Checklist – Paper V: Final Paper Use the check sheet below to make sure your paper is the best it can be! Make sure you answer “Yes” to all questions before submitting your paper! Some sections duplicate checklists from prior papers while those in purple focus on new Paper V: Final Paper elements. General Paper Format (This section is identical to the Papers I, II, III, and IV Checklists) Yes No 1. Is everything in your paper (including headers, the main body of your miniliterature review, and your references) in 12 point Times New Roman font? 2. Is everything in your paper double spaced, including references (here I mean the spacing above and below each line, not the spaces following a period)? 3. Do you have one inch margins on all sides of the paper (one inch from the top of the page, one inch from the bottom, and one inch from each side) 4. Are the first lines of all paragraphs indented roughly ½ inch? 5. Are your paragraphs aligned left? (That is, text should be flush left, with lines lining up on the left of the page, but text should NOT line up on the right side of the page – it should look ragged) 6. Do you need help figuring out how to configure a word document in APA format (inserting headers, page numbers, proper indents, etc.)? If YES, I highly recommend watching this video which walks you through setting up an APA formatted paper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbUoNa5tyY Yes Title page (This section is identical to the Papers I, II, III, and IV Checklists) No Header 1. Do you have the phrase “Running head” in your header (with a lower case h)? 2. Is the rest of your Running head title in ALL CAPS? 3. Is your Running head in 12 point Times New Roman font? 4. Do you have a page number (1) that is flush right (also in 12 point Times New Roman font)? 5. Is your header 50 characters or less (including spaces and punctuation)? Title / Name / Institution 1. Is your title 12 words or less (as recommended by the APA)? 2. Does your title describe your general paper theme (while avoiding something blank like “Paper Five: Final Paper”)? Note that your header and title can differ! 3. Do all title words with four letters or more start with a capital letter? 4. Are your name and institution correct? 5. Are your title, name, and institution elements centered and in 12 point Times New Roman font? Abstract (This section is all new) Yes No Header 1. Is your header title present and identical to your header title on the title page? 2. Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font? 3. Does your header on this second page omit the phrase “Running head” 4. Do you have a page number starting on page 2 Abstract 1. 1. Is the word Abstract centered at the top of the page? 2. 2. Does the abstract start on its own page (page 2) 3. Did you identify your problem or research question? 4. Did you note your participants? 5. Did you note your experimental method? 6. Did you note your findings? 7. Did you note your conclusions? 8. Did you identify your problem or research question? 9. Is your abstract between 150 and 200 words? 10. Did you include at least five keywords or key phrases? Yes Literature Review Study One (This section is nearly identical to Paper I and III) No Title for the literature review 1. Do you have the identical title you used on the title page rewritten at the top of your literature review? 2. Is this title centered? 3. Does your literature review start on page 2? Main body of the literature review 1. Does your literature review start broadly, giving a brief overview of the study one to come? 2. Does your literature review start to narrow down toward your hypotheses? 3. Do your paragraphs transition from one to the next? (That is, avoid simply listing studies you read. Tie them together. How does Study A in paragraph A relate to Study B in paragraph B?) 4. Does your paper end in your study one hypotheses? (More specifically, you should have a hypothesis for your main dependent variables). 5. Did you make sure your predictions are written in the past tense? 6. Is your paper at least two pages long (not including the hypotheses)? Citations for the literature review 1. Did you cite a minimum of 5 references (all peer-reviewed resources)? Note that you can give a lot of detail for some references but only a sentence or two for others. How much detail you go into depends on how important the article is in helping your support your hypotheses. 1.a If NO, do your citations between the study one and study two literature reviews add up to ten or more references? 2. Are your citations in APA format (That is, ONLY the last name of the author(s) and date of publication)? a. Note that you do NOT include first names, initials, or the title of the article the authors wrote when citing. That information belongs in the references pages only. b. Also note that you only use an ampersand – the & symbol – when it occurs within parentheses. In other instances, use the word “and” 3. If you quoted, did you provide a page number for the direct quote? 4. If you paraphrased in any way, did you cite the source of that information? 5. Did you cite everything that sounded like it was factual information? 6. Did you make sure the period follows the citation rather than coming before it? Methods Section Study One (This section is identical to Paper II and III – Methods Study One) Yes No Title for the methods section 1. Is the word “Methods” centered and in bold? (Note: No page break needed) Yes No Participants 1. Do you have the word “Participants” flush left and in bold, right below the word “Methods”? 2. Did you list out your demographic characteristics, including gender, age, and ethnicity / race? 3. Did you provide the descriptive statistics for (means and standard deviations) for age and italicize the letters M and SD? 4. Did you provide frequencies for gender and ethnicity/race and italicize the N? 5. Did you use the brand new participant set from study two and NOT the set from study one? Materials and Procedure 1. Did you mention informed consent? 2. Did you discuss any instructions the participant may have read? 3. Did you thoroughly describe any stimulus material that might have occurred before your actual independent variables (and photos, descriptions, profiles, questions, puzzles, etc.) that are a part of your study? 4. Did you thoroughly describe your two independent variables in enough depth and detail that another researcher could duplicate your materials? 5. Did you give your IVs names that matches up with the name you refer to in the results section? 6. Did you describe all of your most relevant dependent variables, noting the scales you used (e.g. “Yes / No”, “A scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 9 (very likely))” for EACH of your DVs? 7. Did you fully describe what participants went through in the study, noting the order in which they received study materials (e.g. first informed consent, then IVs, DVs, and debriefing)? 8. Did you fully describe your attention check (manipulation check) with enough detail that a reader unfamiliar with your study could recreate it, and did you include the scale for that attention check question? 9. Did you use the past tense when describing your methods (seeing how you already collected the data, and therefore do not discuss what participants will do)? Results Section Study One (This section is identical to Paper II and III – Results Study One) Yes No Results 1. Do you have the word “Results” centered and in bold, immediately following the methods section? 2. Did you analyze at least three different dependent variables, including one chi square and at least one ANOVA? 3. Did you mention all of the IVs and the DV by name when talking about your analysis? 4. Did you include means and standard deviations within parentheses for each level of your independent variable? 5. If your ANOVA was significant, did you include post hoc tests? 6. Did you italicize the letters F, t, p, M, SD, and X2 (where appropriate)? 7. Did you round ALL numbers to two decimal places (with the exception of the p value, which can go as low as p < .001 or p = .001). Discussion Section Study One (This is identical to Paper II and III – Discussion Study One) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Discussion” centered and in bold, immediately following the results section? 2. Did you remind your reader of your hypothesis? 3. Did you mention whether you supported or did not support your hypothesis? Yes Literature Review Study Two (This section is nearly identical to Paper III) No Title for the literature review 1. Do you have some title that denotes the start of study two (e.g. something as simple as “Study Two”)? 2. Is this title centered? 3. Does your literature review start immediately after the study one discussion (there should be no page break unless it occurs naturally) Main body of the literature review 1. Does your literature review start broadly, giving a brief overview of the study one to come? 2. Does your literature review start to narrow down toward your hypotheses? 3. Do your paragraphs transition from one to the next? (That is, avoid simply listing studies you read. Tie them together. How does Study A in paragraph A relate to Study B in paragraph B?) 4. Do you tie in your new IV with your original study one IV, showing how they might interact? 5. Does your paper end in your study one hypotheses? (More specifically, you should have a hypothesis for your main dependent variables). Citations for the literature review 1. Did you cite a minimum of 5 references (all peer-reviewed resources)? Note that you can give a lot of detail for some references but only a sentence or two for others. How much detail you go into depends on how important the article is in helping your support your hypotheses. 1.a If NO, do your citations between the study one and study two literature reviews add up to ten or more references? If yes, you are good here! 2. Are your citations in APA format (That is, ONLY the last name of the author(s) and date of publication)? a. Note that you do NOT include first names, initials, or the title of the article the authors wrote when citing. That information belongs in the references pages only. b. Also note that you only use an ampersand – the & symbol – when it occurs within parentheses. In other instances, use the word “and” 3. If you quoted, did you provide a page number for the direct quote? 4. If you paraphrased in any way, did you cite the source of that information? 5. Did you cite everything that sounded like it was factual information? 6. Did you make sure the period follows the citation rather than coming before it? Methods Section Study Two (This section is identical to Paper IV – Methods Study Two) Yes No Header 1. Is your header title present and identical to your header title on the title page? 2. Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font? 3. Does your header on this second page omit the phrase “Running head” 4. Do you have a page number starting on page 2 Title for the methods section 1. Is the word “Methods” centered and in bold at the top of your methods page? Yes No Participants 1. Do you have the word “Participants” flush left and in bold, right below the word “Methods”? 2. Did you list out your demographic characteristics, including gender, age, and ethnicity / race? 3. Did you provide the descriptive statistics for (means and standard deviations) for age and italicize the letters M and SD? 4. Did you provide frequencies for gender and ethnicity/race and italicize the N? 5. Did you use the brand new participant set from study two and NOT the set from study one? 6. Did you refer to your appendix? Materials and Procedure 1. Did you mention informed consent? 2. Did you discuss any instructions the participant may have read? 3. Did you thoroughly describe any stimulus material that might have occurred before your actual independent variables (and photos, descriptions, profiles, questions, puzzles, etc.) that are a part of your study? 4. Did you thoroughly describe your two independent variable in enough depth and detail that another researcher could duplicate your materials (though you can refer back to study one if the variable is identical)? 5. Did you give your IVs names that matches up with the names you refer to in the results section? 