Two groups of researchers want to better understand potential attitudes that mal

Question

Two groups of researchers want to better understand potential attitudes that male college students might have about hiring attractive versus unattractive females.

One group of researchers bring a group of 30 male college students into a study and tells them that they should imagine they are managers at a firm and then shows them one picture of an A) unattractive female and another picture (B) of an attractive female and ask them to raise their hands if they would be more likely to hire the women in A, B or (C) no difference. When hands are raised 29 indicate no difference and one indicates the attractive female.

A second group of researchers recruits 30 male college students (one at a time) and they all read a sheet of paper asking them to imagine that they are manager in charge of hiring females as employees.   The story is very specific in the types of tasks these employees will be doing.   The participants are then given one of 2 pictures (attractive or unattractive) and asked to rate how well they think the individual will do on the job (e.g. being organized, productive, problem-solving on a 5 point scale with a higher number indicating better performance).

1. Describe the type of statistical design that would be used in A and what the results would show. (5) (I think it is asking what kind of statistical test you would use)

2. Describe the type of statistical design that would be shown in B and what you would expect for the results. (5)

Explanation / Answer

1. Since categorical data (making preferences between A, B and C) is being used, the Kruskal-Wallis test (the non-parametric equivalent of the one-way ANOVA) can be helpful to determine group differences. If the test shows there are differences between the 3 groups, the Mann-Whitney test can be used to do pairwise comparisons as a post hoc. Here, however, it would indicate that there is a significant difference statistical between preferences for A, B and C but the outcome would be that college students would show no conscious preference in their hiring of female employees.

2. Here, a t test would be appropriate to check if there is a statistical difference between the mean scores of job ratings assigned to attractive females as opposed to the ratings of unattractive females. Since this experiment is much more subtle in its attempt to understand if attractiveness would affect the hiring process, I would expect that the results might actually show that men might have certain stereotypes and prejudices when it comes to hiring. Thus, the results would favour either atttacrive females or unattractive females, depending on the aspect of the job performance being compared.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse T
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.