APA Style Research Report on Behavioral Priming Study

For this assignment you will write a brief research report in APA style. Your research reportwill describe a study investigating behavioural priming. The study is based on data we collected via the online experiment posted earlier in the semester. The study is a fairly close replication of experiment 4 in an article by Dijksterhuis and Van Knippenberg (1998).The study aims to determine whether people who are exposed to the prime about a university professor perform better on a general knowledge test than participants exposedto the prime about a soccer hooligan. The prime was assigned randomly: Each participant was asked to spend three1minutes either describing the typical attributes of a professor or a soccer hooligan. The general knowledge test we used was created by selecting itemsfrom the video game Who Wants to be a Millionaire.

• Assignment 2 brief report instructions (the document you are reading now)
• Assignment 2 report template (includes pre-written introduction)
• The Psychological Research Experiment linked on Stream
• Read Chapter XI of your textbook. This chapter explains who to write and format an APA research reports

Your report should be submitted in APA style. We suggest that you use the report template to format your assignment. You can find detailed guidance about how to format a research report in APA style in Chapter XI of your textbook. Additional guidance about what to include in each subsection of the report is provided below.

To complete this assignment, you will need to conduct some basic descriptive analyses.

Submit your assignment online through Stream. You do not need to submit a paper copy or attach a cover sheet to the assignment, but you should include a title page according.

Extensions will be granted only in exceptional circumstances, such as severe illness or bereavement. A large workload is not an adequate reason for an extension.

In Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998, experiment 4), the priming phase lasted five minutes. We shortened this to three minutes to minimise the time burden on participants. 175.203 Introduction to Psychological Research School of Psychology Assignment 2 instructions 2021 Massey University

It is important that you avoid plagiarism in your assignment. Turnitin will be used to check assignments for plagiarism. You can find information about plagiarism on the Massey

There are two parts in the assignment where you have an opportunity to collect a half bonus mark. It is entirely up to you whether you want to attempt these, and you can obviously do well in the assignment without attempting these tasks.

Word limits apply to some of the individual sections of the report (see below); there is no overall word limit. The word limits for sections are hard limits; you should not exceed them even by a small amount. Work beyond the limit will not be marked.

Analysis of Data

Chapter XI of the textbook (and section 54 of chapter XII) provide general guidance about what to include in each section of a report and how to write about your research findings. On the following pages we provide additional instructions and formatting suggestions specific to this assignment, including word limits and mark allocations. There is no minimum word count so long as you include all the relevant information in clearly written prose (do not use numbered lists or bullet points in your report).

? No need to wait�you can begin work on the title page right away! Provide a title page, using APA style. Don�t forget the following: An appropriate title of your choosing (fewer than 12 words), your name, and your lecturer�s name beneath your name. You do not need to attach a separate Massey University cover page. A running head (and subsequent page headers) is not necessary.

? Because the abstract is a summary of your report, you should write it last. Write your own abstract between 100 and 150 words. The abstract appears by itself on asingle page. You need to summarize the study in one brief paragraph, stating the purposeof the research, the research design, the research prediction in terms of the IV and DV, themethod used to gather data, the types of analyses used to test the prediction, the summarized findings of the analyses (in reference to our prediction), and a concluding statement. A good rule of thumb for starting an abstract is to write one sentence that summarises each section of your report

? No need to wait�you can begin work on the introduction right away! A brief introduction has been written for you in the report template. If you are not using the template, just copy and paste the introduction into your report. The pre-written introduction includes references that should be included in your reference list. The introduction has been written for you to allow you to focus on other aspects of the report.One question appears (in bold) at the end of the introduction section. Answer the question. Normally, this question would be answered in the last one or two paragraphs of� the Introduction. For ease of marking, include the question in the text and type your answer under the question.

? You can get started on drafting this after week 3. Other topics before week 8 will also be helpful as you write this section.

Extensions

Describe the method of the study in 425 words or fewer (including the section we�ve prewritten in the template). Use appropriate APA style subheadings. We suggest the following subheadings Participants, Materials, Design, and Procedure that are provided for you. A description of the manipulation check measure is already written for you. The rest needs to be written by you. You need to describe the participants (number, eligibility criteria, demographic details, method of recruitment, reason for participation); describe the measures and how they were scored; identify and state the research design; and describe the procedure, including how the two groups were formed. In sum, the method should enable a person completely unfamiliar with the study (but conversant in psychologicalresearch methods) to replicate exactly what was done.

