1CONFORMITY AND PEER EFFECTS ON FACEBOOKCo

1
CONFORMITY AND PEER EFFECTS ON FACEBOOK
Consensus: Conformity and Peer Effects on Facebook
Maria C Daza
Abstract
With the use of social network services like Facebook, people
have the possibility to post status updates for their peers to
read. In turn, peers respond to this comment with their thoughts
and opinions. Making use of a survey several studies were run
looking at how participants respond to a cheating scenario by
showing two different gender (Abigail/Adam) Facebook page
that contains the user’s confession to cheating in an exam

followed by different feedback comments from their peers. We
distinguish between three diﬀ erent treatment conditions:
opposed feedback, supported feedback and mixed feedback.
Whereas the ﬁrst condition
a). your research questions,
b). your participants, study one 140, study two 200
c). your experimental methodology,
d). your findings,
and e). your conclusions.
.
Keywords: consensus, gender, conformity, Facebook
feedback, peers, unanimity
Social media refers to websites and applications that are
designed to allow people to share content quickly, efficiently,
and in real-time (Hudson, 2019). Social sharing refers to the
act of spreading content on a social media platform to one’s
peers, groups, or chosen individuals. To share photos, opinions
and events for our family and peers to read has changed the way
we live now a days. All this technology has made it easier for
anyone to create a profile and post their opinion in any social
media for our friends or anyone who feels related to comment,
like or shared their opinion. Social media usage is one of the
most popular online activities and in 2019, 79 percent of the
population in the United States had a social networking profile,
representing a two percent increase from the 77 percent usage
reach in the previous year. This equals approximately 247
million U.S. social media users as of 2019 (Clement, 2019).
Most people share their personal experiences, feelings and
thoughts, but at the same time your exposed for a controversial

respond. The good things about social media is that you also
have the ability to choose who to share your opinion. The most
famous social medias are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and
YouTube. In each of these social medias mentioned before you
can post anything that you want and get a reply back by who
you choose to share it with. Also, people can share your
comments and their social media family and peers can read it
and comment on it. Some of your posts might go viral and there
might be a negative, positive or mixed effect related to your
post.
Facebook is one of the most famous social media
worldwide. That was one of my first social media back in 2006,
I was 16 years old. I remember it was a new way to
communicate with our friends and family. It was very easy; we
will comment on each other walls and get replies back from
friends. Facebook has 2.45 billion monthly active
users (Facebook, 2019). If that number doesn’t blow you away,
it also has 1.62 billion users that are visiting the social
networking site on a daily basis (Mohsin, et al., 2020).
Facebook is also the owner of other leading social medias such
as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. Facebook also has its
negative side like creating face Facebook profiles and
cyberbullying others, sexual harassment, fraud and much more.
We need to be careful who we accept as friends and that content
that we share because 60 percent of 50 to 60-year old are active
on social media and 18-29- year-olds have an 89% usage
(Mohsin, et al., 2020).
Conformity can be as a change in behavior, internal views
or attitudes caused by social influence and group pressures
(Hogg and Vaughan, 2014). Pressures to conform arise from
social norms, which reflect the values or desired circumstances
of a wider, social group (Smith, Mackie & Claypool, 2014) .
Achieving social norms of a group, individuals can conform in
one of two, primary ways: by compliance or internalization.
Compliance is where an individual conforms to a majority
despite no internal change in belief, meaning the change is

temporary and exists for the benefit of a social group (Hogg and
Vaughan, 2014). As a result, when an individual is not being
observed or surveyed by the group in question, their behaviors
may revert to reflect themselves more accurately. However,
internalization is where an individual conforms to a social
norm, but experiences an additional, internal change in their
attitudes and actions, meaning the desired behavior exists
regardless of the presence of a majority (Hogg and Vaughan,
2014).
Study One
The study also analyzes that students who cheat on their
exams risk more than their grades. According to Rettinger and
other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as
principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see
as legitimate (Simmons, 2018). In general, we predict that
participants who read unanimously supportive feedback will
rate the Facebook user’s conduct as more acceptable than
participants who read unanimously oppositional feedback, with
those who read mixed feedback falling between these
extremes.(NEEDS MORE WORK)
Methods Study One
Participants
There were one hundred and forty students from Florida
International University, whom were randomly selected for this
study. In this study sample, 73, 52.1% were female (N = 2), and
62, 44.3% were female (N = 1), while 5 participants (mixed
gender: male and female) 3.6%. The participants’ age ranged 17
to 45 (M = 23.08, SD = 4.91). Our sample population consisted
of 25.7% Caucasian (N= 36), 40.0% Hispanic (N=56), 2.1%
Native Indian (N= 3), 17.1% African American (N= 24), 6.4%
Asian American (N=9) and 8.6% who did not specify their
identity (N=12). See Appendix A.
Materials and Procedure
Since this study was adherent to the principles of informed
consent, all the participating students were informed about the
risks associated with handling the involved materials. As such,

