Candy Agression Analysis Paper

712 Words2 Pages

The purpose of this study was to compare your decision to take the candy with the integrity level

you gave yourself on the survey. After taking the survey, you were separated into groups based on

whether you scored yourself as either low or high on integrity. You were then randomly assigned to take

either an easy or hard test. All but one participant were randomly assigned to receive fake low test scores.

The low scores ranged from 1/6 to 4/6. The participant with the lowest ID number was the only one who

received a fake high score of 5/6. After you had the chance to see your scores, we invited participants

with a score of 5/6 or higher to take a piece of candy. We intended for the participant with the high score

to take a piece of candy …show more content…

Not

taking the candy was considered to be high integrity behavior. With the data we collect, we hope to get a

better understanding on whether people act in a way that is consistent with how they believe themselves

to be.

This study was deceptive in two ways. The first way was how we had falsely told you that we

were going to be measuring how your personality traits could influence your test taking strategies. We did

not tell you the true purpose of the study because we wanted to minimize what is called the social

desirability response bias, in which states that people tend to behave in a way that they think others will

approve of (Smith, Mackie, & Claypool, 2014). If you had known the true purpose of our study, you

would have foreknown that we would be observing your behavior. This could have caused you to

purposefully behave in a way you thought would be acceptable to us, which would not accurately reflect

your true level of your integrity. Another way we used deception was in how we gave you a fake score on

your math test. The math test was only used to see if the difficulty of a task would influence your …show more content…

If you would like to know

what your perceived integrity level was, please let one of us know in person while you still have your

assigned ID number with you. You may also experience a mild decrease in self-esteem if you felt the

math test was difficult to complete during allotted time frame. Please remember that your performance on

the math test is not a measure of your competence level. We want to ensure you that the results of this

study will not be tied to your name or person in any way and are only tied to the ID number you have

represented. We also want to reassure you that your behavior within the study does not define your

character or your worth as a person and could just be due to the situation rather than any personality

characteristics. However, if you have concerns about your rights as a participant in this experiment, please

contact The Human Participants Review Board (HPRB) at Pacific Lutheran University at hprb@plu.edu.

You are also invited to the Psychology Student Research Conference on May 18th at 4:00pm - 6:30pm

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