6. Did you describe all of your most relevant dependent variables, noting the scales you used (e.g. “Yes / No”, “A scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 9 (very likely))” for EACH of your DVs? 7. Did you fully describe what participants went through in the study, noting the order in which they received study materials (e.g. first informed consent, then IVs, DVs, and debriefing)? 8. Did you fully describe your attention check (manipulation check) with enough detail that a reader unfamiliar with your study could recreate it, and did you include the scale for that attention check question? 9. Did you use the past tense when describing your methods (seeing how you already collected the data, and therefore do not discuss what participants will do)? Results Section Study Two (This section is identical to Paper IV – Results Study Two) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Results” centered and in bold, immediately following the methods section? 2. Was the first dependent variable you looked at your manipulation check question, and did you make sure you analyzed the correct DV? 3. Did you analyze at least two different dependent variables with ANOVAs? a. Note: You won’t use t-Tests for this study, as you have two different IVs. 4. Did you mention all of the IVs and the DV by name when talking about your analysis? 5. Did you include means and standard deviations within parentheses for each level of your independent variables? 6. If your factorial ANOVA was significant, did you include follow up simple effects tests? (That is, do you have seven total F tests)? 7. Did you italicize the letters F, t, p, M, SD, and X2 (where appropriate)? 8. Did you round ALL numbers to two decimal places (with the exception of the p value, which can go as low as p < .001 or p = .001). Discussion Section Study Two (This section is identical to Paper IV – Discussion Study Two) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Discussion” centered and in bold, immediately following the results section? 2. Did you remind your reader of your study two hypothesis? 3. Did you mention whether you supported or did not support your study two hypothesis? Yes No General Discussion (This section is all new) Title for the references page 1. Does the discussion come right at the end of the results section (the discussion does NOT start on its own page)? 2. Is the phrase “General Discussion” centered and bolded? Discussion Content 1. Did you provide a brief summary of your hypotheses and then note whether your results supported or did not support your hypotheses? 2. Did you avoid restating your statistics and instead use everyday language? 3. Did you mention your study limitations? 4. Did you mention potential follow-up studies 5. IF you cited in this section, did you cite using APA formatting? References Page (This section is identical to Paper III – Study Two Literature Review) Yes No Title for the references page 1. Do references start on their own page? 2. Is the word “References” centered? References – Make sure these are in APA format! 1. Are references listed in alphabetical order (starting with the last name of the first author listed) for all 10 articles you referenced? 2. Are all citations from the literature review referenced? 3. Is the first line of the reference flush left while subsequent lines are indented (Note: Use the ruler function for this. DO NOT simply tab)? 4. Did you use the “&” symbol when listing more than one author name? 5. Did you include the date of publication 6. For article references, is the article title (which is not italicized) with only the first word and proper names starting with a capital letter? 7. For article references, is the name of the journal present with all major words starting with a capital letter (and this journal title is italicized)? 8. For article references, is the volume number italicized 9. For article references, are the page numbers present (not italicized) 10. For article references, is the DOI present Appendix Section – Both Studies (This section is similar to Papers II and IV – Appendix) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Appendix” centered on each Appendix page, followed by a description of the appendix content, immediately following the results section? 2. In Appendix A (Demographics), do you have SPSS tables for gender, ethnicity, and age? (Note: Age might be in a general “statistics” table, but you should have specific frequency tables for both gender and ethnicity) 3. In Appendix B (Chi Square), do you have the crosstabs table (with percentages) plus the chi square test (with Pearson)? 4. In Appendix C (ANOVA), do you have the descriptives table, the ANOVA table, and the post hoc table for your first dependent variable? 5. In Appendix D (ANOVA or t-Test), do you have the descriptives table, ANOVA (or t-Test) table, and post hoc table (for the ANOVA) for your second dependent variable? 6. Appendix E: Did you include a table for each of the following demographic variables: Gender, age, and ethnicity? 7. Appendix F: For your manipulation check, did you include your chi square or t-Test info? (If a chi square, did you include your crosstabulation and chi square table? If a t-Test, did you include your descriptives and t-Test table?) 8. Appendix G: For your first 2 X 2 ANOVA, did you include the descriptives tables and your F table? 9. Appendix H: For your second 2 X 2 ANOVA, did you include the descriptives tables and your F table? Yes No Writing Quality 1. Did you proofread your paper, go to the writing center, go to the research methods help center, or use the Pearson writer to make sure your paper flows well? 2. Did you use the past tense (which is recommended, since your papers in this class will reflect work you already did rather than work you will do)? 3. Did you use a scientific / objective terms like “people”, “participants”. “users”, “readers”, etc. (as opposed to subjective words like “you”, “we”, “me”, “I”, or “us”, etc.)? Checklist – Paper V: Final Paper Use the check sheet below to make sure your paper is the best it can be! Make sure you answer “Yes” to all questions before submitting your paper! Some sections duplicate checklists from prior papers while those in purple focus on new Paper V: Final Paper elements. General Paper Format (This section is identical to the Papers I, II, III, and IV Checklists) Yes No 1. Is everything in your paper (including headers, the main body of your miniliterature review, and your references) in 12 point Times New Roman font? 2. Is everything in your paper double spaced, including references (here I mean the spacing above and below each line, not the spaces following a period)? 3. Do you have one inch margins on all sides of the paper (one inch from the top of the page, one inch from the bottom, and one inch from each side) 4. Are the first lines of all paragraphs indented roughly ½ inch? 5. Are your paragraphs aligned left? (That is, text should be flush left, with lines lining up on the left of the page, but text should NOT line up on the right side of the page – it should look ragged) 6. Do you need help figuring out how to configure a word document in APA format (inserting headers, page numbers, proper indents, etc.)? If YES, I highly recommend watching this video which walks you through setting up an APA formatted paper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pbUoNa5tyY Yes Title page (This section is identical to the Papers I, II, III, and IV Checklists) No Header 1. Do you have the phrase “Running head” in your header (with a lower case h)? 2. Is the rest of your Running head title in ALL CAPS? 3. Is your Running head in 12 point Times New Roman font? 4. Do you have a page number (1) that is flush right (also in 12 point Times New Roman font)? 5. Is your header 50 characters or less (including spaces and punctuation)? Title / Name / Institution 1. Is your title 12 words or less (as recommended by the APA)? 2. Does your title describe your general paper theme (while avoiding something blank like “Paper Five: Final Paper”)? Note that your header and title can differ! 3. Do all title words with four letters or more start with a capital letter? 4. Are your name and institution correct? 5. Are your title, name, and institution elements centered and in 12 point Times New Roman font? Abstract (This section is all new) Yes No Header 1. Is your header title present and identical to your header title on the title page? 2. Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font? 3. Does your header on this second page omit the phrase “Running head” 4. Do you have a page number starting on page 2 Abstract 1. 1. Is the word Abstract centered at the top of the page? 2. 2. Does the abstract start on its own page (page 2) 3. Did you identify your problem or research question? 4. Did you note your participants? 5. Did you note your experimental method? 6. Did you note your findings? 7. Did you note your conclusions? 8. Did you identify your problem or research question? 9. Is your abstract between 150 and 200 words? 10. Did you include at least five keywords or key phrases? Yes Literature Review Study One (This section is nearly identical to Paper I and III) No Title for the literature review 1. Do you have the identical title you used on the title page rewritten at the top of your literature review? 2. Is this title centered? 3. Does your literature review start on page 2? Main body of the literature review 1. Does your literature review start broadly, giving a brief overview of the study one to come? 2. Does your literature review start to narrow down toward your hypotheses? 3. Do your paragraphs transition from one to the next? (That is, avoid simply listing studies you read. Tie them together. How does Study A in paragraph A relate to Study B in paragraph B?) 4. Does your paper end in your study one hypotheses? (More specifically, you should have a hypothesis for your main dependent variables). 5. Did you make sure your predictions are written in the past tense? 6. Is your paper at least two pages long (not including the hypotheses)? Citations for the literature review 1. Did you cite a minimum of 5 references (all peer-reviewed resources)? Note that you can give a lot of detail for some references but only a sentence or two for others. How much detail you go into depends on how important the article is in helping your support your hypotheses. 1.a If NO, do your citations between the study one and study two literature reviews add up to ten or more references? 2. Are your citations in APA format (That is, ONLY the last name of the author(s) and date of publication)? a. Note that you do NOT include first names, initials, or the title of the article the authors wrote when citing. That information belongs in the references pages only. b. Also note that you only use an ampersand – the & symbol – when it occurs within parentheses. In other instances, use the word “and” 3. If you quoted, did you provide a page number for the direct quote? 4. If you paraphrased in any way, did you cite the source of that information? 5. Did you cite everything that sounded like it was factual information? 6. Did you make sure the period follows the citation rather than coming before it? Methods Section Study One (This section is identical to Paper II and III – Methods Study One) Yes No Title for the methods section 1. Is the word “Methods” centered and in bold? (Note: No page break needed) Yes No Participants 1. Do you have the word “Participants” flush left and in bold, right below the word “Methods”? 2. Did you list out your demographic characteristics, including gender, age, and ethnicity / race? 3. Did you provide the descriptive statistics for (means and standard deviations) for age and italicize the letters M and SD? 4. Did you provide frequencies for gender and ethnicity/race and italicize the N? 5. Did you use the brand new participant set from study two and NOT the set from study one? Materials and Procedure 1. Did you mention informed consent? 2. Did you discuss any instructions the participant may have read? 3. Did you thoroughly describe any stimulus material that might have occurred before your actual independent variables (and photos, descriptions, profiles, questions, puzzles, etc.) that are a part of your study? 4. Did you thoroughly describe your two independent variables in enough depth and detail that another researcher could duplicate your materials? 5. Did you give your IVs names that matches up with the name you refer to in the results section? 