Self Awareness Theory –
Submit a research report on the experiment described below. The experiment examines how expectancies for improvement affect responses to poor test performance when self-awareness is high.
TASK:
Write a report on the experiment described in this task sheet. You will need to read the starter references for additional information about the relevant theory and methods. Locate other relevant articles to better understand this research area and how the current investigation fits in.
Build a compelling rationale for conducting your experiment. State the general aim of your experiment and what you expected to find.
Describe how you conducted the experiment and what you found.
Consider what the results mean and why they are important.
THE EXPERIMENT:
The theoretical framework for this assignment is self-awareness theory (Silvia & Duval, 2001). This theory is described in Chapter 2 of your textbook, and in the starter references. For this assignment, imagine that you are a researcher and that you conducted this study and obtained the provided results. Follow the specifications described below and consult the references as needed to further develop your knowledge of the relevant theories, methods, and findings. Write as if this is a real study that you conducted.
As you’ll see when you read the starter references, past research has found that self-awareness can lead to negative emotions when people are not meeting their standards (e.g., they have done poorly on a test). As a result, people might try to escape objective self-awareness, or if they think they can quickly improve, they might put in effort to improve.
In this study, you wanted to test how expectancies for improvement affect responses to poor test performance when self-awareness is high. All participants received information that they performed poorly on a test when sitting in a room with a mirror and then had a chance to watch television and/or work on practice problems in a different room. This was a one-way between-subjects experimental design with one independent variable (expectancy for improvement: rapid or gradual) and two dependent variables (time spent watching television and time spent engaging with practice problems).
Participants were 100 first year psychology students. each of whom signed up for an individual in-person session. They received 2 course credits. The sample was 70% female, 24% male, and 6% nonbinary, with an average age of 21.67 (SD = 3.21).
Participants were given an information sheet that explained that the study involved taking a pattern recognition test, receiving feedback on their performance, having a short break, and then taking a second test. Those who wished to participate signed a consent form.
All participants then took the difficult version of the Remote Associates Test from Moskalenko and Heine’s (2003) Study 3 and received information that they performed poorly relative to others. There was a mirror against one of the walls in the testing room to heighten selfawareness, as in Phillips and Silvia (2005).
After taking the test and receiving their feedback, participants were asked to leave their belongings in the testing room and move into a waiting room. The experimenter told them the next Remote Associates Test would begin in 10 minutes, and that in the meantime, they could complete some practice problems and/or watch TV.
Each participant was randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions (50 in each condition). You adapted Duval et al.’s (1992) expectancy manipulation as follows.
The experimenter handed participants the practice problems and depending upon condition said either:
Most people rapidly improve as they complete these practice problems.
Most people gradually improve as they complete these practice problems.
The television screen was mounted high on the wall in front of participants so they could watch it by looking up. The television played a nature documentary, as used in Moskalenko and Heine (2003), but with the sound muted.
There were two dependent variables in this study, observed by two coders through a hidden camera and timed with stopwatches.
One coder timed the total time each participant spent watching the television
The other coder timed the total time each participant spent looking at or working on the practice problems.
After 10 minutes, participants were told there would not be a second test and that they had completed the experiment. The experimenter gave them a written debriefing sheet that explained the study in more detail, including the aims, the deception, and the hidden camera, and gave them an opportunity to ask questions and withdraw their data.
You ran two independent groups t-tests in SPSS to test your hypotheses. See page 5 of this guide for more information about how to interpret and report these statistics.
The first t-test tested the difference between the time spent watching television in the rapid vs gradual progress condition.
The mean time was 395 seconds in the gradual condition with a standard deviation of 147 seconds.
The mean time was 233 seconds in the rapid condition with a standard deviation of 144 seconds.
The t statistic was 5.57, the p statistic was < .001, and the df was 98.
The second t-test tested the difference between the time spent reviewing practice problems in the rapid vs gradual progress condition.
The mean time is 152 seconds in the gradual condition with a standard deviation of 118 seconds.
The mean time is 316 seconds in the rapid condition with a standard deviation of 122 seconds.
The t statistic was 6.83, the p statistic was < .001, and the df was 98.