the research materials containing the questionnaires were
presented to them and the benefits of the study explained to
them before they could open the documents. Each of the
students verbally consented to participate and was accorded a
document that contained three sections as defined by each
condition under assessment. Besides, the document contained
Abigail’s post in Facebook, and it was incumbent upon the
partakers to decide whether they supported, opposed, or showed
mixed reaction (support, oppose, mixed).
In the support condition against the background of the
question “Abigail’s behavior was wrong,” the idea is to seek the
support that Abigail actually cheated in her statistics exam.
Following her post in Facebook, those who vote for “support”
invalidate Abigail’s behavior. In the oppose condition, those
who think that Abigail did the right thing will offer her a great
level of approval. They are opposed to the statement that
“Abigail behavior was wrong.” Last, those who lack the view on
whether Abigail was right or wrong will vote in the “mixed”
condition category.
After understanding the situation, the participants were
presented with close-ended questions. These questions pertained
to the situation that was earlier presented to the participants.
They were required to respond based on the scale provided. The
first question involved whether the Abigail’s behavior was
wrong (strongly disagree = 1 and strongly agree = 6). All the
other subsequent questions followed exactly the same scale. In
the end, it was possible to collect the required data.
Results Study One
Using consensus condition (support vs. opposed vs. mixed)
as our independent variable and whether participants recalled
the comments in the survey consensus as our dependent
variable. In the manipulation check using the Chi-square, this
helped to achieve X 2(4, N= 140) = 147.04, p < .001. (82.2%)
were the participants that supported her feedback, (81.4%) were
the participants that opposed her feedback, and (81.3%) were
the participants that had a mixed feedback. This means that

there were more participants supporting her behavior. See
appendix B.
For our main analysis, our first One-Way ANOVA
revealed a statistically significant difference between groups,
the independent variable (support, opposed, mixed) and our
dependent variable, Abigail’s behavior was wrong, (F (2,133) =
5.811, p=.004). A Tukey post-hoc test was done showing that
there was a significant difference between the groups who either
mixed (M = 3.80, SD = 0.99) or opposed (M = 3.95, SD = 0.95)
Abigail's behavior than supported (M = 3.32, SD = 0.73). See
appendix C.
Finally, we ran independent sample t-test with support
and oppose conditions only and “ I would give Abigail the
same advice” as the dependent variable, which was statistically
significant relationship between a person’s willingness to give
Abigail the same advice her friends gave her and whether they
supported or opposed her, with t (89) =-.335, p=.386. See
appendix D.
Discussion Study One
The study established that Abigail’s behavior was wrong.
In doing the Facebook post analysis, it was found that some
people were unimpressed with Abigail’s behavior. As the world
progress people are more open-minded, this makes things like
cheating, normal and people were unimpressed about her
actions. Also, we need to differentiate about good and bad
things, that’s where our parents’ values come in put them to use
in doing the correct thing even if it means getting a bad grade. I
know that doing the right thing sometimes is hard, there is too
many things at risk by fear of losing something we really want
to achieve we make bad decisions and we don’t thing on anyone
else but ourselves and things like this happened. She should
have avoided cheating and hence allow the fellow students to
perform and get graded based on the overall score in the class.
(NEED TO WORK ON THIS)
Study Two
Gender inequality

