Question 1

Open Personality
Susie, a social psychologist, wanted to investigate if personality and social variables
have an impact on the self-esteem of young adults. She administered a neuroticism
scale, a social inhibition scale, and a measure of self-perceived physical
attractiveness to 210 psychology students. She also collected information regarding
the persons age and sex. Susie decided that she would investigate if neuroticism,
social inhibition, and self-perceived physical attractiveness predicted self-esteem,
when controlling for age and sex.
Conduct the appropriate analysis on these data
Write a results section in APA format, including tables and graphs where
appropriate

Question 2
Open Cardiovascular Data
David is interested in the physiological responses people exhibit when encountering
stress. In particular, he is interested in whether different types of stressors will affect
physiological recovery. David decides to conduct a cardiovascular reactivity study,
examining the change in heart rate when participants are exposed to a laboratory
stressor. He recruits 90 participants and randomly assigns 30 participants to one of
three conditions. In the stressed condition, participants complete a laboratory
stressor while receiving interruptions via an intercom. In the relaxed condition,
participants complete the laboratory stressor whilst listening to relaxing music. In the
Control condition, participants complete the laboratory stressor without receiving any
other input. David measures heart rate (HR) during a 10-minute resting period
(resting: Time 1), during the stressor (task; Time 2), and 10 minutes after the task
(recovery: Time 3). While David suspects that all participants will show equal levels
of resting HR and task HR regardless of condition, he thinks that those in the
stressed condition may not recover as well, and have higher HR during the recovery
period. In this study there is one independent-groups factor (condition) and one
repeated-measures factor (time). The dependent variable is HR.
Conduct the appropriate analysis on these data
Write a results section in APA format, including tables and graphs where
appropriate

Question 3
Open Reaction Times
Jamie has been commissioned by a leading pharmaceutical company to investigate
the effects upon reaction times of two new painkillers, called Drug A and Drug B. It is
suspected that at least one of the drugs may have different effects upon fresh and
tired individuals, and the firm developing the drugs needs to ensure that neither has
an adverse effect upon reaction times. Jamie decides to carry out a two-factor
factorial experiment, in which the between-subjects factors are:
Drug Treatment with three levels; Placebo, Drug A and Drug B
Alertness, with two levels: Fresh and Tired
All participants are asked to take a flavoured drink which contains either Drug A,
Drug B, or no drug (the placebo condition).
Half the participants are tested immediately after rising in the morning (fresh), while
the other half are tested after twenty hours of sleep deprivation (tired). A different
sample of ten participants is tested under each of the six treatment combinations.
The dependent variable is the mean time in a reaction time test (the higher the score
the slower the reaction time). Assuming the data are parametric, conduct the
appropriate analysis to investigate the effects of Drug A, Drug B, and a Placebo in
fresh and tired people on the reaction time test.
Conduct the appropriate analysis on these data
Write a results section in APA format, including tables and graphs where
appropriate

Further instructions
You should answer all of the questions, and the total length of your assignment
should be 1000 words (+/- 10%), excluding graphs, tables, references and
appendices.
Generally your result section will take the following order:
1. A description of the data (descriptive statistics, relevant graphs or tables)
2. Any assumptions about the data, and any relevant tests (such as normality, or
homogeneity of variance)
3. Inferential Statistical Tests
When writing your results assume a reasonable level of statistical knowledge from
the reader. You do not need to cover basic concepts behind your analysis or cite
sources that do so. However if there is a debate or some contention over certain
types of analysis or procedure then you may include citations to support your
decision. For example it is not necessary to cite a description of a particular test of
normality, however if you come to the judgement that your sample size is sufficiently
large enough to assume normality without a test then you should cite support.
Describing the Data
Before you can meaningfully discuss what the results of your inferential test mean
you need to describe your data for the reader. This first involves highlighting any
missing data or data cleaning. Participants may have missed skipped questions or a
recording error might have lost some. Through examining the data you might also
have chosen to remove any outliers. This should all be stated. You can then describe
your data.
If you have several conditions you can present the mean scores (or other relevant
DVs) for each, making it clear to the reader what has initially been found. For
example you may have found a higher mean score one condition. The data should
be presented clearly and meaningfully.
You may find a graph or a table is useful.
Tables
Tables are useful for presenting a summary of your data, and can allow the reader to
easily compare important information. The general rule is that the information
presented here is clear and that is supplements you description of the data rather
than repeating it.

Entries in your table that are being compared should be placed next to each other.
For this reason entries such as standard deviations are often segregated from the
means.
Every table you use should be referred to in the main body of the results. For
example ..see table 1 for.. or as can be seen in table 1 the means for condition A
were.
When creating your table include only relevant information. For this reason do not
copy and paste into your result section SPSS tables.
Graphs
In a similar fashion to tables, graphs can be a useful method for visualising data.
Again they should be clear to the reader, they should not need to refer to the text to
be able to decipher the information in the graph.
Any important information such as the legends and axis scales should be included
on the graph itself. If a graph with error bars is being used a label on the graph
describing what the error bar represents (standard error of the mean, estimated
standard error etc.) should be included.
Inferential Statistics (F values, P values etc.)
Once you have meaningfully and clearly described your data, and have considered
assumptions about the data (normality etc.) you can move onto the significance
testing. The assumptions (normality, variance etc.) should indicate whether you need
to use a parametric or non-parametric test. State which, and state the type of test
being used.
The results/values from the inferential test can be presented in text or in a table (see
note below), but as with all tables create your own rather than copying across the
SPSS tables. Where applicable degrees of freedom, p values and measures of effect
size should be included. See your research and data analysis lecture notes on how
to report different statistical tests in full.
If you are running any post hoc tests or comparisons these of course come after the
main test.
If significant differences or correlations are found briefly summarise what they mean.
For example if you have found a significant difference in stress scores between two
groups you could state that the third year student group scored significantly higher
on the stress test than the first year student group, indicating that third year students
may be more stressed than first years.
Dont forget to include your SPSS output as an appendix at the end of your
assignment, so that we can check your reported figures, if we need to