6. Did you describe all of your most relevant dependent variables, noting the scales you used (e.g. “Yes / No”, “A scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 9 (very likely))” for EACH of your DVs? 7. Did you fully describe what participants went through in the study, noting the order in which they received study materials (e.g. first informed consent, then IVs, DVs, and debriefing)? 8. Did you fully describe your attention check (manipulation check) with enough detail that a reader unfamiliar with your study could recreate it, and did you include the scale for that attention check question? 9. Did you use the past tense when describing your methods (seeing how you already collected the data, and therefore do not discuss what participants will do)? Results Section Study One (This section is identical to Paper II and III – Results Study One) Yes No Results 1. Do you have the word “Results” centered and in bold, immediately following the methods section? 2. Did you analyze at least three different dependent variables, including one chi square and at least one ANOVA? 3. Did you mention all of the IVs and the DV by name when talking about your analysis? 4. Did you include means and standard deviations within parentheses for each level of your independent variable? 5. If your ANOVA was significant, did you include post hoc tests? 6. Did you italicize the letters F, t, p, M, SD, and X2 (where appropriate)? 7. Did you round ALL numbers to two decimal places (with the exception of the p value, which can go as low as p < .001 or p = .001). Discussion Section Study One (This is identical to Paper II and III – Discussion Study One) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Discussion” centered and in bold, immediately following the results section? 2. Did you remind your reader of your hypothesis? 3. Did you mention whether you supported or did not support your hypothesis? Yes Literature Review Study Two (This section is nearly identical to Paper III) No Title for the literature review 1. Do you have some title that denotes the start of study two (e.g. something as simple as “Study Two”)? 2. Is this title centered? 3. Does your literature review start immediately after the study one discussion (there should be no page break unless it occurs naturally) Main body of the literature review 1. Does your literature review start broadly, giving a brief overview of the study one to come? 2. Does your literature review start to narrow down toward your hypotheses? 3. Do your paragraphs transition from one to the next? (That is, avoid simply listing studies you read. Tie them together. How does Study A in paragraph A relate to Study B in paragraph B?) 4. Do you tie in your new IV with your original study one IV, showing how they might interact? 5. Does your paper end in your study one hypotheses? (More specifically, you should have a hypothesis for your main dependent variables). Citations for the literature review 1. Did you cite a minimum of 5 references (all peer-reviewed resources)? Note that you can give a lot of detail for some references but only a sentence or two for others. How much detail you go into depends on how important the article is in helping your support your hypotheses. 1.a If NO, do your citations between the study one and study two literature reviews add up to ten or more references? If yes, you are good here! 2. Are your citations in APA format (That is, ONLY the last name of the author(s) and date of publication)? a. Note that you do NOT include first names, initials, or the title of the article the authors wrote when citing. That information belongs in the references pages only. b. Also note that you only use an ampersand – the & symbol – when it occurs within parentheses. In other instances, use the word “and” 3. If you quoted, did you provide a page number for the direct quote? 4. If you paraphrased in any way, did you cite the source of that information? 5. Did you cite everything that sounded like it was factual information? 6. Did you make sure the period follows the citation rather than coming before it? Methods Section Study Two (This section is identical to Paper IV – Methods Study Two) Yes No Header 1. Is your header title present and identical to your header title on the title page? 2. Is your header title in ALL CAPS and 12 point Times New Roman font? 3. Does your header on this second page omit the phrase “Running head” 4. Do you have a page number starting on page 2 Title for the methods section 1. Is the word “Methods” centered and in bold at the top of your methods page? Yes No Participants 1. Do you have the word “Participants” flush left and in bold, right below the word “Methods”? 2. Did you list out your demographic characteristics, including gender, age, and ethnicity / race? 3. Did you provide the descriptive statistics for (means and standard deviations) for age and italicize the letters M and SD? 4. Did you provide frequencies for gender and ethnicity/race and italicize the N? 5. Did you use the brand new participant set from study two and NOT the set from study one? 6. Did you refer to your appendix? Materials and Procedure 1. Did you mention informed consent? 2. Did you discuss any instructions the participant may have read? 3. Did you thoroughly describe any stimulus material that might have occurred before your actual independent variables (and photos, descriptions, profiles, questions, puzzles, etc.) that are a part of your study? 4. Did you thoroughly describe your two independent variable in enough depth and detail that another researcher could duplicate your materials (though you can refer back to study one if the variable is identical)? 5. Did you give your IVs names that matches up with the names you refer to in the results section? 6. Did you describe all of your most relevant dependent variables, noting the scales you used (e.g. “Yes / No”, “A scale ranging from 1 (not at all likely) to 9 (very likely))” for EACH of your DVs? 7. Did you fully describe what participants went through in the study, noting the order in which they received study materials (e.g. first informed consent, then IVs, DVs, and debriefing)? 8. Did you fully describe your attention check (manipulation check) with enough detail that a reader unfamiliar with your study could recreate it, and did you include the scale for that attention check question? 9. Did you use the past tense when describing your methods (seeing how you already collected the data, and therefore do not discuss what participants will do)? Results Section Study Two (This section is identical to Paper IV – Results Study Two) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Results” centered and in bold, immediately following the methods section? 2. Was the first dependent variable you looked at your manipulation check question, and did you make sure you analyzed the correct DV? 3. Did you analyze at least two different dependent variables with ANOVAs? a. Note: You won’t use t-Tests for this study, as you have two different IVs. 4. Did you mention all of the IVs and the DV by name when talking about your analysis? 5. Did you include means and standard deviations within parentheses for each level of your independent variables? 6. If your factorial ANOVA was significant, did you include follow up simple effects tests? (That is, do you have seven total F tests)? 7. Did you italicize the letters F, t, p, M, SD, and X2 (where appropriate)? 8. Did you round ALL numbers to two decimal places (with the exception of the p value, which can go as low as p < .001 or p = .001). Discussion Section Study Two (This section is identical to Paper IV – Discussion Study Two) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Discussion” centered and in bold, immediately following the results section? 2. Did you remind your reader of your study two hypothesis? 3. Did you mention whether you supported or did not support your study two hypothesis? Yes No General Discussion (This section is all new) Title for the references page 1. Does the discussion come right at the end of the results section (the discussion does NOT start on its own page)? 2. Is the phrase “General Discussion” centered and bolded? Discussion Content 1. Did you provide a brief summary of your hypotheses and then note whether your results supported or did not support your hypotheses? 2. Did you avoid restating your statistics and instead use everyday language? 3. Did you mention your study limitations? 4. Did you mention potential follow-up studies 5. IF you cited in this section, did you cite using APA formatting? References Page (This section is identical to Paper III – Study Two Literature Review) Yes No Title for the references page 1. Do references start on their own page? 2. Is the word “References” centered? References – Make sure these are in APA format! 1. Are references listed in alphabetical order (starting with the last name of the first author listed) for all 10 articles you referenced? 2. Are all citations from the literature review referenced? 3. Is the first line of the reference flush left while subsequent lines are indented (Note: Use the ruler function for this. DO NOT simply tab)? 4. Did you use the “&” symbol when listing more than one author name? 5. Did you include the date of publication 6. For article references, is the article title (which is not italicized) with only the first word and proper names starting with a capital letter? 7. For article references, is the name of the journal present with all major words starting with a capital letter (and this journal title is italicized)? 8. For article references, is the volume number italicized 9. For article references, are the page numbers present (not italicized) 10. For article references, is the DOI present Appendix Section – Both Studies (This section is similar to Papers II and IV – Appendix) Yes No 1. Do you have the word “Appendix” centered on each Appendix page, followed by a description of the appendix content, immediately following the results section? 2. In Appendix A (Demographics), do you have SPSS tables for gender, ethnicity, and age? (Note: Age might be in a general “statistics” table, but you should have specific frequency tables for both gender and ethnicity) 3. In Appendix B (Chi Square), do you have the crosstabs table (with percentages) plus the chi square test (with Pearson)? 4. In Appendix C (ANOVA), do you have the descriptives table, the ANOVA table, and the post hoc table for your first dependent variable? 5. In Appendix D (ANOVA or t-Test), do you have the descriptives table, ANOVA (or t-Test) table, and post hoc table (for the ANOVA) for your second dependent variable? 6. Appendix E: Did you include a table for each of the following demographic variables: Gender, age, and ethnicity? 7. Appendix F: For your manipulation check, did you include your chi square or t-Test info? (If a chi square, did you include your crosstabulation and chi square table? If a t-Test, did you include your descriptives and t-Test table?) 8. Appendix G: For your first 2 X 2 ANOVA, did you include the descriptives tables and your F table? 9. Appendix H: For your second 2 X 2 ANOVA, did you include the descriptives tables and your F table? Yes No Writing Quality 1. Did you proofread your paper, go to the writing center, go to the research methods help center, or use the Pearson writer to make sure your paper flows well? 2. Did you use the past tense (which is recommended, since your papers in this class will reflect work you already did rather than work you will do)? 3. Did you use a scientific / objective terms like “people”, “participants”. “users”, “readers”, etc. (as opposed to subjective words like “you”, “we”, “me”, “I”, or “us”, etc.)