7.2: Hypotheses Flashcards
A psychologist decided to conduct an experiment to investigate the effect of watching horror films before going to bed.
A volunteer sample of 50 university students consented to take part in the experiment.
The 50 students were randomly split into two groups. Group 1 watched a horror film before going to bed each night for the first week then a romantic comedy before going to bed each night for the second week. Group 2 watched the romantic comedy in the first week and the horror film in the second week.
When the students woke up each morning, each student received a text message that asked if they had had a nightmare during the night. They could respond ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
The psychologist proposed a directional hypothesis.
Write a directional hypothesis for this experiment (3 marks)
Participants will report more nightmares after watching a horror film before bedtime than after watching a romantic comedy film before bedtime
A psychologist wanted to see if verbal fluency is affected by whether people think they are presenting information to a small group of people or to a large group of people.
The psychologist needed a stratified sample of 20 people. She obtained the sample from a company employing 60 men and 40 women.
The participants were told that they would be placed in a booth where they would read out an article about the life of a famous author to an audience. Participants were also told that the audience would not be present, but would only be able to hear them and would not be able to interact with them.
There were two conditions in the study, Condition A and Condition B.
Condition A: 10 participants were told the audience consisted of 5 listeners.
Condition B: the other 10 participants were told the audience consisted of 100 listeners.
Each participant completed the study individually. The psychologist recorded each presentation and then counted the number of verbal errors made by each participant.
Write a suitable hypothesis for this study (3 marks)
There is a difference in number of verbal errors made by participants who believe there are 5 listeners (a small audience) and by participants who believe there are 100 listeners (a large audience)