Methods Study Two
Participants
Two hundred subjects were recruited to participate in the study.
Among this group, 41.0% were male participants (N = 82),
56.5% were female participants (N = 113), and 1.5% preferred
not to indicate their gender. (N = 3) Two out of the chosen
sample subjects were excluded from the analysis because of
inconsistent response data provided. The demographics
distribution among the selected participants was identified as
14% for the Caucasian population (N = 28), 61.5% for Hispanic
population (N = 123), 19% African-American population (N=
38), 4% for non-specified demographic groups (N = 8), and less
than 1% for the Native Indians (N = 1). See Appendix E.
Results Study Two
A Chi Square test was run to examine the relationship
between the two cheating genders (Abigail/Adam). Going by the
results of the Chi Square, X 2(2, N= 200) = 105.93, p < .001.
With p at this value, there is a clear statistical significance.
Cramer’s V, which is appropriate for this 3 X 3 test, was
extraordinarily strong. These findings indicate that participants
saw our original study outcome manipulation as we intended.
See appendix F.
To test our first dependent variable, we ran a 2 X 2 ANOVA
with gender (male vs. female) and comment condition (support
vs. mixed) as our independent variable and the statement “Their
behavior was appropriate” as our dependent variable. Results
demonstrated that there was not a statistically significant
relationship between viewer gender and comment type F(1,196)
= .761, p=.384. There is not much of a difference between the
Male Facebook Cheater comment condition (M = 4.56, SD =
0.67) and Female Facebook Cheater comment condition (M =
4.58, SD = 0.59. There was more supportive comment condition
in Male Facebook Cheater (M = 5.11, SD = 0.31) than in Female

Facebook Cheater (M = 4.03, SD = 0.33). There was more
mixed comment condition in Female Facebook Cheater (M=
4.06, SD = 0.24) than in Male Facebook Cheater (M = 4.00, SD
= 0.40). As you can observe between the comment conditions
(support vs. mixed) there is a slight difference in both. Also,
there was no effect between comment condition, gender
condition and “Their behavior was appropriate” F(1,196) =
.076, p = .38. But we found a significantly effect in the
comment condition on “Their behavior was appropriate” F(1,
196) = 554.89, p = .00. See appendix G.
To test our second dependent variable, we ran a 2 X 2 ANOVA
vs. mixed) as our independent variable and another statement
“Their behavior was immoral” as our dependent variable.
Results demonstrated that there was not a statistically
significant effect on gender condition F(1,196) = .761, p=.384.
There is not much of a difference between the Male Facebook
Cheater comment condition (M = 4.15, SD = 1.27) and Female
Facebook Cheater comment condition (M = 3.87, SD = 1.27).
There was more supportive comment condition in Male
Facebook Cheater (M = 4.22, SD = 1.33) than in Female
Facebook Cheater (M =3.98, SD = 1.24). There was more mixed
comment condition in Male Facebook Cheater (M= 4.08, SD =
1.22) than in Female Facebook Cheater (M = 3.76, SD = 1.30).
As you can observe participants in the support comment
condition (M = 4.10, SD = 1.28) established that the behavior of
the Facebook user was more immoral than the participants in the
mixed comment condition (M = 3.92, SD = 1.27). There was no
effect between comment condition, gender condition and “Their
behavior was immoral” F(1,196) = 1.00 p = .33. Also, there no
statistically significant relationship shown in comment
condition and gender, as F (1,196) = 0.49, p=.825. See appendix
H.
Discussion Study Two
NEED TO WORK ON THIS

General Discussion
References
Hudson, M. (2019, May 8). Learn What Social Media Is and
How to Use It to Grow Your Business. Retrieved from
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-social-media-2890301
Clement, J. (2019, August 9). U.S. population with a social
media profile 2019. Retrieved from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/2734 76/percentage-of-us-
population-with-a-social-network-profile/
Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M.,
& Mohsin, M. (2020, April 3). Top 10 Facebook Stats You Need
to Know in 2020 [Infographic]. Retrieved from
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/facebook-statistics
Hogg, M. & Vaughan, G. M. (2014). Social Psychology.7th ed.
Harlow, England: Pearson.
Smith, E.R., Mackie, D.M. & Claypool, H.M. (2014). Social
Psychology.4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis

