This document provides instructions for conducting a research study looking at how advertisements on social media might influence how people perceive others. Participants will view a fake Facebook profile containing either sexuality-oriented, romance-oriented, or education-oriented ads. They will then rate their impressions of the profile user and complete other measures. Researchers will collect data from 3 participants and analyze whether the type of ads influenced ratings of the profile user in hypothesized ways, such as seeing them as more sexualized after sexuality ads.
Stimulus Materials and Researcher Instructions – Fall, 2018 – Sexu.docx
1. Stimulus Materials and Researcher Instructions – Fall, 2018 –
Sexuality Priming Study
Instructions:This Fall, we are going to run a series of studies
looking at how advertisements might “prime” participants in
social media. We’ll do this by showing them a fake (and
neutral) Facebook page that contains different versions of
advertisements unrelated to the Facebook user: romantic ads,
sexuality ads, or education ads. We will see if participants who
see the sexuality-oriented ads rate the Facebook user in a more
sexualized manner than participants who see either romance or
educational advertisements.
1). For your first experimental study, you will play the role of
researcher, and you will collect data from three different
participants (though you will combine your data with other class
members, so your final data set will have nearly 140 people!).
There are two phases to this study. In the first phase, you will
orally ask participants if they are willing to participate in a
research study. In the second phase, participants will complete a
six-part survey. In Part One, participants will read the “About”
Facebook page for Riley Washington’s, getting some general
information about this person In Part Two, they will rate their
impressions of Riley. Note that the name Riley is gender-
neutral. This way all participants can complete ratings about
Riley regardless of their own gender or sexual orientation. In
Part Three, participants will rate some of their own
characteristics. In Part Four, they will complete demographic
questions. Finally, in Part Five, they will tell us the general
theme of the ads they saw at the bottom of Riley’s Facebook
page. To run this study, use the following steps:
A). Your first task is to approach three different participants
(not all at the same time!). They must be people that you do not
know, and cannot be taking a psychology research methods
class during the Fall or Summer semester, 2018. Please DO
NOT complete this study yourself, and use only FIU students as
2. participants (no family / friends – You will use them in a later
replication study toward the end of the summer semester). There
are 48 students in our class, so with each getting data from 3
people, our final sample will be around 140 participants total.
B). Phase I: Informed Consent
1). Informed Consent:
· Ask the potential participant if he or she is willing to
participate in a study for your research methods class. You will
get their informed consent verbally. Tell them:
“Hello, I am conducting a study for my research methods class.
I was wondering if you would be willing to participate. The
study takes about five to ten minutes. There are no risks to
participating, and the main benefit is that I can complete my
class assignment. Will you participate?”
· An oral Yes or No response is fine. If they say no, thank them
and find a different participant. If they say yes, move to the
next step (Phase II – Questionnaire).
C). Phase II: “Questionnaire”
1). General Instructions
· After getting participant’s oral informed consent, randomly
give them ONE of the three “Research Study – Florida
International University – Fall, 2018” documents. These
documents contain our primary independent variable for the
study. One third of our research participants will be in the
“Sexuality” condition, one third will be in the “Romantic”
condition, and one third will be in the “Education” condition.
· Ask participants to follow the instructions at the top of the
questionnaire. Tell them to read EVERYTHING on the
Facebook page, as they will answer questions about it later and
will need to do so through memory. They can move through the
five “Parts” in this survey at their own pace. Make sure they
complete all questionnaire parts (though they can leave some
demographic questions blank if they do not want to provide the
details).
2). Questionnaire
3. · In Part I, we ask participants to look at the Facebook “About”
page for a person named Riley Washington. The page contains a
picture a generic Facebook profile picture (a sunset on the
ocean), the “About” section (which contains information About
Riley, which is similarly generic and neutral in nature). Note
that EVERYTHING in Riley’s About profile is identical across
all three conditions (but don’t tell participants that!). The only
thing that differs is the advertisements at the bottom of Riley’s
“About” page!
· In the Sexuality Priming Condition, there are Three
advertisements at the bottom of the page, all “sexually
suggestive” in nature. One advertises Axe body spray and shows
a shirtless man (while suggesting a shirtless woman). The
phrase “Click here for your Axe Moment” accompanies the ad
to make it clear the image is an electronic advertisement. A
second image advertising alcohol shows a woman in a sexually
suggestive dress sharing a drink with a faceless man. The final
advertisement, which focuses on perfume, shows a shirtless man
wrapping his arms around a shirtless woman. All three ads
suggest sexuality. The familiar “Ad choices” icon found on
many internet websites is also present to give more authenticity
to the ads (and denote that they are not a part of Riley’s
profile).
· In the Romance Priming Condition, there are also three
advertisements (they are the same size as the ads in the
Sexuality Priming Condition and placed in the same location of
Riley’s profile page). One advertises the Sandals resort,
showing a romantic dinner between a man and woman. The
phrase “Click here for your Sandals Moment” accompanies the
ad to make it clear the image is an electronic advertisement. A
second image advertising perfume shows a couple riding horses.