? Running head: SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Scenario Mutability and Need for Cognition: Appointing Blame Former Student Florida International University 1 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 2 Abstract Research shows that Need for Cognition (NFC) and scenario mutability (how easy it is to alter the outcome of an event) can play a role in the way people interpret those outcomes. The current studies analyzed culpability assessed when a situation varied in mutability (in study one and two) and when the NFC of each subject was assessed (study two). In both studies, undergraduate participants read a scenario involving a taxi-accident in which an undesirable outcome could have been avoided (changeable) or was unavoidable (unchangeable). In both studies, the participants generated as many “If Only” statements as they could and rated how much blame the actor in the scenario deserved for the undesirable outcome. For both studies, participants assessed more blame in the changeable condition, but neither scenario nor NFC impacted counterfactual statement generation. These results suggest that the mutability of a scenario is important, but that counterfactual statements may explain how participants assess that mutability. Keywords: need for cognition, counterfactual thinking, “If Only” statements, changeable condition, unchangeable condition SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 3 Scenario Mutability and Need for Cognition: Appointing Blame As free-willed beings, humans are often the victims of their own decisions. Imagine accidentally running over a stray cat because you decided to look away from the road at the exact moment the cat decided to cross the street. Following the accident, most people would be plagued with thoughts of how alternative circumstances or decisions could have prevented such an unfortunate situation. Every time an individual forms a ‘what if’ scenario in which he or she mentally alters the course of events occurred, they are participating in a process that is known as counterfactual thinking (Ruiselová, Prokopčáková, & Kresánek, 2007). This process allows individuals to consider the multiple factors at play in a situation (i.e mutability), and to decide what specific condition was responsible for the ultimate outcome of the event (Williams, LeesHaley, & Price 1996). The primary focus of our study is to analyze the extent of culpability people place on a particular factor depending on the preventability of the outcome. That is, if it is easy to “undue” an event that ends in a tragic outcome, will participants find an actor who fails to engage in that easy behavior more at fault? The development of counterfactual thoughts relies on the variability of the situation as well as the knowledge that different actions could have resulted in alternate outcomes (Alquist, Ainsworth, Baumeister, Daly, & Stillman, 2015). According to Alquist et al., situations that are believed to be highly changeable generate more counterfactual thoughts than events that seem unavoidable. However, ruminating on every conceivable alternative of a situation would take an unlimited amount of time and resources. Instead of allotting so much time and energy on a cognitive task, people tend to narrow down the different scenarios that come to mind according to the degree of controllability of the factors involved (McCloy & Byrne, 2000). For example, SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 4 the deliberate decisions individuals make that ultimately lead to a certain outcome is considered to be a controllable event, whereas uncontrollable events are unavoidable circumstances, such as traffic jams or natural disasters (McCloy & Byrne, 2000). When mentally forming a scenario different than the one occurred, individuals tend to change controllable rather than uncontrollable events (2000). Therefore, events that are within an individual’s jurisdiction generally receive the brunt of the blame for the resulting situation. In a similar light, a study performed by McCloy and Byrne (2000), discovered that inappropriate events are more often changed through the process of counterfactual thinking than appropriate ones, especially when the outcome of these events was negative. Inappropriate events include the decisions individuals make that are considered to be ‘socially wrong’, whereas appropriate events are ‘socially acceptable’ actions. Due to these results, we can conclude that what McCloy and Byrne consider to be “inappropriate controllable” events, will likely be regarded as highly culpable factors in the outcome of a situation. Another contributing factor to perceived culpability is the extent of knowledge of the actors involved in an event, as well as the intent of their actions (Gilbert, Tenney, Holland, & Spellman, 2015). For example, in the aforementioned scenario, had the driver known that looking away from the road would have caused her to run over the stray cat, the driver would have been more likely to be perceived guilty, even though the actions and the outcome of the situation remained the same. This rationalization is the product of a bottom-up method of thinking in which individuals are able to generate more counterfactual thoughts due to the actor’s knowledge of the outcome (Gilbert et al., 2015). As these authors have noted, the increased development of counterfactual thoughts will in turn attribute more responsibility to the actor, SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 5 which will ultimately increase perceived blame. But this is not the full picture when it comes to focusing on the role of counterfactual thoughts in altering participant responses. Study One In pursuance of counterfactual thinking and its relationship to perceived blame, we have devised a study that analyzed the extent of culpability people place on a particular factor depending on the preventability of the outcome. We provided participants with one of three scenarios, each of which depicted a variation of the same situation where alternate events lead to different conclusions. In the changeable condition, an actor engaged in a behavior that led to an undesirable outcome (death) that could have been avoided had he acted differently. In the unchangeable condition, the same actor engaged in a behavior that once again led to an undesirable outcome, but here the outcome could not have been avoided if he acted differently. In the neutral condition, the actor engaged in an alternative behavior, but the outcome was still undesirable. We predicted that participants would place more blame on the actor in the changeable condition where the actor could have avoided the undesirable outcome had he behaved differently than in both the unchangeable and neutral conditions, where the actor’s behavior could not be altered. This is because we expected changeable participants to generate more counterfactuals (more statements about how the actor could have behaved) in the changeable condition. Methods Study One Participants One hundred and twenty six students from Florida International University were randomly selected to participate in our study. Of these 126 participants, 37% (n = 47) were male and 63% (n = 79) were female. Ages ranged from a minimum of 17 to a maximum of 58 with an average of 22.32 years (SD = 6.30). Our sample population consisted of 68.3% Hispanic SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 6 Americans (n = 86), 8.7% African Americans (n = 11), 19% Caucasians (n = 24), 1.6% Asians (n = 2), and 2.4% who did not specify their ethnicity (n = 3). See Appendix A. Materials and Procedure In accordance with the standardized guidelines for informed consent, prospective participants were notified of the potential risks and benefits of participating in the study before being introduced to the research material. If the student verbally agreed to participate, he or she was given one of three different documents, each of which consisted of four parts or sections. In part one of the study, the participant read a short scenario concerning a paraplegic couple, Tina and Eugene, who requested a taxi for a night out with friends. Each of the three documents depicted the same initial situation with alternate conditions (changeable, unchangeable, or neutral) that ultimately led to different outcomes of events. In the changeable condition, the taxi driver arrived to pick up the couple, only to promptly decline their fare upon seeing that they were both paraplegic. Without enough time to call for another taxi, Tina and Eugene decided to take Tina’s car, which was handicap equipped. In order to reach their destination, they had to cross a bridge that had been weakened the night before due to a severe storm. The damaged bridge collapsed mere minutes before the couple reached it. Unable to see the missing portion of the bridge in the night, Tina and Eugene drove off the road, into the river below, and drowned. The taxi driver, who had left 15 minutes earlier, managed to make it safely across, before the collapse. In the unchangeable condition, the situation remained mostly the same with the exception that the taxi driver arrived at the bridge after it had collapsed and plummeted into the water as well. He managed to make it out of the car and swim to safety, but Tina and Eugene drowned. In the neutral condition, the taxi arrived to pick up the couple but promptly refused their fare as soon as he realized that they were both SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 7 paraplegic. In this condition, the taxi driver did eventually agree to take Tina and Eugene to their destination downtown, albeit after much argument. Due to the recently collapsed bridge, the taxi driver drove his passengers and himself off the road and into the river below. He barely managed to make it out of the car before drowning. Tina and Eugene’s outcome remained the same. After reading one of the scenarios described above, the participant continued on to the remainder of the study, which was composed of a series of open, partially open, and close-ended questions. In part two, the student participating in the study was asked to procure as many ‘If Only’ statements as possible, meaning that they had to list all the factors they could think of that could have possibly changed the outcome of the event. In part three, the participant was presented with a series of questions about their thoughts regarding the specific situation they read about. After reading each question, the participant was asked to record his or her response in a scale of one to nine. These questions included how avoidable they thought the accident was (1 = not at all avoidable, 9 = very avoidable), the causal role of the taxi driver in the couple’s death (1 = not at all causal, 9 = the most important cause), their thoughts on how much control the taxi driver had (1 = no control, 9 = complete control), the negligence of the taxi driver (1 = not at all negligent, 9 = completely negligent), how much money for damages the taxi driver was responsible for (1 = no money, 9 = as much as possible), the foreseeability of the couple’s death (1 = not at all foreseeable, 9 = completely foreseeable), and how much blame the taxi driver deserved for the event (1 = no blame at all, 9 = total blame). The last question of part three was a yes or no question that asked the participant whether the taxi driver agreed to drive the couple or not. This final question served as an attention check, which informed us if the participant was actually attentive to the study and allowed us to exclude potentially misrepresentative responses form our data. Part four asked for the participant’s demographic information, including gender, SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 8 age, ethnicity, their first language, and whether they were a student at Florida International University. Concluding the study, the participant was debriefed on his or her contribution to the study as well as our insights on counterfactual thinking and our main hypothesis. Although we had several dependent variables, our primary focus involved the perceived blameworthiness of the taxi driver, the number of ‘If Only’ statements the participants could create, and the manipulation check regarding whether the driver agreed to take the couple. We hypothesized that participants would find the taxi driver more blameworthy for the couple’s death in the changeable condition, since he refused to drive Tina and Eugene while safely passing over the bridge himself. We also predicted that the participants in the changeable condition would generate more counterfactual (‘If Only’) statements than in the unchangeable or neutral conditions. Results Study One Using survey condition (changeable vs. unchangeable vs. neutral) as our independent variable and whether participants recalled whether the taxi driver picked up the paraplegic couple as the dependent variable, we ran a manipulation check in which we saw a significant effect, X2(2) = 93.95, p < .001. Participants in the changeable and unchangeable conditions correctly said the taxi did not pick up the couple (95.2% and 90.5%, respectively) while few participants in the neutral condition said the driver picked up the couple (4.8%). Phi showed a large effect. This indicates that participants did pay attention to whether the taxi driver picked