Discussion 3: Practice makes Perfect!
Make a post in which you:
Reply to a group member’s paragraph with the following information:
1. Discuss one aspects of your peer’s paragraph that could be improved. This could include something about their summary that is inaccurate, grammatical errors or mistakes, or ways that they could improve their writing. Be very specific here. Don’t be shy or worried about offending your peers—remember, all writing can be improved and everybody needs feedback. Even if it is very good, there is always something that could be changed.
2. Do you agree with your group member’s assessment of the confounding variables in the study? Why or why not?
An experimental study was conducted to test the taste of new chocolates (Hershey’s Kisses). For the study 5 chocolate flavors (milk, dark, crème, caramel, and almond) were used and 52 participants, 28 males and 24 females were recruited from public campus areas. To carry out this study, an experimenter who wasn’t aware of the hypothesis, randomly pulled a chocolate of each flavor from a bag of candy. The participants were randomly assigned to two different conditions: “next” and “last”. Students from the last condition were told that the chocolate they were about to consume was the last one, while students from the next condition just were told that it will be the next chocolate. After all the participants ate and taste the chocolates, a survey method was used in which the participants rated on a scale from 0 to 10 how enjoyable the chocolate was. Also, the authors used a manipulation check in which the participants had to identify what the experimenter said “next,” “last,” “none,” or “don’t know” before giving the fifth chocolate. Erroneous manipulation check answers removed seven people’s data from analysis. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that participants that were informed they were tasting the last chocolate, found it more enjoyable than the participants who were not told that it will be the last chocolate. This study provides evidence that endings are powerful and that they can influence peoples’ enjoyment.
There are several possible confounds in this study that might have influenced the results. First, the participants in the last condition may have been more attentive to the flavor of the chocolate since they knew it was the last ones. Also, it is possible that some of the participants don’t like the taste of chocolate. Additionally, the participants in the last condition may have had higher expectations for the final chocolate, which may have made it more enjoyable. All of these confounds are possible explanations for why the participants in the final condition rated the last chocolate as more enjoyable. Despite the confounds, it is also possible that the final chocolate was actually more enjoyable.
