Overview of Lab Projects, Fall 2005

You may have no idea which project might best suit you. If you still cannot decide after reading the descriptions, I've made my own suggestions in italics. The key is to pick one or two that MOST interest you, regardless of your major. The specific details for each lab will be given in class. Most projects involve giving an anonymous questionnaire to 5-8 people for each student researcher. Come to class the first day with a rank ordering of your most preferred project to least preferred. Small classes will not have all lab projects.

For ALL lab projects, I have background material for you to read and sample manipulation and measures. There is an advantage in using pre-established materials that professional researchers have developed. You are welcome to design your own manipulations and measures, however.  Once you get in your lab group, identify specifically what hypothesis you want to test, how you will test it, and designate people to specific tasks. Everyone in the lab group does NOT have to do all parts. The parts will be

  1. showing Inman your hypotheses, manipulations, and materials (emailing Inman the completed Pre-Lab Worksheet and materials for the study)
  2. Collecting the data
  3. Entering the data into the computer (following Inman's guidelines)
  4. Meeting with Prof. Inman for 45 minutes to analyze the data and get guidance for your class presentation. Come to this one if you are shaky on this!
  5. Making the powerpoint presentation
  6. Delivering the presentation (all people present in class) and
  7. Writing up the lab worksheet (your individual written work, everyone does this).

Expression of Prejudice: Are people more likely to express prejudice when their past behavior has established that they are nonprejudiced persons? (Monin & Miller, 2001). Present Friday October 28

Monin and Miller conducted three experiments and found that yes, people are more likely to express prejudice when they have shown that they are nonprejudiced. A more recent study showed that White adults who know that they are going to write about a controversial racial issue like Affirmative Action choose first to write about their glowing friendships with people of color. Your task is to focus on one of these two designs and specific hypotheses and see if these findings replicate with Hope students who will anonymously complete a questionnaire Good project for psychology, religion, English, sociology, communication, and political science majors

Does thinking about one’s own death increase self-protection behaviors? Present Monday Nov 7

Terror management theory (TMT) predicts that asking people to think about their own death (versus thinking about dental pain) increases anxiety and upsets the person’s mindset. Many TMT studies have shown that feeling uneasy, people do a number of mental tricks to regain control over their world perspective. With Sept. 11, many folks more frequently think about safety issues. TMT also predicts that if you bolster a person’s identity after having him/her think about death, he/she is no longer motivated to protect his/her world view. This study manipulated mortality salience (thoughts about death)  and gave them a chance (or not) to affirm the self. They then gave people an opportunity to re-establish a safe world view (by criticizing an anti-American essay). Those people who were thought about their own death, with no opportunity to re-affirm themselves were more critical than people in the other situations. You’ll test whether this hypothesis is supported by Hope students or nonHope adults of your choice. Good project for people in the helping profession, any social science major, religion majors, and business majors.

Self-monitoring and Dating, Lab Presents Friday Nov 11

What features do we look for in a spouse? Mark Snyder and Jeff Simpson have identified a personality variable self-monitoring (discussed in Insight #4 & in Myers page p. 75) which strongly predicts behavior. Are you the kind of person who often changes your behavior to fit the different situations? Or are you more likely to reflect on and listen to your values to guide your behavior? The former person is a high self-monitor (the situation affects my behavior) the second is a low self-monitor (my values determine my behavior). We are more likely to see the same kinds of behaviors across situations from low self-monitors.

Simpson proposed that high and low SMs differ in their dating preferences and behaviors. That is, lows are likely to care about finding someone with similar values and lows want long-term monogamous relationships. Highs care about finding a person who does the same activities as them and want short-term relationships. The reasoning will be fleshed out in the article Inman gives.

Your task is to test these hypotheses with Hope College students. Inman will provide sample materials later. Good project for sociology, psychology, communication, or biology majors.

Do people who see our social blunders judge us as harshly as we judge ourselves? Present Monday Nov 21

Gilovich and friends proposed and showed that people (college-aged adults) think others are evaluating them more harshly than reality suggests. You’ll ask people to picture themselves in an embarrassing situation (or to watch someone in an embarrassing situation) and to make judgments of the actor. All this will be done by survey. We’ll test whether Gilovich’s work replicates with Hope students. Good for education majors, social science majors, kinesiology majors, and others.

Are you more motivated to achieve after viewing a successful or unsuccessful person? The answer may depend on your cultural upbringing. Present Wed Nov 30

Lockwood & friends argue that societies can push a person to strive towards excellence (be ‘promotion focus’) or to focus on learning from failures and prevent failures (be ‘prevention focus’). They argue and showed that specific cultures (Asian, Mexican, Central American) emphasize obligations to family and defining oneself in terms of one’s relationships to others. Thus, there is a lot of pressure in pleasing others. In contrast, individualistic cultures (America, England, Western cultures) emphasize individual achievement and independent thought. They argue then that people raised with an independent/individualistic focus will be most motivated by positive/successful role models. People with an interdependent sense of self should be more motivated by (to avoid becoming) a negative/unsuccessful role model. We’ll test these hypotheses by assessing these concepts in people who you believe to have more of an independent or interdependent self-definition. Good project for people interested in helping professions, communications, education, interdisciplinary people, religion, business, sociology, and political science majors.  

Do pro-choice and pro-life people overestimate group differences? Present Monday Dec 5th

Chambers and friends showed that pro-life advocates (and pro-choice advocates) propose two strong values that they wrongly think the opposing group disagrees with. Pro-lifers emphasize moral sexual behavior and the value of human life (and assume pro-choice advocates do not). Pro-choice advocates emphasize keeping the government out of highly personal behaviors (and assume pro-lifers do not support this value). We’ll test whether this hypothesis is supported (assuming we can find people on both sides of the issue). Good project for any social science major, biology and natural science majors, and humanity majors.