A psychologist was interested in the effects of different fear information in ch

Question

A psychologist was interested in the effects of different fear information in children’s beliefs about an animal. She believed that when given negative information, children will demonstrate greater levels of fear, even if they have not encountered the creature before. Three groups of children were shown a picture of an animal that they had never seen before (a quoll). Then one group was told a negative story (in which the quoll is described as a vicious, diseaseridden, bundle of nastiness that eats children’s brains), one group a positive story (in which the quoll is described as a harmless, docile creature that likes nothing more than to be stroked), and a final group weren’t told a story at all. After the story children rated how scared they would be if they met a quoll, on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all scared) to 5 (very scared indeed). To control for the natural anxiousness of each child, a questionnaire measure of trait anxiety was given to the children and used in the analysis. The (edited) R output is below. Please describe what the researcher should conclude.

Response: Fear of Animal

           Sum Sq Df F value Pr(>F)

(Intercept) 96.249 1 109.141 .000 ***

Natural Fear Level 4.924 1 5.579 .022 *

Type of Information 13.567 2 7.685 .001 **

Residuals 49.426 56

: Type of Information

: Positive

mean SE.mean

2.594 .219

------------------------

: Negative

mean SE.mean

3.658 .211

------------------------

: None

mean SE.mean

2.697 .215

-------------------------

Multiple Comparisons of Means: Tukey Contrasts

95% family-wise confidence level

Linear Hypotheses:

  Estimate lwr  upr

Positive - None == 0 -0.103 -0.880 .675

Negative - None == 0 0.961 0.225 1.697

Negative - Positive == 0 1.064 0.306 1.823

Explanation / Answer

Based on the the table below

Response: Fear of Animal

           Sum Sq Df F value Pr(>F)

(Intercept) 96.249 1 109.141 .000 ***

Natural Fear Level 4.924 1 5.579 .022 *

Type of Information 13.567 2 7.685 .001 **

Residuals 49.426 56

It can be concluded that the natural fear level of the children and the type of information presented to the childer about the quoll contributed significantly to the "fear of animal " amongsst the children of the different groups. We can conclude this at a significance level of 0.05 , as the p values of both these variables is less than 0.05

The information below

: Type of Information

: Positive

mean SE.mean

2.594 .219

------------------------

: Negative

mean SE.mean

3.658 .211

------------------------

: None

mean SE.mean

2.697 .215

suggests that mean scare level for the children who were given positive information is 2.5 , with range being 2.5+-0.219

likewise , for negative

suggests that mean scare level for the children who were given negative information is 3.65 , with range being 3.65+-0.211 , which implies that negative information on an average increased the scare level among the children

similarly , for neutral

suggests that mean scare level for the children who were given no information is 2.69 , with range being 2.69+-0.215 , which implies that no information kept the scare level at 2.5 , around neutral.

Hope this helps

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