up the couple. See Appendix B. For our main analysis, our first One-Way ANOVA test revealed significant differences among our independent variable, the scenario conditions (changeable, unchangeable, or neutral) and our dependent variable, perceived blameworthiness of the taxi driver, F(2, 122) = 3.55, p = SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 9 .032. A subsequent Tukey post hoc test supported our hypothesis by demonstrating that participants were more likely to blame the taxi driver in the changeable condition (M = 4.51, SD = 2.06) than in the unchangeable condition (M = 3.38, SD = 2.14).. However, there were no significant difference for perceived blame between the neutral condition (M = 4.36, SD = 2.11) and either the changeable or unchangeable conditions. These results indicate that in situations where the outcome is perceived as mutable (changeable), individuals are more likely to assign blame to the actor who could have acted differently (unchangeable). See Appendix C. We were also interested in the number of ‘If Only’ statements generated for each condition. We ran a One-Way ANOVA test using the different conditions (changeable, unchangeable, or neutral) as our independent variable, and the number of counterfactuals produced as our dependent variable. The results revealed that the relationship between condition and number of ‘If Only’ statements produced was not significant, F(2, 123) = 1.79, p = .171. Our initial prediction that participants would develop more counterfactuals in the changeable condition was not supported since the number of counterfactuals generated in the changeable condition (M = 5.41, SD = 2.21), the unchangeable condition (M = 4.57, SD = 2.04), and the neutral condition (M = 4.88, SD = 1.85) did not differ. Since the p-value for the ANOVA test was not significant, there was no need to run post hoc tests. See Appendix D. Discussion Study One We predicted that participants would place more blame on an actor whose behavior led to an undesirable outcome (death) when that actor could have acted differently primarily because these participants would generate more “If Only” counterfactual statements that would lead them to see the outcome could have been avoided. Conversely, we predicted that participants who read about an undesirable outcome that could not have been avoided would assign less blame to the SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 10 actor and would think of fewer counterfactual “If Only” statements. Results partially supported these predictions, as we did find more blame for in the changeable condition compared to both the unchangeable and neutral conditions. However, the number of counterfactual statements that participants generated did not differ among our three conditions. It could be that participants were unfamiliar with the counterfactual task, which requires some deep thinking, though on a more unconscious level they could have seen the changeable condition as evidencing more elements of blame. This begs the question: what if participants were forced to think deeper? This is the focus of our second study. Study Two Although most of the general population engages in counterfactual thinking, the number of counterfactual thoughts created varies between people. This is because the development of numerous counterfactual thoughts is determined by the overall mutability of a situation as well as the distinct differences between individuals (Alquist, Ainsworth, Baumeister, Daly, & Stillman, 2015). For example, people who have an inclination for structuring situations in meaningful, integrated ways, or more aptly put, have a high need for cognition, are more prone to elaborate on presented information (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982). Therefore, these individuals might be more likely to participate in the generation of counterfactual thoughts than individuals who typically avoid effortful cognitive activity, or have a low need for cognition (Sargent, 2004). Despite the fact that several studies have researched scenario mutability and need for cognition, no prior findings have examined the influence these two variables have on the assignment of blame. The primary focus of our second study, therefore, is to analyze the extent of culpability people place on a particular factor depending on the mutability of the situation as well as the distinct Need for Cognition of each subject. SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 11 Need for Cognition (NFC) is defined as an individual’s dispositional tendency to participate in demanding cognitive behaviors (Curseu, 2006). People with a high-NFC tend to enjoy engaging in cognitive endeavors and generally undergo a deep elaboration of information (Strobel, Fleischhauer, Enge, & Strobel, 2015), while individuals with a low-NFC use cognitive heuristics and often rely on others’ opinions (Furnham & Thorne, 2013). Petrocelli and Dowd (2009) proposed that individuals with a high-NFC employ complex attributional systems that allow them to think theoretically and recognize situational elements as causes of behavior. For example, in the previously mentioned scenario, people with a high-NFC are likely to consider the external or environmental aspects—such as distracting traffic—as blameworthy factors in the unfortunate, accidental death of the stray cat. According to Curseu (2006), individuals with a high-NFC also tend to generate more alternative solutions to problems compared to low-NFC individuals who tend to avoid strenuous cognitive activities (Petrocelli & Dowd, 2009). Taking these components into account, it is reasonable to expect high-NFC subjects to produce more counterfactual thoughts than low-NFC subjects. Considering the distinct attributes of individuals with a high and low NFC, it is highly probable that attitudes towards judgments of blame are significantly different between the two conditions (Sargent, 2004). According to Sargent (2004), people with high-NFC usually prefer to tackle social problems involving crime rather than actually punishing the criminal responsible. This might be due to the complex attributional systems used by high-NFC individuals, which attributes behavior to “abstract, contemporary, external causes” and ultimately withdraws responsibility from the perpetrator and places it on societal influences instead (Sargent, 2004). Therefore, it is not surprising that Sargent found a negative correlation between high-NFC and punitive responses to crimes, since high-NFC individuals tend to view the criminal as a victim of SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 12 circumstantial events. However, Sargent also notes that understanding the consequences of a criminal act through exposure to particular criminal cases can cause high-NFC individuals to think more about the consequences of a committed crime, which in turn might result in a positive correlation between high-NFC and punitive reactions to criminal acts. Thus, whether a high-NFC individual finds a perpetrator blameworthy or not depends on the specific details of the crime, and the resulting consequences of the events occurred. On a related note, an experiment conducted by Wevodau, Cramer, Clark, and Kehn (2014) investigated the correlational interaction between NFC and perceived blame. According to Wevodau et al. (2014), there is a substantial positive association between NFC and the allocation of blame. The researchers found that that highly motivated individuals who enjoy effortful cognitive processing tend to assign more culpability than cognitively reserved individuals (Wevodau et. al, 2014). In pursuance of scenario changeability and NFC, study two analyzed the extent of culpability placed on a particular factor depending on the mutability of the situation as well as the distinct need for cognition of each subject. In order to manipulate NFC in our study, we presented participants with a set of high-NFC and low-NFC statements and asked them to agree somewhat with each statement in reference to themselves. We then provided participants with the same taxi scenario used in study one, though we dropped the neutral condition since it provided results nearly identical to the unchangeable condition. We have two main analyses in the present study, each of which examines two main effects and one interaction for each of our main dependent variables (number of counterfactuals and level of blame). When it comes to our first dependent variable, the number of counterfactual statements generated in study two, we predicted a main effect for NFC such that participants SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 13 high in NFC generate more counterfactuals than those low in NFC. We did not, however, predict a main effect of condition. Study one showed that participants generated a similar number of counterfactuals in both the unchangeable and unchangeable conditions, and thus we do not expect to see differences in study two. However, we did predict an interaction for number of counterfactuals generated. That is, we expected participants high in NCF in the changeable condition to generate the most counterfactuals since the outcome was more changeable! Participants in remaining conditions (high NFC unchangeable, low NFC changeable, and low NFC unchangeable) should generate comparable levels of counterfactuals. For our second dependent variable, blame, we predicted a main effect for condition such that those in the changeable condition should find more blame than those in the unchangeable condition. This follows from study one, where participants blamed the taxi driver more when his cab made it safely across the bridge than when he passed safely. We also predicted a NFC main effect for blame wherein those high in NFC would find more blame than those low in NFC. That is, thinking deeply about the accident might elevate blameworthiness assessments compared to thinking shallowly. More important, we predict an interaction of condition and NFC on blame such that participants find the taxi driver more blameworthy in the high NFC and changeable condition compared to all other conditions. Low NFC and unchangeable participants should produce the lowest levels of blame. Methods Study Two Participants One hundred and sixty subjects, 90% (n = 144) university students, were recruited to participate in study two. Of these 160 participants, 33% (n = 52) were male and 67% (n = 108) were female. Ages ranged from a minimum of 17 to a maximum of 64 with an average of 22.38 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 14 years (SD = 5.14). Our sample population consisted of 76% Hispanic Americans (n = 122), 9% African Americans (n = 15), 9% Caucasians (n = 14), 3% Asian American (n = 5), and 3% Others (n = 4). See Appendix E. Materials and Procedure Prospective participants were asked to take part in an online study being conducted for research purposes. If the subject agreed to participate, verbally or otherwise, he or she was directed to the survey developed through Qualtrics software. In accordance with the standardized guidelines for informed consent, subjects were first notified of the potential risks and benefits of participating in the study before being introduced to the research material. Once the participant confirmed their approval, they were eligible to continue with the rest of the survey, which consisted of six different parts or sections. In section one of the study, we manipulated the subject’s Need for Cognition (NFC) by randomly assigning them to one of two possible groups. Depending on which group the subject was appointed to, they were presented with either five low-NFC or five high-NFC statements procured from the 18-item NFC scale developed by Caccioppo, Petty, and Kao (1984). After reading each statement, the participant was then asked to rate how much they agreed with each remark on a number scale. The numbers on the scale ranged from one (somewhat agree) to seven (completely agree). For example, a participant presented with a set of high-NFC statements was asked to rate the statement “I prefer complex to simple problems,” while a participant presented with a set of low-NFC statements was asked to rate the statement “I only think as hard as I have to” on the previously mentioned number scale. In section two of the study, participants read one of two short scenarios concerning a paraplegic couple, Tina and Eugene, who requested a taxi for a night out with friends. These SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 15 scenarios were identical to the ones used in study one. Here, however, we omitted the neutral condition since it did not differ from the unchangeable condition. Once again, and similar to study one, participants continued on to section three of the study, which asked them to provide as many ‘If Only’ statements as possible, meaning that they had to list all the factors they could think of that could have possibly changed the outcome of the event. Subjects were able to complete a total of ten statements, though they were not required to fill in all ten. Similar to study one, section four presented participants with a series of 12 questions about their general thoughts regarding the specific situation they read about. These questions included how avoidable they thought the accident was, the causal role of the taxi driver in the couple’s death, their thoughts on how much control the taxi driver had, the negligence of the taxi driver, their dissatisfaction of scenario outcome, the foreseeability of the couple’s death, how much blame the taxi driver deserved for the event, how much control Eugene and Tina had in the event, how legally responsible the taxi driver was, how guilty the taxi driver should feel, how fair the taxi driver’s decision was, and how difficult it was to imagine a different outcome. After reading each question, the participant was asked to record his or her response in a scale of one to nine. The last question of section four was a yes or no question that asked the participant whether the taxi driver agreed to drive the couple or not. This final question served as an attention check, which informed us if the participant was actually attentive to the study and allowed us to exclude potentially misrepresentative responses from our data. Section five of the survey consisted of the remaining eight manipulation check questions for NFC. Similar to section one of the study, the participant was asked to rate eight dispositional statements on a scale of one to seven. For example, the statement “Thinking is not my idea of SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 16 fun” would be rated from a scale of one (extremely uncharacteristic) to seven (extremely characteristic). The last section of the study asked for the participant’s demographic information, including gender, age, ethnicity, country of birth, their first language, whether they are a student at Florida International University, etc. Several questions asked about information directly relevant to the scenario such as if the subject had ever been in a major car accident or if he or she knew anyone who was paraplegic. Concluding the study, the participant was debriefed. Although we had several dependent variables, our primary focus involved the perceived blameworthiness of the taxi driver, and the number of ‘If Only’ statements the participants could create. We also analyzed the interaction between scenario mutability and NFC for both dependent variables. Results Study Two The manipulation check was not significant. That is, very few participants in both the changeable (5%) and unchangeable (2.5%) conditions said the taxi driver picked up the paraplegic couple, X2(1) = .69, p > .05. Phi showed a small effect. This is not surprising, as we eliminated the neutral condition (in study one, this was the only condition where the taxi did, in fact, pick up the couple). Thus participants did pay attention to their condition in study two (See Appendix E). To test our first dependent variable, we ran a 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA with NFC (high vs. low) and scenario condition (changeable vs. unchangeable) as our independent variables and the perceived blameworthiness of the taxi driver as our dependent variable. Results demonstrated no significant main effect for NFC on perceived blame, F(1, 152) = 1.69, p = .196. This means that there was no meaningful differences in the assignment of culpability between the high-NFC (M = SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 17 3.72, SD = 2.44) and low-NFC group (M = 4.12, SD = 2.49). There was, however, a significant main effect for scenario condition, F(1, 152) = 3.98, p = .048. Participants in the changeable condition (M = 4.27, SD = 2.35) perceived the taxi driver to be more blameworthy for the couple’s death than participants in the unchangeable condition (M = 3.56, SD = 2.47). Unfortunately, there was no interaction of NFC and scenario, F(1, 152) = 0.00, p = .985, meaning that perceived culpability did not significantly differ among high NFC changeable participants (M = 4.04, SD = 2.28), high NFC unchangeable participants (M = 3.27, SD = 2.44), low NFC changeable participants (M = 4.56, SD = 2.44), and low NFC unchangeable participants (M = 3.77, SD = 2.51). See Appendix F. To test our second dependent variable, we ran another 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA with NFC (high vs. low) and scenario condition (changeable vs. unchangeable) as our independent variables and number of “If Only” counterfactual statements as our dependent variable. There was no main effect for NFC on the number of “If Only” thoughts generated, F(1, 156) = .001, p = .975. This means that there was no difference in the number of counterfactual thoughts generated between the high-NFC group (M = 3.87, SD = 1.77) and low-NFC group (M = 3.81, SD = 2.46). Similarly, there was no main effect between for scenario, F(1, 56) = 2.05, p = .154. That is, there was no significant difference in the number of “If Only” statements generated between the changeable condition (M = 4.09, SD = 2.28) and the unchangeable condition (M = 3.60, SD = 1.97). We also examined the overall interaction between the two independent variables (high vs. low-NFC and unchangeable vs. changeable scenario) and the dependent variable. We found that there was no interaction of NFC and scenario condition, F(1, 156) = 1.04, p = .310, meaning that the number of “If Only” thoughts created did not vary between the high NFC unchangeable condition (M = 3.79, SD = 1.92), high NFC changeable condition (M = SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 18 3.93, SD = 1.68), low NFC unchangeable condition (M = 3.46, SD = 2.01), or low NFC changeable condition (M = 4.29, SD = 2.93). See Appendix H. Discussion Study Two Although study two posited that Need for Cognition would impact participants and their generation of counterfactual statements and their assessment of blame, results did not support this contention. For both dependent variables, Need for Cognition did not result in main effects. Despite predictions to the contrary, those high in NFC did not generate any more counterfactuals than those low in NFC, and those high in NFC did not blame the taxi driver any more than those low in NFC. Nor did NCF interact with scenario, despite our prediction that those high NFC would generate the most counterfactuals and find the most blame when given the changeable scenario compared to other conditions. However, scenario did show a significant main effect such that participants found more blame for the taxi driver in the changeable condition than the unchangeable condition. General Discussion Across both studies, the data collected demonstrates a significant effect of scenario condition on the assignment of blame only. In both studies one and two, participants presented with the changeable condition, where the taxi driver remained unaffected by the bridge collapse, perceived the driver to be more blameworthy than those presented with the unchangeable condition, where the driver also fell into the water along with the couple. This result is reinforced by McCloy and Byrne’s (2000) proposition that “inappropriate controllable” events will likely be regarded as highly culpable factors in the outcome of a situation. We saw this across mediums as well, as study one used a face-to-face survey while study two used online materials. The fact that both studies showed an effect for scenario argues for the robust nature of the changeable SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 19 manipulation and increases our study reliability. Furthermore, Alquist et al. (2015) also suggests that events that are within an individual’s jurisdiction tend to increase counterfactual thinking and, ultimately, receive the brunt of the blame for the resulting situation. Taking these findings into consideration, it would be reasonable to assume that participants assigned to the changeable condition should also generate more counterfactual thoughts than participants in the unchangeable condition. However, our hypothesis was not supported since the results demonstrated that there was no significant difference in the number of “If Only” thoughts produced between the changeable, neutral, and unchangeable groups in study one and the changeable and unchangeable groups in study two. A possible reason for this result may be that many of the “If Only” thoughts proposed were based on uncontrollable factors such as the collapse of the bridge and the couple’s handicap status. This counters previous findings, which propose that situations that are believed to be highly changeable generate more counterfactual thoughts than events that seem unavoidable (Alquist et al. 2015). The contradictory results might be due to differences in methodologies or the influence of different independent variables. In regards to our NFC variable in study two, our hypothesis was not supported since we found no difference in the number of counterfactual thoughts created between high-NFC and low-NFC groups. This finding is especially surprising considering the characteristics of individuals with a high-NFC, which include engaging in effortful cognitive tasks (Strobel, Fleischhauer, Enge, & Strobel, 2015) and generating more alternative solutions to problems compared to low-NFC individuals (Curseu 2006). However, differences in the number of “If Only” thoughts created was too insignificant to suggest a meaningful effect between the two groups. This result might explain why, contrary to our initial hypothesis, we also found no SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 20 differences in the assignment of blame between the high-NFC and the low-NFC group. We predicted that participants in the high-NFC group would place more blame on the taxi driver than participants in the low-NFC group because individuals with a high-NFC were previously found to produce more counterfactual thoughts, which in turn, leads to more allocation of blame. However, since we found that participants in both groups generally produced the same number of “If Only” thoughts, it stands to reason that there would be no significant difference in the amount of blame assigned to the taxi driver. Furthermore, prior studies have found evidence to suggest that individuals with a high-NFC tend to blame societal influences instead of the perpetrator, and typically avoid punishing the criminal responsible (Sargent, 2004). Therefore, our findings contribute to the previously established notion that high-NFC and low-NFC individuals do not differ in the assignment of blame, despite their notable differences. Additionally, we found no overall interaction of NFC and scenario condition, for either dependent variable (number of counterfactual thoughts created and assignment of blame). Certain limitations in the present study, such as a narrow pool of participants, might have implicated the results. Future studies should procure a larger and more diverse sample population in order to expand our applications to the general public. Our approach to NFC may also be improved by actually measuring the NFC (either high or low) of each individual, instead of just manipulating it. Additionally, the scenario presented might have been too difficult to relate to for most participants, which might have limited the number of counterfactual thoughts generated. Future applications of this study design might benefit from adapting a more engaging scenario and analyzing whether participants generated more counterfactual thoughts if they at some point have found themselves in a similar situation. SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 21 As free-willed beings, we can often become the victims of our own decisions. Making a wrong choice might lead us to become immersed in futile thoughts of what could have been; which is why having an in-depth understanding of the way we think and grasp situations has the potential to lead us towards a stable and more prudent method of decision-making. Analyzing our NFC and the influence of scenario mutability is an important step forward in understanding. Our findings have suggested that certain factors of an event could potentially alter the way we regard a situation, and ultimately play a role in who or what we deem culpable. We have also determined that the differences between individuals with a high-NFC and a low-NFC are less significant than previously established. Regardless of whether NFC or scenario mutability has a momentous impact on our counterfactual thinking or assignment of blame, they undoubtedly have an impact on the way we interpret situations and, ultimately, the decisions we make. SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION 22 References Alquist, J. L., Ainsworth, S. E., Baumeister, R. F., Daly, M., & Stillman, T. F. (2015). The making of might-have-beens: Effects of free will belief on counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(2), 268-283. doi: 10.1177/0146167214563673 Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116-131. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.42.1.116 Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., & Kao, C. F. (1984). The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48(3), 306-307. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa4803_13 Curseu, P. L. (2006). Need for cognition and rationality in decision-making. Studia Psychologica, 48(2), 141-156. Gilbert, E. A., Tenney, E. R., Holland, C. R., & Spellman, B. A. (2015). Counterfactuals, control, and causation: Why knowledgeable people get blamed more. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(5), 643-658. doi: 10.1177/0146167215572137 Furnham, A., & Thorne, J. D. (2013). Need for cognition: Its dimensionality and personality an intelligence correlates. Journal of Individual Differences, 34(4), 230-240. doi: 10.1027/1614-0001/a000119 McCloy, R., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2000). Counterfactual thinking about controllable events. Memory & Cognition, 28(6), 1071-1078. doi: 10.3758/BF03209355 Petrocelli, J. V., & Dowd, K. (2009). Ease of counterfactual thought generation moderates the relationship between need for cognition and punitive responses to crime. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(9), 1179-1192. doi: 10.1177/0146167209337164 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Sargent, M. (2004). Less thought, more punishment: Need for cognition predicts support for punitive responses to crime. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(11), 14851493. doi: 10.1177/0146167204264481 Strobel, A., Fleischhauer, M., Enge, S., & Strobel A. (2015). Explicit and implicit need for cognition and bottom-up/top-down attention allocation. Journal of Research in Personality, 55, 10-13. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2014.11.002 Wevodau, A. L., Cramer, R. J., Clark, John W., I.,II, & Kehn, A. (2014). The role of emotion and cognition in juror perceptions of victim impact statements. Social Justice Research, 27(1), 45-66. doi: 10.1007/s11211-014-0203-9 23 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix A – Demographics – Study One 24 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix B – Crosstabs and Chi Square – Study One 25 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix C – ANOVA Blame – Study One 26 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix D – ANOVA Number of Counterfactuals – Study One 27 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix E – Demographics – Study Two 28 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix F: Crosstabs and Chi Square – Study Two 29 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix G – ANOVA Perceived Blameworthiness – Study Two 30 SCENARIO MUTABILITY & COGNITION Appendix H – ANOVA Number of Counterfactuals – Study Two 31 Running head: PAPER V: THE FINAL PAPER 1 Paper V: The Final Paper – Grading Rubric The final Paper is worth 75 points. Below is the point structure for the paper. On the following page, you can see how this matches the goals for the course. To see specific elements needed in each section, refer to the Paper V instructions and/or checklist. Your assignment will include the following 1. Title Page (1 point) 2. The Abstract (7 points) NEW SECTION 3. Literature Review (Study One): I expect the following format (6 points) 4. Methods Section (Study One): I expect the following format (6 points) 5. Results Section (Study One): I expect the following format (6 points) 6. Brief Discussion (Study One): I expect the following format (1 point) 7. Literature Review (Study Two): I expect the following format (6 points) 8. Methods Section (Study Two): I expect the following format (6 points) 9. Results Section (Study Two): I expect the following format (6 points) 10. Brief Discussion (Study Two): I expect the following format (1 point) 11. General Discussion (12 points) NEW SECTION 12. References: I expect the following format (6 points) 13. SPSS Data / Appendices (3 points) 14. Overall writing quality (8 points) Total: out of 75 Note: Use the Paper Checklist, too! It is much more detailed then this grading rubric! PAPER V: THE FINAL PAPER 2 Purpose of Paper V (Final Paper) 1). Psychological Purpose The psychological purpose behind Paper V is to present your final paper. Essentially this paper will be similar to any article you would find in an academic journal. It will include a Title Page, Abstract, Literature Review (study one), Methods Section (study one), Results Section (study one), Brief Discussion Section (study one), Literature Review (study two), Methods Section (study two), Results Section (study two), Brief Discussion Section (study two), General Discussion Section, References, and Appendices. The good news is that for most of this paper you will simply combine Paper I, Paper II, Paper III, and Paper IV (including any needed revisions) for Paper V. Two new components for Paper V include the Abstract and a General Discussion section. The Abstract is one of the first items readers see. You need to convey a lot of information in this very short paragraph, as the potential reader will decide whether to read your full paper based on the information in the Abstract. There are several elements needed in the Abstract about both of your studies, including information about: a). your research questions, b). your participants, c). your experimental methodology, d). your findings, and e). your conclusions. Being able to write a precise yet succinct Abstract takes some effort, so make sure you go through several drafts before settling on your final version. Make sure to include keywords / key phrases as well (remember entering keywords into PsycInfo when you searched for articles? The authors actually recommended those keywords, so if you want to increase the number of times your paper comes up for readers, use good keywords!) Your General Discussion section will also be new in Paper V. Here, you will summarize your results from BOTH studies and draw conclusions, but you will NOT use statistics again. This section will evaluate both of your studies and see if (and how) they connect and lead you to general conclusions. That is, your general discussion is the end of your story, so make sure to tie it back to information that you presented throughout both of your studies. You can also identify flaws in your study designs as well as propose new directions for future research in this section. 2). APA Formatting Purpose Paper V should follow all APA formatting guidelines. See our feedback on prior papers, use Chapter 14 in your textbook, and look at the instructions on the next page for help with formatting 3). Writing Purpose Paper V is your final paper in the course, and it should reflect the skills and knowledge you have developed throughout the semester. You should be able to convey information to an educated reader, but one who is unfamiliar with your specific study and the content area. More importantly, many students use Paper V as their writing sample for graduate school applications, thus your paper should be grammatically correct and easy to read yet informative for a reader who may have little to no knowledge of your specific topic. Thus educate your reader, but keep in mind that your reader is probably intelligent. Running head: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS Instructions for Paper V: Final Paper (Worth 75 Points) Ryan J. Winter Florida International University 1 PAPER V: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS 2 Purpose of Paper V (Final Paper) 1). Psychological Purpose The psychological purpose behind Paper V is to present your final paper. Essentially this paper will be similar to any article you would find in an academic journal. It will include a Title Page, Abstract, Literature Review (study one), Methods Section (study one), Results Section (study one), Brief Discussion Section (study one), Literature Review (study two), Methods Section (study two), Results Section (study two), Brief Discussion Section (study two), General Discussion Section, References, and Appendices. The good news is that for most of this paper you will simply combine Paper I, Paper II, Paper III, and Paper IV (including any needed revisions) for Paper V. Two new components for Paper V include the Abstract and a General Discussion section. The Abstract is one of the first items readers see. You need to convey a lot of information in this very short paragraph, as the potential reader will decide whether to read your full paper based on the information in the Abstract. There are several elements needed in the Abstract about both of your studies, including information about: a). your research questions, b). your participants, c). your experimental methodology, d). your findings, and e). your conclusions. Being able to write a precise yet succinct Abstract takes some effort, so make sure you go through several drafts before settling on your final version. Make sure to include keywords / key phrases as well (remember entering keywords into PsycInfo when you searched for articles? The authors actually recommended those keywords, so if you want to increase the number of times your paper comes up for readers, use good keywords!) Your General Discussion section will also be new in Paper V. Here, you will summarize your results from BOTH studies and draw conclusions, but you will NOT use statistics again. This section will evaluate both of your studies and see if (and how) they connect and lead you to general conclusions. That is, your general discussion is the end of your story, so make sure to tie it back to information that you presented throughout both of your studies. You can also identify flaws in your study designs as well as propose new directions for future research in this section. 