Aphorism

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Summary:
McGlone and Tofighbakhsh (2000) designed a study to test two distinct hypotheses. The first being that individuals would misreport rhyming aphorisms as more correct when compared to the aphorism’s equivalent non-rhyming version. The second hypothesis being that when given the original source of the aphorism the misreporting would be less. The sample consisted of 120 Lafayette undergraduate students. Twenty of the student participated in the pilot experiment which was used to check the aphorism sets; the remaining 100 participated in the actual experiment to test the hypotheses.
The aphorisms used in the study were chosen from a published collection and based on three main criteria: 1 it was statement, not a judgement, about human …show more content…

The aphorism list type, either extant rhyming or non-rhyming, and the aphorism version, either original or modified, were considered the within-subjects factors. The instruction condition, either control or warning, was considered the between-subject factors. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the aphorism lists and an instruction condition. Once assigned, participants were instructed to read each aphorism and rate the degree to which they believed it was an accurate description of human behavior. The questionnaire used a Likert type scale ranged from 1, being not accurate all, to 9, being very accurate. Those in the warning-instruction condition, were cautioned to make their judgements based on the claims of the statement and not its poetic qualities. Those in the control-instruction condition, were not given this information. After completing the questionnaire, participants were debriefed about the true purpose of the …show more content…

In regards to validity, the methods used do not seem to test the second hypothesis correctly. Validity is determined by whether or not the study measures what it is supposed to measure. The second hypothesis the study was to determine whether given the origin of the aphorism would affect the participant’s perception of the aphorisms accuracy. However, the researchers do not mention giving the origin of the modified aphorisms. Instead they mention informing the participants to not base the aphorisms’ accuracy on its poetic qualities. On the list of aphorisms the original and modified versions appear side by side which could be what the researchers meant by being informed of the aphorism’s origins. However, if this is the case, it is not clearly tested for seeing that there was no control for this. Both the control and warning group received the same list of

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