Appendix A – Demographics – Study One
Appendix B – Crosstabs and Chi-Square – Study One
Appendix C – ANOVA “Abigail’s behavior was wrong” – Study
One
Appendix D – t-Test “I would give Abigail the same advice” –

Study One
Appendix E – Demographics – Study Two
Appendix F – Crosstabs and Chi Square – Study Two
Appendix G – ANOVA “Their behavior was appropriate” –
Study Two
Appendix H – ANOVA “Their behavior was immoral” – Study

Two
1
CONFORMITY AND PEER EFFECTS ON FACEBOOK
Maria C Daza
Abstract
With the use of social network services like Facebook, people
have the possibility to post status updates for their peers to
read. In turn, peers respond to this comment with their thoughts

and opinions. Making use of a survey several studies were run
looking at how participants respond to a cheating scenario by
showing two different gender (Abigail/Adam) Facebook page
that contains the user’s confession to cheating in an exam
followed by different feedback comments from their peers. We
distinguish between three diﬀ erent treatment conditions:
opposed feedback, supported feedback and mixed feedback.
Whereas the ﬁrst condition
a). your research questions,
b). your participants, study one 140, study two 200
c). your experimental methodology,
d). your findings,
and e). your conclusions.
.
Keywords: consensus, gender, conformity, Facebook
feedback, peers, unanimity
Social media refers to websites and applications that are
designed to allow people to share content quickly, efficiently,
and in real-time (Hudson, 2019). Social sharing refers to the
act of spreading content on a social media platform to one’s
peers, groups, or chosen individuals. To share photos, opinions
and events for our family and peers to read has changed the way
we live now a days. All this technology has made it easier for
anyone to create a profile and post their opinion in any social
media for our friends or anyone who feels related to comment,
like or shared their opinion. Social media usage is one of the
most popular online activities and in 2019, 79 percent of the
population in the United States had a social networking profile,
representing a two percent increase from the 77 percent usage

reach in the previous year. This equals approximately 247
million U.S. social media users as of 2019 (Clement, 2019).
Most people share their personal experiences, feelings and
thoughts, but at the same time your exposed for a controversial
respond. The good things about social media is that you also
have the ability to choose who to share your opinion. The most
famous social medias are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and
YouTube. In each of these social medias mentioned before you
can post anything that you want and get a reply back by who
you choose to share it with. Also, people can share your
comments and their social media family and peers can read it
and comment on it. Some of your posts might go viral and there
might be a negative, positive or mixed effect related to your
post.
Facebook is one of the most famous social media
worldwide. That was one of my first social media back in 2006,
I was 16 years old. I remember it was a new way to
communicate with our friends and family. It was very easy; we
will comment on each other walls and get replies back from
friends. Facebook has 2.45 billion monthly active
users (Facebook, 2019). If that number doesn’t blow you away,
it also has 1.62 billion users that are visiting the social
networking site on a daily basis (Mohsin, et al., 2020).
Facebook is also the owner of other leading social medias such
as WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger. Facebook also has its
negative side like creating face Facebook profiles and
cyberbullying others, sexual harassment, fraud and much more.
We need to be careful who we accept as friends and that content
that we share because 60 percent of 50 to 60-year old are active
on social media and 18-29- year-olds have an 89% usage
(Mohsin, et al., 2020).
Conformity can be as a change in behavior, internal views
or attitudes caused by social influence and group pressures
(Hogg and Vaughan, 2014). Pressures to conform arise from
social norms, which reflect the values or desired circumstances
of a wider, social group (Smith, Mackie & Claypool, 2014).