2). APA Formatting Purpose Paper V should follow all APA formatting guidelines. See our feedback on prior papers, use Chapter 14 in your textbook, and look at the instructions on the next page for help with formatting 3). Writing Purpose Paper V is your final paper in the course, and it should reflect the skills and knowledge you have developed throughout the semester. You should be able to convey information to an educated reader, but one who is unfamiliar with your specific study and the content PAPER V: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS 3 area. More importantly, many students use Paper V as their writing sample for graduate school applications, thus your paper should be grammatically correct and easy to read yet informative for a reader who may have little to no knowledge of your specific topic. Thus educate your reader, but keep in mind that your reader is probably intelligent. Note that the plagiarism limit for Paper V is 50%. I expect less overlap in your lit reviews and discussions than in the methods / results. As usual, references, citations, and predictions are not included in the plagiarism limit. PAPER V: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS 4 Instructions for Paper V: Final Paper (Worth 75 Points) Note that these instructions relate to the whole paper, but I concentrate on the Abstract and Discussion below since those are new elements in this paper. Refer to the instructions for Paper III: Study Two Literature Review for information on the study one literature review, methods, results, and discussion and the study two literature review and references. Refer to Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results and Discussion for information on the methods, results and discussion for study two. 1. Title Page: I expect the following format (1 point): a. This Title Page section will be one (1) page in proper APA format 2. Abstract (7 points) NEW SECTION a. The Abstract starts on its own page, with the word Abstract centered (not bolded). b. Make sure your header and page number is still on this abstract page c. The abstract should be between 150 and 200 words, and must include all of the following elements i. Identify your general problem or research question ii. Note your participants iii. Note your experimental method iv. Note your findings for both studies v. Note your conclusions about the studies as a whole d. Keywords / phrases are required for your paper (at least 5 keywords or phrases) 3. Literature Review (Study One): I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised literature review from Paper III: Study Two Literature Review. Those instructions continue to apply to this section (recall that you revised the study one literature review for Paper III, so that Paper III literature review will be your most recent version of that study one literature review) b. The study one literature review must have minimum of two (2) full pages of text (not including the hypotheses) and a maximum of five (5) pages 4. Methods Section (Study One): I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised methods section from Paper III: Study Two Literature Review. Those instructions continue to apply to this section b. There is no set minimum or maximum on the length of the methods section, but I would expect at least a page as you detail your materials and procedure. Missing important aspects of your IVs and DVs or presenting them in a confused manner will lower your score in this section 5. Results Section (Study One): I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised results section from Paper III: Study Two Literature Review. Those instructions continue to apply to this section b. Like the methods section, there is no page minimum of maximum for the results section, though I would expect it to be at least a paragraph or two for each of the dependent variables you analyzed 6. Brief Discussion (Study One): I expect the following format (1 point): a. Include a brief description of your study one findings (but avoid using statistics) PAPER V: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS 5 b. I expect a paragraph or two, revised from Paper III: Study Two Literature Review. 7. Literature Review (Study Two): I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised literature review from Paper III: Study Two Literature Review. Those instructions continue to apply to this section b. The study two literature review must have minimum of two (2) full pages of text (with or without hypotheses) and a maximum of five (5) pages 8. Methods Section (Study Two): I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised methods section from Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Discussion, and Results. Those instructions continue to apply to this section b. There is no set minimum or maximum on the length of the methods section, but I would expect at least a page as you detail your materials and procedure. Missing important aspects of your IVs and DVs or presenting them in a confused manner will lower your score in this section 9. Results Section (Study Two): I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised results section from Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, Discussion. Those instructions continue to apply to this section b. Like the methods section, there is no page minimum of maximum for the results section, though I would expect it to be at least a paragraph or two for each of the dependent variables you analyzed 10. Brief Discussion (Study Two): I expect the following format (1 point): a. Include a brief description of your study one findings (but avoid using statistics) b. I expect a paragraph or two, revised from Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, Discussion 11. General Discussion (12 points) NEW SECTION a. Write the word General Discussion at the top of this section and center it. This section comes directly at the end of the brief discussion section from study two, so the general discussion section DOES NOT start on its own page. See the example paper for some formatting visual hints. b. At the beginning of this section, give a brief reminder of your predictions from both study one and study two. Then provide a discussion of your results. In English (not statistics), tell me what you found. In this discussion, you should talk about all of the following: i. An explanation of your findings – across both studies, did your results support or not support your hypothesis? 1. If you found support, tie it in with the prior research you cited in your literature review as well as your predictions. You may want to refer back to your literature review, and re-cite some of the studies you mentioned there (I really recommend that, in fact!). 2. If you didn’t find any support for your hypotheses, contrast your findings with prior research. You can highlight differences in your methodologies. You may also find other studies that either support your results or help explain why you found what you found. 3. If one study found support and the other did not, try to explain the discrepancy. 4. In a nutshell, tell me how both studies help inform the reader about the nature of your variables and how they impact human behavior. PAPER V: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS 6 ii. Next, examine study limitations – would other methods have been better? Were there problems with your study that a follow-up study should fix? iii. Propose future directions for research – If you could do your studies over again, what would you change? Or how might you expand them? iv. Optional: Talk about the ethics of your study – Did you follow ethical guidelines? Were participants harmed in any manner c. The general discussion section must have minimum of one (1) full page of text and a maximum of three (3) pages. If it is only one pages, it better be very, very good! I actually expect to see closer to two pages 12. References: I expect the following format (6 points): a. Include your revised references from Paper III: Literature Review (Study Two) i. Include any new references you may have cited in the discussion section b. References start on their own page c. Follow all APA formatting rules for the references d. We will mark off per number of error, so really make sure to proofread this. The same error in six references will leave you with zero points! 13. Appendices (3 points) a. Here, simply include the eight appendices (A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and H) from Papers II and IV. Make sure each are clearly labeled. You might have more than eight, but you should have eight minimum 14. Overall writing quality (8 points) a. Make sure you check your paper for proper spelling and grammar. The FIU writing center is available if you want someone to look over your paper (an extra eye is always good!) and give you advice. I highly recommend them, as writing quality will become even more important on future papers. NOTE that this writing quality is nearly 10% of your final paper grade, so I suggest you proofread! b. You can also visit the Research Methods Help Center for some help or just someone to glance over your final paper. Other Guidelines for Paper V: The Final Paper ▪ ▪ ▪ 1). Pay attention to the page length requirements 2). Page size is 8 1/2 X 11” with all 4 margins set at on inch on all sides. You must use a 12-point Times New Roman font. Double space EVERYTHING 3). When summarizing articles for your lit review and doing so in your own words, make sure you still cite the original source. Always use proper referencing procedures, which means that: o If you are inserting a direct quote from any source, it must be enclosed in quotations and followed by a parenthetical reference to the source. “Let’s say I am directly quoting this current sentence and the next. I would then cite it with the author name, date of publication, and the page number for the direct quote” (Winter, 2016, p . 4). 1. Note: We will deduct points if you quote more than three times in the whole paper, so keep quotes to a minimum. Paraphrase instead, but make sure you still give the original author credit for the material by citing it or using the author’s name (“In this article, Smith noted that …” or “In this article, the authors noted that…”) PAPER V: FINAL PAPER INSTRUCTIONS ▪ 4). PLEASE use a spell checker to avoid unnecessary errors. Proofread everything you write. I actually recommend reading some sentences aloud to see if they flow well, or getting family or friends to read your work. ▪ Finally, go look at the supporting documents for this paper. Like prior papers, there is a checklist, a grade rubric, and an example paper for Paper V. All will give you more information about what we are specifically looking for as well as a visual example of how to put it all together in your paper. Good luck! 7 Running head: A DEEPER LOOK IN TO SELFIES Social Media: A Deeper Look in to Selfie Behaviors Princess Lavan Florida International University 1 A DEEPER LOOK IN TO SELFIES 2 Social Media: A Deeper Look in to Selfie Behaviors In the modern world, technology has advanced significantly, and this has made people develop and evolve from normal activities. An organization such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Twitter to mention but a few have benefited from advanced technology because they have been able to enhance social media platforms. In the current social media platforms, people across the globe can be able to send selfies and also upload them. This acts as a way of appreciating oneself and also communicating to others about you as a person. This posting and sending selfies make people to be judged by others positively or negatively. According to Taylor, Hinck, & Lim (2017), they explain how posting selfies change social judgment on Facebook. The article focuses more on who is posting the selfies and not the audience who are intended to view the selfies. When posting selfies are done, the question that remains is how it affects people's judgment on social attraction, message appropriateness, and narcissism. Additionally, once a person has posted a selfie, how does intimacy and valence of the updated status in this perspective selfies or the text that accompany the selfies interchange to swerve social judgments? According to the research carried out by Taylor, Hinck, & Lim (2017), they opine that selfies posted on Facebook are seen to be more narcissistic, less socially active and more inappropriate. On the matter of evaluating the selfies, the authors said that depends mostly on intimacy and valence of the text accompanying the selfies even though the person posting the selfies may receive unenthusiastic social judgment from other users. In respect to above, Balakrishnan, & Griffiths, (2018) argue that comprehending on how the Facebook users take to meaning the posted selfies is complicated. It is because of the invisible Users at the social media platform. Criticality of the audience management on Facebook is a sign that people do not know who will see what they will post and who will not see. This condition of not knowing who has seen the selfies and who have not seen leaves A DEEPER LOOK IN TO SELFIES 3 vagueness of the impression management for people who post the selfies. When studying the judgment of people who upload selfies on Facebook, it is possible to establish the intended audience members and their attachment to the uploaded selfies. In order to understand the meaning behind posting selfies on Facebook, Halpern, Valenzuela, & Katz, (2016) talks about " Selfie-ists" or "Narci-selfies"?: A cross-lagged panel analysis of selfies taking and narcissism". Regarding this, the author explains the social event of the uploaded selfies on Facebook regarding experimental connection among the peculiar outward appearance of narcissism and social media usage. For this reason, it is understandable that people post selfies on Facebook because of the self-selection hypothesis and media e...
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