43.71, p = .03, R² = .18. The means of the rating scores for the three levels of profession, president, robber, and teller were . . . The REGW (df = 36) for profession showed . . .

The ANOVA showed that there was a significant interaction effect of personality and profession, F(4, 36) = 31.61, p = .004, R² = .03. Figure 1 shows the means of the interaction of personality and profession. The REGW (df = 12) for positive personality adjectives showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for neutral personality adjectives showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for negative personality adjectives showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for the profession of bank president showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for the profession of bank robber showed . . . The REGW (df = 12) for the profession of bank teller showed . . .

Discussion

The results show that there was a significant main effect of personality. The rating scores for the three levels of personality adjectives, positive, neutral, and negative, showed that each level of personality was significantly different from the other two. (This is from paragraph two of the Results section.)

¶ Main effect of profession? (from paragraph three)

¶ Interaction effect of personality and profession? (from paragraph four)

¶ Prediction supported? Please explain. Hypothesis supported? Please explain. (from paragraph four)

¶ R2 results? (Which effect had the largest influence on the dependent variable, the second largest?)

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 7

Appendix A

Informed Consent Form

This study is designed to investigate your impressions of people who are described with various adjectives. There are no correct or incorrect answers. You are just asked to give your impression of the person described. Recording your impressions will take about 5 minutes.

You are not required to produce data for this study, but it might make this course (PSY 302) more interesting if you did. If you do not want to use your own impressions, you will be supplied with a set of data from someone else. This research has not been submitted to the Institutional Review Board of Missouri State University because only you and John Rosenkoetter will see your results. If you do not like the first set of results you produce, you can redo everything until you get results that you do like. Your participation in this research is voluntary, and you are free to withdraw at any time.

ª ª ª

I acknowledge that I have been informed of and understand the purpose of this study and that I freely consent to participate. I acknowledge that I am at least 18 years of age.

Print name: ______

Sign name: ______

Date: ______

FORMING IMPRESSIONS 8

Appendix B

Stimuli Sheet

Stimulus Stimulus Rating

Number Words Score

———————————————————————

1. Nervous bank president _____

2. Helpful bank robber _____

3. Incompetent bank teller _____

4. Cruel bank president _____

5. Ungrateful bank robber _____

6. Unhappy bank robber _____

7. Inoffensive bank president _____

8. Friendly bank teller _____

9. Helpful bank president _____

10. Unhappy bank teller _____

11. Stupid bank teller _____

12. Dishonest bank president _____

13. Happy bank robber _____

14. Cheerful bank president _____

15. Unsophisticated bank robber _____

16. Cruel bank robber _____

17. Unsophisticated bank teller _____

18. Helpful bank teller _____

19. Dependent bank president _____

20. Incompetent bank president _____

21. Cruel bank teller _____

22. Nervous bank teller _____

23. Optimistic bank robber _____

24. Inoffensive bank robber _____

25. Unhappy bank president _____

26. Happy bank president _____

27. Friendly bank robber _____

28. Optimistic bank teller _____

29. Dependent bank robber _____

30. Incompetent bank robber _____

31. Dependent bank teller _____

32. Stupid bank robber _____

33. Happy bank teller _____

34. Optimistic bank president _____

35. Dishonest bank teller _____

36. Ungrateful bank president _____

37. Cheerful bank robber _____

38. Dishonest bank robber _____

39. Ungrateful bank teller _____

40. Inoffensive bank teller _____

41. Cheerful bank teller _____

42. Friendly bank president _____

43. Nervous bank robber _____

44. Unsophisticated bank president _____

45. Stupid bank president _____