Achieving social norms of a group, individuals can conform in
one of two, primary ways: by compliance or internalization.
Compliance is where an individual conforms to a majority
despite no internal change in belief, meaning the change is
temporary and exists for the benefit of a social group (Hogg and
Vaughan, 2014). As a result, when an individual is not being
observed or surveyed by the group in question, their behaviors
may revert to reflect themselves more accurately. However,
internalization is where an individual conforms to a social
norm, but experiences an additional, internal change in their
attitudes and actions, meaning the desired behavior exists
regardless of the presence of a majority (Hogg and Vaughan,
2014).
Study One
The study also analyzes that students who cheat on their
exams risk more than their grades. According to Rettinger and
other researchers, students who cheat can still see themselves as
principled people by rationalizing cheating for reasons they see
as legitimate (Simmons, 2018). In general, we predict that
participants who read unanimously supportive feedback will
rate the Facebook user’s conduct as more acceptable than
participants who read unanimously oppositional feedback, with
those who read mixed feedback falling between these
extremes.(NEEDS MORE WORK)
Methods Study One
Participants
There were one hundred and forty students from Florida
International University, whom were randomly selected for this
study. In this study sample, 73, 52.1% were female (N = 2), and
62, 44.3% were female (N = 1), while 5 participants (mixed
gender: male and female) 3.6%. The participants’ age ranged 17
to 45 (M = 23.08, SD = 4.91). Our sample population consisted
of 25.7% Caucasian (N= 36), 40.0% Hispanic (N=56), 2.1%
Native Indian (N= 3), 17.1% African American (N= 24), 6.4%
Asian American (N=9) and 8.6% who did not specify their
identity (N=12). See Appendix A.

Since this study was adherent to the principles of informed
consent, all the participating students were informed about the
risks associated with handling the involved materials. As such,
the research materials containing the questionnaires were
presented to them and the benefits of the study explained to
them before they could open the documents. Each of the
students verbally consented to participate and was accorded a
document that contained three sections as defined by each
condition under assessment. Besides, the document contained
Abigail’s post in Facebook, and it was incumbent upon the
partakers to decide whether they supported, opposed, or showed
mixed reaction (support, oppose, mixed).
In the support condition against the background of the
question “Abigail’s behavior was wrong,” the idea is to seek the
support that Abigail actually cheated in her statistics exam.
Following her post in Facebook, those who vote for “support”
invalidate Abigail’s behavior. In the oppose condition, those
who think that Abigail did the right thing will offer her a great
level of approval. They are opposed to the statement that
“Abigail behavior was wrong.” Last, those who lack the view on
whether Abigail was right or wrong will vote in the “mixed”
condition category.
After understanding the situation, the participants were
presented with close-ended questions. These questions pertained
to the situation that was earlier presented to the participants.
They were required to respond based on the scale provided. The
first question involved whether the Abigail’s behavior was
wrong (strongly disagree = 1 and strongly agree = 6). All the
other subsequent questions followed exactly the same scale. In
the end, it was possible to collect the required data.
Results Study One
Using consensus condition (support vs. opposed vs. mixed)
as our independent variable and whether participants recalled
the comments in the survey consensus as our dependent
variable. In the manipulation check using the Chi-square, this

helped to achieve X 2(4, N= 140) = 147.04, p < .001. (82.2%)
were the participants that supported her feedback, (81.4%) were
the participants that opposed her feedback, and (81.3%) were
the participants that had a mixed feedback. This means that
there were more participants supporting her behavior. See
appendix B.
For our main analysis, our first One-Way ANOVA
revealed a statistically significant difference between groups,
the independent variable (support, opposed, mixed) and our
dependent variable, Abigail’s behavior was wrong, (F (2,133) =
5.811, p=.004). A Tukey post-hoc test was done showing that
there was a significant difference between the groups who either
mixed (M = 3.80, SD = 0.99) or opposed (M = 3.95, SD = 0.95)
Abigail's behavior than supported (M = 3.32, SD = 0.73). See
appendix C.
Finally, we ran independent sample t-test with support
and oppose conditions only and “ I would give Abigail the
same advice” as the dependent variable, which was statistically
significant relationship between a person’s willingness to give
Abigail the same advice her friends gave her and whether they
supported or opposed her, with t (89) =-.335, p=.386. See
appendix D.
Discussion Study One
The study established that Abigail’s behavior was wrong.
In doing the Facebook post analysis, it was found that some
people were unimpressed with Abigail’s behavior. As the world
progress people are more open-minded, this makes things like
cheating, normal and people were unimpressed about her
actions. Also, we need to differentiate about good and bad
things, that’s where our parents’ values come in put them to use
in doing the correct thing even if it means getting a bad grade. I
know that doing the right thing sometimes is hard, there is too
many things at risk by fear of losing something we really want
to achieve we make bad decisions and we don’t thing on anyone
else but ourselves and things like this happened. She should
have avoided cheating and hence allow the fellow students to

