Chapter 1. Can the News Influence Our Implicit Prejudice?

Introduction

In this activity, you will create a design to test the combined effect of 2 variables—type of crime and race of suspect—on racial prejudices.

Dr. Melanie Maggard

Dr. Natalie J. Ciarocco, Monmouth University

Dr. David B. Strohmetz, University of West Florida

Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., Monmouth University

Something to Think About...

Scenario: Although progress has been made since the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, racism still exists in today’s society, often in ways that are not easily recognizable. Racial prejudice affects all of us and is influenced by learned experiences, environment, parenting, and more. No single event is responsible for creating our racial prejudice; rather, prejudice is the result of multiple factors.

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Something to Think About…

Racial prejudices are evident in a variety of settings, including in the context of how we view those who have committed crimes. Is it possible that we judge African Americans differently than European Americans in these situations? Do our views make us more likely to believe that punishment for certain types of people should be harsher? Does the type of crime committed—such as a “white-collar” crime like embezzlement vs. a “blue-collar” crime like credit card fraud—also contribute to our beliefs?

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Our Research Question

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With these questions in mind, we will develop a research study that examines types of crimes, races of suspects, and racial prejudice. But first, you will need a framework to help you explore this topic. Research studies all start with a question, so here is your chance to ask one of your own.

Picking the Best Design

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Now that you have a research question (“How do type of crime and race of suspect influence racial prejudice?”), you must decide which type of research design will best answer your research question. To narrow things down, consider the following:

• Nonexperimental Design

• Experimental Design

Picking the Best Design

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Having decided that your research question requires a comparison between groups, you must determine the best comparison to make. However, there are multiple comparisons to be made: between types of crime and races of suspects.

Picking the Best Design

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Picking the Best Design

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Now that you have developed an experimental design that compares the effect of exposure to embezzlement vs. credit card fraud and a European-American vs. African-American suspect on racial prejudices, you can identify your independent and dependent variables.

• Independent Variable (IV)

• Dependent Variable (DV)

Picking the Best Design

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Picking the Best Design

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You have developed an experiment with 2 independent variables (type of crime and race of suspect) and 1 dependent variable (racial prejudice). This means we have a factorial design.

• Factorial Design

Operationally Defining the Independent Variables

Next, we need to operationally define the first independent variable (IV), type of crime, by determining exactly how we will manipulate it. As we do, we’ll want to be sure our study has a high level of experimental and mundane realism.

• Experimental Realism

• Mundane Realism

Operationally Defining the Independent Variables

Now we need to operationally define the second independent variable (IV), race of suspect, by determining exactly how we will manipulate it. As we do, we’ll want to be sure our study has a high level of experimental and mundane realism.

• Experimental Realism

• Mundane Realism

Operationally Defining the Independent Variables

Of the options you explored, the task that is highest in both experimental and mundane realism involves reading a local news story about a specific crime (embezzlement or credit card fraud) involving $5,000, with the race of the suspect (European-American or African-American) identified. Because participants may figure out the intention of our study if they are exposed to multiple news stories, each participant will only be exposed to 1 condition, or combination of our independent variables.

Operationally Defining the Independent Variables

The following table illustrates the 4 combinations in our 2 x 2 factorial design, where each person will be assigned to 1 of these conditions:

• A: Embezzlement + European-American

• B: Embezzlement + African-American

• C: Credit Card Fraud + European-American

• D: Credit Card Fraud + African-American

Operationally Defining the Dependent Variable

You have now established the key comparisons between the 4 groups as variations of the type of crime and race of the suspect. Next, we need to specify the exact nature of our dependent variable, racial prejudice. First, consider the following:

Choosing the Best Measure

We know we want to use a behavioral measure to measure racial prejudice. Now it is time to determine which type of behavioral measure to use. Keep in mind how many and what types of questions, and what assessment of reliability, validity, and sensitivity, would be ideal for our study.

• Reliability

• Validity

• Sensitivity

Determining Your Hypotheses

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Now that you have determined what you will manipulate and measure, you must formulate an experimental hypothesis. Because we have multiple independent variables, we will also need multiple hypotheses: main effect hypotheses and interaction effect hypotheses.