The final advertisement, which focuses on dating through the
online dating website E-Harmony, shows a smiling couple. Once
again, the “Ad choices” icon is present
4. · In the Education Priming Condition, there are also three
advertisements (again, the size of the ads are similar to the size
of the ads in the other two conditions. It is very important to
have stimulus materials that are as similar as possible to each
other so that the only thing that differs is the content of the ad,
not the overall size of the ads!). All ads are education related
(One looks at success at the University of Florida, which is
accompanied by the phrase “Click here for your UF Moment”; A
second looks at success at Platt College, and the third features
ABC Academy.
· A quick note for you (the researcher): If you look at the
second page of the survey in the footer, you will see one of the
following: “S”, “R”, or “E”, which relate to the three study
conditions – That is, S is for “Sexuality”, R is for “Romance”,
and E is for “Education”. It’s a nice shorthand so you can tell
which survey the participant completed if something happens to
the first page!
· In Part II, participants will give their general impressions of
Riley Washington (the Facebook user). There are ten questions
about Riley that participants will complete, all of which use an
interval scale of 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 6 (Strongly Agree).
These questions ask about how educated participants thought
Riley was, if the participant thinks Riley seems flirtatious,
sensitive, seductive, etc. Although you can look at any (or all)
of these questions (ALL are dependent variables), when you
write Paper II (which focuses on the methods and results for
this study), you will only look at a few of them in detail. Here, I
am most interested in the questions about whether participants
think Riley is flirtatious (item #2) and whether Riley seems
sexy (item #10). For both, I think participants will rate Riley as
more flirtatious and more sexy in the sexuality advertisement
condition than in the other two conditions. Of course, we might
also expect participants in the sexuality condition to see Riley
5. as less sensitive (item #3) and less tender (item #6) than
participants in the other conditions as well. If you are working
on Paper II, just remember that EACH of these ten questions
(ten dependent variables) will have its own hypothesis. The
general prediction here is that exposure to the sexuality-based
advertisements will prime participants to see Riley as more
sexual than participants primes with romance or educational
advertisements.
· In Part III, participants will rate several statements related to
themselves. These include statements like, “I am assertive”, “I
am sensitive”, “I am confident”, etc. To be honest, we probably
won’t look at these questions in our analyses, but they do
present a chance to explore some interesting secondary
hypotheses. For example, research shows that gender-based
advertisements cause people to self-reflect and more readily
endorse gender-based attributes in themselves. For example,
after having seen either sexuality or romance ads, men may
better identify with typically masculine traits, rating themselves
higher in terms of assertiveness, confidence, decisiveness, and
fearless (social psychology calls these male stereotype traits
“agency”). Women may better identify with the terms sensitive,
emotional, romantic, understand, and warm-hearted (with social
psychology calling these female stereotype words
“communion”). We probably will not analyze these ten
dependent variables in Part III, but I encourage you to do so
when we discuss factorial ANOVAs later this semester
· In Part IV, participants will complete demographic questions.
Most of these items are easy to complete without violating
participant’s privacy, but they will know they can leave blank
any question(s) they feel uncomfortable answering.
· In Part V, participants will tell us whether they think Riley
Washington is male, female, or unknown. Since there are no
gendered traits attributed to Riley in the Facebook profile, most
6. participants should list unknown. However, it is possible that
male participants may see Riley as male and females may see
Riley as female.
· Finally, in Part VI, we ask participants to recall the general
theme of the advertisements on the Facebook page, and we give
them one of three options to choose from (making this a
nominal scale variable): the theme involved romance, the theme
focused on sexuality, or the theme involved education. They are
asked to choose one. This is a manipulation check for the study,
so we can make sure they paid attention to the advertisements
D). Once participants have completed the questionnaire, debrief
them regarding the study. That is, tell them about Aggression
Priming and your main hypothesis. Read them the following:
“Thank you for participating. The purpose of the study is to
determine the extent to which individuals are impacted by
advertisements they may find in social media. To test the impact
of advertisements, all participants read the same Facebook page,
which discussed the “About Me” information of Riley
Washington. This fake profile involved very basic information
about Riley, including Riley’s desire to make friends, to be
funny, to socialize, etc. It is important to note that ALL
participants saw the exact SAME profile for Riley. The profile
page differed, however, in the advertisements participants saw
at the bottom of the profile page. A third our participants saw
sexual-oriented advertisements at the bottom of the Facebook
page, including images of topless men and women that had a
sexual element to them (but nothing too explicit). One third of
our participants saw advertisements based more on romantic
images. That is, although the images did not involve topless
photos, they did show romantic interactions between men and
women. Our final set of participants saw advertisements related
to education. These relationship-neutral advertisements focused
on educational resources for college and K-12 schools. In a later
7. questionnaire, all participants rated their impressions of Riley
Washington, the Facebook user, as well as themselves.
