Belief Perference
Student Instructions:
1). For your first experimental study, you will play the role of researcher, and you will collect data from three different participants. There are two phases to this study. In the first phase, you will orally ask participants if they are willing to participate in a research study. In the second phase, participants will a) read a short scenario involving a research study involving a “forbidden toy”, b) complete several questions about that study, and c) provide demographic information about themselves. Use the following steps:
A). Your first task is to approach three different participants (not all at the same time!). They must be people that you do not know, and cannot be taking a psychology research methods class during the Spring semester, 2017. Please DO NOT complete this study yourself, and use only FIU students as participants (no family / friends).
B). Phase I: Informed Consent
1). Informed Consent:
• Ask the potential participant if he or she is willing to participate in a study for your research methods class. You will get their informed consent verbally. Tell them:
“Hello, I am conducting a study for my research methods class. I was wondering if you would be willing to participate. The study takes about five to ten minutes. There are no risks to participating, and the main benefit is that I can complete my class assignment. Will you participate?”
• An oral Yes or No response is fine. If they say no, thank them and find a different participant. If they say yes, move to the next step (Phase II – Questionnaire).
C). Phase II: “Questionnaire”
1). General Instructions
• After getting participant’s oral informed consent, randomly give them ONE of the three “Research Study – Florida International University – Spring, 2017” documents. These documents contain our primary independent variable for the study. One third of our research participants will be in the “More” condition (M), one third will be in the “Less” condition (L), and one third will be in the “Neutral” condition (N). Ask participants to follow the instructions at the top of the page.
2). The “Forbidden Toy” study
• Participants will read a short scenario involving a research study in which children first play with and then rank a series of toys. The researcher then puts aside the toy that they ranked second highest. Before leaving the room, the researcher tells some children that they are not to play with this specific toy (it is forbidden). For others, the researcher takes that toy with him. He returns shortly afterwards and has the children re-rank the toys. So far, this scenario is identical for all participants reading the research synopsis. The final sentence in the summary, however, differs, as participants read one of the following:
1). Results showed that children in the “threat” condition found the forbidden toy less attractive than children in the “no threat” condition. (This is our “Less attractive” condition, with one third of participants getting this study outcome)
2). Results showed that children in the “threat” condition found the forbidden toy more attractive than children in the “no threat” condition. (This is our “More attractive” condition, with one third of participants getting this study outcome)
3). Results showed that children in the “threat” condition found the forbidden toy neither more nor less attractive than children in the “no threat” condition. (This is our “Neutral” condition, with one third of participants getting this study outcome)
• We will test these three versions of the results against each other to see just how much participants rely on the results to assess the scientific nature of the study itself. Please note that at the bottom of the first page for each scenario you will see a letter that corresponds to the independent variable condition in this study—M for “More attractive”, L for “Less attractive”, or N for “Neutral”. You will use this key as a shorthand for the surveys you give to participants, and we will use it later when we enter data into SPSS.
3). Page one – Questions
• The first page of the survey asks some simple questions about their interpretation of the study they just read, including how surprised they were by the outcome, whether they think the study could be replicated, and whether the study was scientific in nature. These are interesting questions, but not the real focus of the study.
4). Page two – Perseverance Instructions
• The instructions on Page two are very important. They let the participant know that the results they just read are fictitious, and then asks them to consider what the findings will be when FIU researchers actually run the study. As you will see below, this sets up the idea of Belief Perseverance, or the idea that once you are exposed to something that information sticks with you and can influence you, even if that information may not be founded on factual grounds.
5). Page two – Questions
• The first few questions on page two ask participants to reassess their thoughts on the forbidden toy study, but this time from the perspective of not knowing the outcome. They also assess how a different sample would respond to this new “actual” study. If the belief perseverance mechanism is operating, then chances are they will continue to believe the outcomes will support the results they just read! Questions #4 and #5 are the most important questions in the study, as both get at belief perseverance!
• Pay close attention to question #7 as well. This is a manipulation check question that asks them to recall what the original study outcomes were on page one. We will use this to make sure they adequately recalled the experiment they just saw.
• The final set of questions ask participants for their demographic information. Most of these items are easy to complete without violating participant’s privacy, but let them know they are free to leave blank any questions they do not wish to answer in this section.
D). Once participants have completed the questionnaire, debrief them regarding the study. That is, tell them about belief perseverance and your main hypothesis. Read the following:
“This study involves Belief Perseverance, or the tendency for individuals to cling to beliefs even when the evidential basis for these beliefs is completely refuted. That is, when people learn something and then later find out the information may be based on faulty foundations, they may still believe that idea despite lacking good evidence to back it up. In our study, we presented an outcome that seemed to have a scientific basis. Children ranked toys, and then were either threatened against playing with one of them or denied the chance to play with it. The kids then re-ranked the toys. For our own participants, we told some that the children who were threatened re-ranked that forbidden toy MORE positively than children who were not threatened. However, we told other participants that the threatened children ranked the forbidden toy LESS positively than non-threatened children. Finally, a third group of participants were told that there was NO DIFFERENCE between threatened and non-threatened children when they re-ranked the toy. Our research question then becomes, “Will the original results our participants read lead them to think those findings will persist in a future study even when the original study is discredited.
“Based on previous research on belief perseverance, the purpose of this study was to examine whether belief perseverance will lead participants to believe the findings of prior discredited research will still apply to a future research study. The following hypotheses are addressed: If told a prior study found a threatened child ranked a forbidden toy lower than a non-threatened child, participant will think that result will persist in a future study with a threatened child finding the toy less attractive compared to a non-threatened child. Alternatively, if told a prior study found a threatened child ranked a forbidden toy higher than a non-threatened child, participant will similarly think that result will persist in a future study with a threatened child finding the toy more attractive compared to a non-threatened child. Those told the prior study didn’t find a difference between threatened and non-threatened children will similarly think that lack of difference will persist in a future study. Similar findings will emerge when the study is replicated in Tampa, Florida.”
2). Hold onto the completed questionnaires, as you will use them in an upcoming lab. You will enter data into SPSS and analyze it during your lab. Important note: Each student researcher is responsible for collecting data from three participants (one participant for each study condition – M, L, and N). However, we will combine survey data from ALL students in your lab section, so your final sample will include at least 72 participants. In your papers (especially Paper II), you will use this total set of research participants, NOT just the three that you collected yourself.