You will need to use the attached data summary to describe the total number ofparticipants, the gender distribution (e.g., number or percentage male/female), and the number of participants in each condition.

Bonus � mark: Using your own initiative, calculate and interpret an appropriate reliability estimate for the general knowledge test used in our study. A full dataset including correct (coded as 1) and incorrect (coded as 0) trivia answers is available for download on Stream. The reliability should be reported (and discussed) where you write about how the test was scored (No help will be provided if you want to attempt this).

You should use a maximum of 300 words, although your results section could well be shorter than this. The first paragraph of your results section concerns the manipulation check � this is (mostly) written for you in the template � this pre-written section does count to the maximum word count. The rest of this section is for you to write. Table and figure captions will not count toward your word limit. You should include the following pieces of information:

The first paragraph describes a summary of the manipulation check results. An APA style table has been started for you in the template for reporting the manipulation check results. Start by completing Table 1 that includes the means and standard deviations for each group�s intelligence ratings. Using the results in your table, complete the blanks in the paragraph by writing in the name of the appropriate group. This is all you need to do for analysing the manipulation check � no other analysis of the manipulation check is necessary. Once you�ve done this, start your second paragraph.

Plagiarism

? You should be well prepared to complete this after week 6.

The second paragraph is a written summary of your IV�s and DV�s scales of measurement. Briefly explain why measures of mean and standard deviation are appropriate descriptive summaries of the DV�s central tendency and variability.

? You can start this after week 4. 175.203 Introduction to Psychological Research School of Psychology

Create a Table 2 that reports the mean and standard deviation of the general knowledge test scores for each condition. Remember to describe what the table shows in the text of your report.

? You should be able to do this after week 6.

Bonus � mark: Using your own initiative, calculate and report a 95% confidence interval for each of the mean test scores in Table 2. Include the 95% CIs in the right-most column of your Table 2. (No help will be provided if you want to attempt this.) [0.5 mark]

Create one figure that depicts a box and whisker plot OR frequency polygon for each group (these should both appear in the same figure). If you wish, you can produce this plot by hand and scan it into your report, but instructions will also be provided for producing a computerised plot. Make sure you describe what the figure illustrates in the text of your report. You will need to consult the full dataset to make either figure. The full dataset is available at the end of these instructions or as a spreadsheet on Stream.

? You should be ready to do this after week 5.

A third paragraph about what difference you found between the groups (and the direction of the difference) including an appropriate standardized effect size measure with a correct interpretation of what the effect size means.

? You should be able to start this after week 6.

Note. Technically, APA style says that tables and figures should be placed at the end of a report. Instead, please place your table and figure within the results section. Make sure you appropriately refer to each table and figure in the main text of your report. Discussion (9 marks)

? You should be able to start drafting answers to the discussion section questions after week 6 and complete the discussion questions after week 7.

You need to answer the questions (in bold) provided in the report template. Normally, these questions would be answered more thoroughly in the discussion section of a report. For ease of marking, include the question in the text and type your answer under the question.

References (4 marks)

You will need to locate the readings cited in the report (including the introduction) and write references for them in this section. Some of the references have been completed for you already�you will need to add the rest.

Make sure you start the references section on a new page with an appropriate heading, and check that references are in APA format including name(s), date, title, and source information.

Behavioural priming is a phenomenon in which exposure to a stimulus (the prime) influences a person's subsequent behaviour or response. A study investigating behavioural priming might aim to understand how priming affects specific behaviours, such as decision-making, social interaction, or emotional responses.

One example of a study investigating behavioural priming is a classic experiment by Bargh, Chen, and Burrows (1996). In this study, participants were primed with words related to the stereotype of elderly people (e.g., "Florida," "wrinkle," "bingo") or with neutral words. After the priming task, participants were asked to walk down a hallway to the elevator. The researchers measured the walking speed of participants and found that those who were primed with elderly-related words walked significantly slower than those who were primed with neutral words.