This is one of the most important parts of this course – I want you to work with your group to design a follow-up study using conformity / consensus. As you work on this discussion, try to think about what other variable might influence participant impressions. Let me give you a few example, though try to get creative with your group. Look at prior research and see if you can use some of their work as a follow-up to your study. Have fun with it!
- First, you can alter the gender of the Facebook user. What if you are looking at Adam rather than Abigail? Would support (versus mixed) for Adam get different ratings compared to support (versus mixed) for Abigail? (Note that we would have FOUR conditions in this design: Adam Support vs. Adam Mixed vs. Abigail Support vs. Abigail Mixed).
- Second, source credibility is a good topic to explore. Have some participants in the support condition and others in the mixed condition. Then, some participants are told the cheater user is a high-school student (which might imply youth and inexperience) while others are told the cheater is a college student (which might imply age and wisdom).
- Finally, you can look at some participant characteristics if you like. You can measure the participants’ belief that cheating is okay or even ask if they have cheated themselves (if yes, they might be more forgiving of Abigail than if no).
In this discussion, I want EACH of you to do three things.
First, tell me which study you want to do (that is, which second independent variable you find most interesting).
Second, give me a reference in APA format for one peer reviewed research article that has something to do with this second variable. This article does not have to involve conformity / consensus at all, but it must have something to do with your second independent variable.
Third, give me a hypothesis for what you expect to occur if your new independent variable is chosen for the class project.