• Main Effect Hypothesis

• Interaction Effect Hypothesis

Determining Your Hypotheses

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Determining Your Hypotheses

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Now that we have our main effect hypotheses, we must create the interaction effect hypothesis.

Finding a Sample

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Before you can conduct your experiment, you need to determine exactly whom you want to study and where you can find this target sample.

Submitting to the IRB

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Now that you have determined how you will collect your data and your intended sample, you must submit your research procedure to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for ethical approval. The IRB will determine whether or not your study meets all ethical guidelines.

• IRB

Each IRB has its own protocol that conforms to the national standard when a researcher submits an application for proposed research. In addition to the appropriate paperwork and other information submitted to the IRB, the board considers the following description during their evaluation of your proposed experiment:

• The purpose of this research is to determine whether there is an interaction effect of type of crime (embezzlement or credit card fraud) and race of suspect (European-American or African-American) on racial prejudice. To study this topic, invitations to participate will be mailed to a random sampling of adults in the city. Participants will be told that the study is about a current news story and offered $10 for their participation. Those who volunteer will provide informed consent before being randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: Embezzlement + European-American, Embezzlement + African-American, Credit Card Fraud + European-American, or Credit Card Fraud + African-American. So that we may measure levels of racial prejudice, participants will read a news story based on the condition to which they are assigned and then determine the number of years in prison the suspect should receive.

Responding to the IRB

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The IRB reviewed your submission and has one concern. The study involves deception, which carries the potential risk of temporary psychological distress based on whether a participant’s racial prejudice via the prison sentence they provide matches what they believe about themselves.

You must now determine how to respond to the IRB, keeping in mind the ethics of deception.

Running the Study

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Now that we have secured the IRB’s approval, we should determine what the entire study will look like. Below are the steps of the study. Can you place them in the proper order?

Collecting Data

Now that you have a sense of how to conduct this study, it is time to see what data from this study might look like.

If you were to run a full version of this study, you would want to have at least 30 participants in each of your 4 groups, for a total of 120 participants. Because you have a factorial design, each participant will only be in 1 group.

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Example Data Set

This is an example of what your data set would look like. The top row shows the variable names; the other rows display the data for the first 5 participants in each crime condition.

In the “Crime” column, a 1 = Embezzlement, and a 2 = Credit Card Fraud. In the “Race” column, a 1 = European-American, and a 2 = African-American. The number of years in prison was recorded under Years, with possible scores ranging from 0 to 15 years.

Selecting the Proper Tool

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Now that you have collected your data, you must decide the best way to summarize your findings. The decisions you made about how to collect your data dictate the statistics you can use with your data now. First, you need to consider if your study is descriptive or inferential.

• Descriptive

• Inferential

Tutorial: Evaluating Output

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The following is an example of output for another two-way ANOVA where participants experienced only 1 condition in the study. This study was about how number of hours of television watched per night (1 hour or 4 hours) for a week and gender (male or female) influenced self-reported happiness.

Before continuing, click on the output to learn more about each of its elements.

Tutorial: Evaluating Output

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To report these numbers in a results section, enter the numbers as follows:

This should be done for each main effect and the interaction.

Tutorial: Evaluating Output

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This graph shows us that females had higher happiness ratings when only 1 hour of TV was watched, but this difference went away when they were exposed to 4 hours of TV. Also, both males and females had lower ratings of happiness after 4 hours of TV than 1 hour of TV. There was an interaction between gender and hours of TV as the happiness ratings differed based on these variables.

Your Turn: Evaluating Output

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Below is the output from your study:

Your Turn: Evaluating Output

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Below is the output from your study:

Your Turn: Evaluating Output

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Based on the results of your statistical analyses, provide the values in the “Answer” column that correspond to the terms in the “Prompt” column.

Activity: Graphing Results

In order to visualize your data, use the values on the previous screens to input the mean that corresponds to each condition listed in the output. Then, check out the graphic representation of your data, below.

Your Turn: Results

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Now that you have worked with your data, you must determine the best way to express your findings in written form. You must be sure that how you describe your findings accurately represents the data.

Take Home Message

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Now that you have determined how to express your findings in a scientifically responsible way, you also need to be able to talk about what your findings mean in everyday terms so that the world can benefit from your science.

Congratulations! You have successfully completed this activity.

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