Sean,+Stephan,+Kurtis

Final Product (Presentation)- Sean D Kim


 * __ Loaded Dice: Does It Really Exist In Research? __ **

**Questions:**

Big Picture Q: To what degree does a bias affect a person's respond or action? Specific Q: How do people respond differently to questions that are worded slightly differently?


 * Objective:**

The final objective of the research is to prove that data collected in the survey depends on the different execution of the experiment. The primary objective of survey is to have people avoid choosing Nike over Adidas by asking them biased questions. By succeeding we can confirm the influence of the biased question on the data.

**Hypothesis:**

If certain questions were to be asked with slightly different wordings, then people will respond significantly differently because human minds are easily recognize even slight changes and are manipulated by present information or bias.

**Metho** **d: **


 * __a. Nike vs Adidas:__**

The survey will survey two groups of people. Each survey will target 50 pedestrian in everyday street. Two surveys should be taken in the same place. The gender of all subjects will be recorded to see which gender is more sensitive to biased question. 1. First group of people, a control group, will be asked which company they prefer between Adidas and Nike. "What do you prefer between Nike and Adidas?" (In Korean: 나이키와 아디다스중에서 무엇을 선호하시나요?) 2. The another group will be presented with a newspaper article (printed) prior to asking the question. The subjects do not need to read the whole article; it is meant to be an evidence of Nike using child labor just in case the subjects do not believe so. Tell them, "Nike had been accused of using child labor to increase their production. Which do you prefer, Nike or Adidas?" (In Korean: 나이키는 예전에 생산량을 올리기 위해서 불법미성년노동을 사용한것으로 알려졋습니다. 나이키와 아디다스중에서 무엇을 선호하시나요?" The data for each survey will be recorded, and the difference will be measured.


 * __b. Smith's Injury__**

1We had 25 people take the Bias survey and 25 people take the Non Bias survey. The people who took the Non Bias survey were the control group while the people who took the Bias survey will be the group which we compare our data to. The location that we took our surveys in was the general area around ISU campus, surveying mostly high school students and college students. After this, we gathered our information and recorded it. The following paper used in survey looks below:

__Non- Biased Survey Paper:__ Below is a list of 4 situations, on a scale of 1 to 5. Circle the answer that you feel most comfortable with. This data will be utilized in a Sociological experiment that I am conducting.

1 – Definitely Not 2 – Probably Not 3 – No Opinion 4 – Probably 5 – Definitely Ben Smith is the star player on a college football team. Recently during a game, Smith was tackled too hard and his leg was broken. He is now in the hospital undergoing physical therapy. Do you think Smith will play football again after being injured? 12345 Do you agree that the player who tackled Smith should be punished? 12345 Do you believe that Smith deserves compensation after the incident? 12345

__ Biased Survey Paper: __

Below is a list of 4 situations, on a scale of 1 to 5. Circle the answer that you feel most comfortable with. This data will be utilized in a Sociological experiment that I am conducting.

1 – Definitely Not 2 – Probably Not 3 – No Opinion 4 – Probably 5 – Definitely Ben Smith is the star player on a college football team. Recently during a game, Smith was tackled too hard and his leg was broken. He is now in the hospital undergoing physical therapy. Do you think Smith will play football after being crippled? 12345 Do you agree that the player who broke Smith’s leg should be punished? 12345 Do you believe that Smith deserves compensation after the accident? 12345

**Potential Error:**

What most worries us for this research is that the difference of two groups can be just natural difference of group of people. To prevent this as much as possible, we have to survey large group of people. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">We also need to make sure that the biased questions are very carefully worded as to avoid the questions becoming completely and obviously biased.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Sean D Kim Lit Review**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1. Loftus and Palmer <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">by Saul McLeod <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Published in 2010 <span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]

<span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This article describes the experiment, called //Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction//, <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">conducted by psychologist Elizabeth Loftus. Loftus first showed the subjects a video of car accident; then he asked them to estimate the speed of the cars. However, Loftus used different wordings when asking a question. “About how fast were the cars going when they (hit/smashed/collided/bumped/contacted) each other?” Surprisingly, if the verb with less degree of action was used, the participants tended to say lower speed. Not only that, but also when people were asked after a week whether they saw any broken glass left, people who heard ‘smashed’ likely said yes. Though this article concludes that this research supports eyewitness testimony and memory distortion, I believe this research also support my hypothesis. The wordings of the question can lead to different reactions, which can skew the data.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2. Reconstructed Memory Experiment – War of the Ghosts <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">by Danah Henriksen <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Published in August 3rd, 2010 <span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]