perform and get graded based on the overall score in the class.
(NEED TO WORK ON THIS)
Study Two
Gender inequality
Methods Study Two
Participants
Two hundred subjects were recruited to participate in the study.
Among this group, 41.0% were male participants (N = 82),
56.5% were female participants (N = 113), and 1.5% preferred
not to indicate their gender. (N = 3) Two out of the chosen
sample subjects were excluded from the analysis because of
inconsistent response data provided. The demographics
distribution among the selected participants was identifi ed as
14% for the Caucasian population (N = 28), 61.5% for Hispanic
population (N = 123), 19% African-American population (N=
38), 4% for non-specified demographic groups (N = 8), and less
than 1% for the Native Indians (N = 1). See Appendix E.
Results Study Two
A Chi Square test was run to examine the relationship
between the two cheating genders (Abigail/Adam). Going by the
results of the Chi Square, X 2(2, N= 200) = 105.93, p < .001.
With p at this value, there is a clear statistical significance.
Cramer’s V, which is appropriate for this 3 X 3 test, was
extraordinarily strong. These findings indicate that participants
saw our original study outcome manipulation as we intended.
See appendix F.
To test our first dependent variable, we ran a 2 X 2 ANOVA
vs. mixed) as our independent variable and the statement “Their
behavior was appropriate” as our dependent variable. Results
demonstrated that there was not a statistically significant
relationship between viewer gender and comment type F(1,196)
= .761, p=.384. There is not much of a difference between the

Male Facebook Cheater comment condition (M = 4.56, SD =
0.67) and Female Facebook Cheater comment condition (M =
4.58, SD = 0.59. There was more supportive comment condition
in Male Facebook Cheater (M = 5.11, SD = 0.31) than in Female
Facebook Cheater (M = 4.03, SD = 0.33). There was more
mixed comment condition in Female Facebook Cheater (M=
4.06, SD = 0.24) than in Male Facebook Cheater (M = 4.00, SD
= 0.40). As you can observe between the comment conditions
(support vs. mixed) there is a slight difference in both. Also,
there was no effect between comment condition, gender
condition and “Their behavior was appropriate” F(1,196) =
.076, p = .38. But we found a significantly effect in the
comment condition on “Their behavior was appropriate” F(1,
196) = 554.89, p = .00. See appendix G.
To test our second dependent variable, we ran a 2 X 2 ANOVA
vs. mixed) as our independent variable and another statement
“Their behavior was immoral” as our dependent variable.
Results demonstrated that there was not a statistically
significant effect on gender condition F(1,196) = .761, p=.384.
There is not much of a difference between the Male Facebook
Cheater comment condition (M = 4.15, SD = 1.27) and Female
Facebook Cheater comment condition (M = 3.87, SD = 1.27).
There was more supportive comment condition in Male
Facebook Cheater (M = 4.22, SD = 1.33) than in Female
Facebook Cheater (M =3.98, SD = 1.24). There was more mixed
comment condition in Male Facebook Cheater (M= 4.08, SD =
1.22) than in Female Facebook Cheater (M = 3.76, SD = 1.30).
As you can observe participants in the support comment
condition (M = 4.10, SD = 1.28) established that the behavior of
the Facebook user was more immoral than the participants in the
mixed comment condition (M = 3.92, SD = 1.27). There was no
effect between comment condition, gender condition and “Their
behavior was immoral” F(1,196) = 1.00 p = .33. Also, there no
statistically significant relationship shown in comment
condition and gender, as F (1,196) = 0.49, p=.825. See appendix

H.
Discussion Study Two
General Discussion
References
Hudson, M. (2019, May 8). Learn What Social Media Is and
How to Use It to Grow Your Business. Retrieved from
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-is-social-media-2890301
Clement, J. (2019, August 9). U.S. population with a social
media profile 2019. Retrieved from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-
population-with-a-social-network-profile/
Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M., Mohsin, M.,
& Mohsin, M. (2020, April 3). Top 10 Facebook Stats You Need
to Know in 2020 [Infographic]. Retrieved from
https://www.oberlo.com/blog/facebook-statistics
Hogg, M. & Vaughan, G. M. (2014). Social Psychology.7th ed.
Harlow, England: Pearson.
Smith, E.R., Mackie, D.M. & Claypool, H.M. (2014). Social
Psychology.4th ed. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and Francis