We have two primary predictions. First, we predict that
participants who see sexualized advertisements accompanying a
fake Facebook profile will view the Facebook user in a more
sexualized manner (more flirtatious, seductive, sexy and
provocative) than participants who see romance or educational
advertisements. Second, we predict that participants who see
romance advertisements accompanying the fake Facebook
profile will view the Facebook user in a more romantic manner
(more sensitive, kind, tender, and sentimental) than participants
who see sexualized or educational advertisements.
We will test these hypotheses in our methods course this
semester. Thank you for participating!
Methods Students: Note that the underlined paragraph above
will be helpful when you write Paper I! In fact, you can use that
underlined paragraph in your first paper if you like (just copy
and paste it into your hypotheses). However, the predictions
ARE NOT INCLUDED in your minimum page count. That is,
you can copy/paste the predictions, but they do not count in the
page minimum!
2). Hold onto the completed questionnaires, as you will use
them in an upcoming lab. You will enter data into SPSS and
analyze it during your lab. Important note: Each student
researcher is responsible for collecting data from three
participants (one participant for each study condition – S, R and
E). However, we will combine survey data from ALL students
in your lab section, so your final sample will include at least
140 or so participants. In your papers (especially Paper II), you
will use this total set of research participants (at least 140),
NOT just the three that you collected yourself. Don’t even
discuss “Three participants”, as that is not correct. Discuss ALL
8. participants in your papers
3). One last note: Pay close attention to these instructions! You
can use them as the basis for Paper II later this semester when
you discuss your methods section. That being said, these
instructions are too long for a methods section, and includes
information you will need to omit for Paper II. When writing
that paper, make sure to only report the important aspects (what
you actually did in the study). Write about what you actually
did in the study!
Original dataSales (Y)Calls (X1)Time (X2)Years
(X3)Type4014417.40.00NONE4614516.80.00ONLINE3715219.
80.00NONE4716415.30.00ONLINE4213516.10.00NONE441698
.90.00ONLINE5217318.60.00ONLINE5318415.20.00ONLINE4
915222.30.00ONLINE4916616.20.00ONLINE4518513.31.00ON
LINE4715714.31.00GROUP4214816.91.00NONE4313118.51.00
NONE4415018.41.00NONE4314815.91.00ONLINE55189121.00
ONLINE4918820.41.00NONE5119011.31.00ONLINE3713718.1
1.00ONLINE5116716.21.00ONLINE3713015.61.00GROUP3714
218.51.00NONE4615314.11.00ONLINE3914918.81.00GROUP4
6151161.00GROUP4515813.91.00ONLINE4617212.51.00ONLI
NE4718816.31.00NONE3714816.21.00GROUP4616212.11.00G
ROUP5217714.51.00ONLINE4817513.71.00ONLINE4015010.8
1.00GROUP5318210.51.00ONLINE5419711.81.00ONLINE4614
813.11.00GROUP4115314.71.00GROUP4416913.61.00ONLINE
4717614.12.00ONLINE4718312.82.00ONLINE4813614.12.00O
NLINE5219713.92.00ONLINE37120122.00NONE4918416.72.0
0ONLINE4317319.82.00ONLINE4215315.52.00GROUP371331
9.82.00NONE4215414.82.00ONLINE5317813.22.00ONLINE45
13818.92.00NONE42167182.00NONE48171132.00GROUP4616
216.22.00ONLINE4914921.12.00GROUP4817418.62.00GROUP
4517317.62.00ONLINE4515518.92.00GROUP4415918.12.00ON
LINE5417410.82.00NONE4413915.22.00NONE4115819.32.00O
NLINE4314518.62.00NONE4719313.52.00ONLINE3814517.12.
00NONE5018415.62.00ONLINE4112815.52.00NONE4517714.2
2.00GROUP4917016.13.00NONE3812219.33.00GROUP461711
21. Likelihood Ratio
217.791
4
.000
Linear-by-Linear Association
116.490
1
.000
N of Valid Cases
135
a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum
expected count is 13.06.
Symmetric Measures
Value
Approximate Significance
Nominal by Nominal
Phi
1.234
.000
Cramer's V
.873
.000
N of Valid Cases
135
Appendix C
ANOVA
Part II: Riley seems flirtatious
22. Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
12.979
2
6.489
6.551
.002
Within Groups
130.755
132
.991
Total
143.733
134
Multiple Comparisons
Dependent Variable: Part II: Riley seems flirtatious
Tukey HSD
(I) Condition (1 = S, 2 = R, 3 = E)
(J) Condition (1 = S, 2 = R, 3 = E)
Mean Difference (I-J)
Std. Error
Sig.
99.9% Confidence Interval
25. 41
3.5122
Sig.
.003
Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed.
a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 44.814.
b. The group sizes are unequal. The harmonic mean of the group
sizes is used. Type I error levels are not guaranteed.
Appendix D
ANOVA
Part II: Riley seems seductive
Sum of Squares
df
Mean Square
F
Sig.
Between Groups
18.033
2
9.017
11.221
.000
Within Groups
106.071
132
.804
Total
124.104
134