<span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This research also tests how distorted how our memory can be. “War of the Ghosts” is the ancient story that contains ponderous amount of details. When the participants were asked to recall the story, they all omitted certain details. What I find interesting is the point that people’s mind function based on personal schema, a frame shaped by previous experiments. People process and normalize information so that it will fit their frame of mind. This theory perhaps implies that people will not react differently to the questions that are worded differently, for all the questions are processed based on their schemas. In other words, it might be difficult for one question to affect the mind that has been building up with experiences for several years.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3. Selective Attention Test <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">by Prof. Daniel Simons <span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Published in March 10, 2010 <span class="s2" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[|http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo&feature=player_embedded#at=59]

<span class="s1" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The third lit review I selected was the interesting youtube video uploaded by Professor Simons. This video is about selective attention test, that is, people are selecting what information are processed in their mind. When the participants were to focus on white objects, the black gorilla suddenly appeared “invisible” to participants because the mind is not focusing on black at all. This shows how sometimes mind can ignore the truth. If I can design a biased question that will make mind focus on one thing only, I might be able to skew the data to prove my hypothesis true.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">** Stephan Wetter Lit Review: **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Bias in Analytic Research <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">By: David L. Sackett <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">Printed 1979 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">This research paper essentially talked about how different illnesses can affect people’s judgement on how healthy they or people around them are. It’s a good paper to look at to find ways that we may create a situation that may be biased and build on top of that idea.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Research Bias <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">[|http://tigger.uic.edu/~lwbenn/jacswcourses/socw360/week14.htm] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">This isn’t so much an article as it is an explanation of the different types of bias and bias research that there are. I wanted to put this on here to help us come up with ideas on which kind of biased research we might use and be able to use effectively. There are a lot of definitions that I think we could use as well.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;"> 3. Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">By: Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">Published 1974 <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">[] <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; vertical-align: baseline;">This is part of the Loftus Palmer effect that Sean had already had an article on. Basically, Elizabeth Loftus constructed an experiment that would test eyewitness reports based on the wording of a question after witnessing an event. Strong words were used, such as “smashed” rather than weak words like “bumped” and the two different results were collected together to find that many people had a different perception of the incident when different words were used.


 * Kurtis Ellis** **Literature Review**
 * February 24, 2012**
 * Sociology Gorski 10:00**

[]

The survey my group and I chose to do during our experiments is similar to Elizabeth Loftus famous car crash test experiment, and this article basically describes the experiment. The car crash test experiment was done on 45 students watching the same exact films for the same amount of time. After all the students were asked to write an account of the accident, then they were split into 5 groups of 9 students and each group had different versions of the critical question “About how fast were the cars going when they each other” with verbs such as hit, smashed, collided, bumped, and contacted. The verb smashed got the highest and the verbs contacted got the lowest. Our project is a bit similar to this, and it showed how saying or wording a word differently may change ones perception etc.

[]

This article talks about the Affect Infusion Model, which basically is when ones mood affects their judgments, but not consistently. For the mood to have an effect on our judgment, it has to override the forces that would normally lead to the 'standard' judgment. Even though this maybe the case, mood tends not to have an effect when someone makes judgments that are based directly on the retrieval of a simple pre-formed conclusions, or while trying to satisfy strong directional goals. On the other hand mood does have an effect when someone uses short-cut methods, such as heuristics, for making decisions, or elaborate reasoning, where someone uses substantive processes.

[]

In this article basically gives you the full Loftus palmer effect and the car crash experiment, it also give you a concrete description of each experiment and the weakness, and strengths etc of each experiment during the project. Basically the perceptions of the different groups of people were changed based off of specific verbs such as “smash, Collided..” It showed you how one thought etc maybe influenced even after watching the film, for the same amount of time.

[]

This article basically explains the different types of bias in survey sampling and experiments. I researched this due to the fact that it will help us during our project to try to get a close to perfect if not perfect survey. It will help us avoid type of bias such as undercoverage, nonresponse, voluntary response, random sampling, leading questions, and social desirability.


 * Research Data:**

Sean D Kim Nike vs Adidas

Non-Biased Data:
 * || Nike || Adidas || Total ||
 * Total: || 31 || 19 || 50 ||

Biased Data:
 * Nike || Adidas || Total ||
 * 20 || 30 || 50 ||

Stephan Wetter & Kurtis Ellis
Non-Biased Data:
 * Smith's Injury (No Bias) || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 ||
 * Q 1 || 0 || 5 || 6 || 20 || 19 ||
 * Q 2 || 13 || 20 || 6 || 7 || 4 ||
 * Q 3 || 1 || 5 || 12 || 21 || 11 ||

Biased Data:
 * Smith's Injury (Bias) || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 ||
 * Q 1 || 17 || 20 || 3 || 8 || 2 ||
 * Q 2 || 2 || 9 || 2 || 18 || 19 ||
 * Q 3 || 3 || 9 || 10 || 19 || 9 ||