Appendix A – Demographics – Study One
Appendix B – Crosstabs and Chi-Square – Study One
Appendix C – ANOVA “Abigail’s behavior was wrong” – Study
One

Appendix D – t-Test “I would give Abigail the same advice” –
Study One
Appendix E – Demographics – Study Two
Appendix F – Crosstabs and Chi Square – Study Two
Appendix G – ANOVA “Their behavior was appropriate” –
Study Two

Appendix H – ANOVA “Their behavior was immoral” – Study
Two
Consensus & Gender, Spring 2020
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to identify general impressions of
social media users.
NUMBER OF STUDY PARTICIPANTS
If you decide to be in this study, you will be one of 140 people
in this research study.
DURATION OF THE STUDY
Your participation will involve a maximum of 10 minutes to
complete the questionnaire.
PROCEDURES
If you agree to be in the study, we will ask you to do the
following:
1. Look over the Facebook profile presented. 2. Answer a few
questions regarding how you feel about the profile owner as
well as yourself.
RISKS AND/OR DISCOMFORTS

The study has the following possible risks to you: Minor
discomfort with personal questions regarding how you would
respond to specific scenarios in social media.
BENEFITS
The study has the following possible benefits to you: Your
participation in the study will provide useful data for the
development of the study. Accordingly, the findings of our
study will contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the
field of Psychology.
Do you consent to participate in this research project?
Yes (1)
No (2)
Scale Without looking back, please rate your impressions of the
Facebook owner's test-taking behavior below.
Strongly disagree (1)
Disagree (2)
Somewhat disagree (3)
Somewhat agree (4)
Agree (5)
Strongly Agree (6)
Their behavior was wrong

Their behavior was understandable
Their behavior was reasonable
Their behavior was unethical
Their behavior was immoral
Their behavior was appropriate
Their behavior was unacceptable

Q50 Without looking back, please rate how YOU would advise
the Facebook owner; rate how YOU would respond if you
mistakenly received the answer key from the professor; and then
generally rate the Facebook owner.
Strongly disagree (1)
Disagree (2)
Somewhat disagree (3)
Somewhat agree (4)
Agree (5)
Strongly Agree (6)
I would advise them to keep silent
I would try to comfort them
I would give them the same advice that their friends gave them

If I received the answers, I would keep silent
If I received the answers, I would confess
The Facebook owner seems warm
The Facebook owner seems good-natured
The Facebook owner seems confident

The Facebook owner seems competitive
The Facebook owner seems sincere
The Facebook owner seems moral
The Facebook owner seems compete nt
Please provide the following demographic information. Note:
you can leave blank any questions you feel uncomfortable

answering.
Gender What is your gender?
Male (1)
Female (2)
Other (3)
Age What is your age?
_____________________________________________________
___________
Race What is your race/ethnicity?
Caucasian (1)
Hispanic (2)
Native Indian (3)
African American (4)
Asian American (5)
Others--Please specify (6)
________________________________________________
Language Is English your first language?
Yes (1)
No (2)
If no, specify your first language (3)
________________________________________________

FIU Are you a student at Florida International University?
Yes (1)
No (2)
What is your relationship status?
Single / No Relationship (1)
In a relationship (2)
Without looking back, what general feedback did the Facebook
owner's friends give them?
The feedback supported their behavior (1)
Feedback was mixed (2)
Unknown (3)
What is the gender of the Facebook page's owner?
Female (1)
Male (2)
Unknown (3)
Thank you for participating. The purpose of this study is to
determine if Facebook feedback that seems to support or oppose
cheating impacts how participants perceived that cheating. That
is, will Facebook feedback that appears to support (versus
oppose) a friend who cheated on an exam influence how
participants perceive that cheating? To study this possibility,
participants all read the same cheating scenario in which a
person (Abigail or Adam) cheated on an exam by using an
answer key the professor mistakenly gave them. When seeking
advice from their friends, the friends either gave them
unanimouslysupportive feedback (“Wow, Abigail/Adam, sounds
like you really lucked out there. Take the grade. You “earned”
it!” and “Listen, it’s not like you intended to cheat going into

the exam. The prof should have checked to make sure he was
handing out only blank exams. His mistake – your big break!
Take the grade.”), or mixed feedback, including negative
feedback. The word “unanimous” is important here. When the
feedback is unanimous (either in support of the user or
opposing), it is harder to voice a contrary opinion. When
feedback is mixed, it is easier to voice a true opinion.
In general, we predict that participants who read unanimously
supportive feedback will rate the Facebook user’s conduct as
more acceptable than participants who read mixed
feedback.More specifically, participants in the unanimously
supportive condition will more strongly agree with supportive
survey statements (“Abigail’s/Adam's behavior was
understandable, “Abigail’s/Adam's behavior was reasonable”,
“Abigail’s/Adam's behavior was appropriate”, “I would advise
Abigail/Adam to keep silent”, and “I would try to comfort
Abigail/Adam”) in comparison to the mixed condition.
We will also investigate if these effects vary by gender.
We will test these hypotheses in our methods course this
semester. Thank you for participating!
Page of
Page 1 of 10
a. Materials and Procedure
i. For this section, things are again very flexible. Some studies
include the Materials and Procedure in the same section while
others break them up into two sections
1. It is a matter of choice which you choose. For me, the more
complex the design, the better it is to split them up. In one
section I will describe what the materials are; in the next I
describe what participants did with those materials (the

procedure)
2. Your Paper IV: Study Two Methods, Results, and Discussion
is simple enough that I recommend combining them into one
overall Materials and Procedure section. Here, you can refer
back to your methods section from Paper II. (“We used the same
Facebook Consensus manipulation as in study one, but here we
included only the Support and Mixed conditions”).
ii. Again, the words Materials andProcedure is flush left. In this
section …
1. Provide information about your materials and your procedure.
a. I suggest starting with your procedure. Tell your reader what
your participants did in the order participants did them. Be
specific. Assuming your study is similar to study one, I have the
following recommendations (though your study may differ, so
take these only as recommendations!):
i. First, talk about informed consent.
ii. Second, talk about the different versions of the hindsight bias
studies. Provide enough detail so that your readers know how
the conditions differ. Imagine I need to replicate your design –
give me enough detail so I can do so. Also fully describe your
new independent variable for study two. For example, my
additional IV may be whether participants are forewarned or not
about the effects of consensus. I need to fully describe that new
IV in the methods for this second study
1. For example, study two MIGHT look support versus mixed
conditions as two levels of one IV. However, we might also
look at forewarning versus no forewarning as a second IV. This
involves four cells: 1) Forewarning with support feedback, 2)
Forewarning with mixed feedback, 3) No forewarning with
support feedback, and 4) No forewarning with mixed feedback.
2. Make sure you have a clear idea about what your four
different conditions look like.
iii. Third, talk about your dependent variables (that is, your
survey questions. For these DVs, once again provide enough
detail so I know exactly what questions you asked. For example,
“Participants provided their gender, age, and race”. For other

dependent variables, tell me how the responses were recorded
(yes/no, true/false, a scale of 1 to 9, etc.). If you used a s cale,
note the endpoints. That is, does a 1 mean it is high or is it low?
“Participants were asked, ‘How surprising was the outcome?’,
and they responded on a scale from 1 (unsurprising) to 10
(surprising).’” Highlight any new DVs you created for this
study. For example, I may ask a manipulation check question
asking if they were forewarned (“Did you read a warning that
consensus impacts how people make judgments? Yes / No –
Pick one.”)
iv. Fourth, make sure to highlight which DVs you analyzed. If
there are DVs participants completed but you did not analyze
them, feel free to say those DVs were not analyzed.
v. Finally, mention debriefing
b. There is no set minimum or maximum on the length of the
methods section, but I would expect at least a page or two as
you detail your materials and procedure. Missing important
aspects of your IVs and DVs or presenting them in a confused
manner will lower your score in this section
c. Once again, make the new information VERY specific so that
someone unfamiliar with your study could recreate your survey.
If they can’t, you won’t do well!

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