talk about following the herd! psy experiment results - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

3leggedfrog · 03-11-2004, 05:12 PM

Hey I just did a psychological experiment and needed to share the results with you guys. Hey Art television you might be interested in this

My experiment was originally looking for root causes of pluralistic ignorance of alcohol norms on college campus. What that means is an exaggerated artificial alcohol norm on college campus. For an example say you think drinking 10 beers an hour is wrong and your friend thinks the same thing, but the both of you thinks that the other person thinks that is normal as long as you are in college. So you both think drinking 10 beers an hour is wrong but because of your environment, ie college campus, it not only expected its normal. Because both think the other is going to say that 10 beers an hour is ok, as long as you are in college, you both think and say it. Thus an artificial norm is invented.

Ok I had this 4 question survey. One question asked what sex are you? The next do you live on campus. The next two questions asked how many drinks of alcohol does the average college student drink during the weekend, and then weekday. Before you could get to the survey on top of it was an alcohol ad. We had three ads a pro alcohol ad, and anti alcohol ad, and a neutral alcohol ad. So we had three different types of surveys but with the same questions.

Ok the results …………. Both the pro and the anti alcohol ads created an artificially high perception of alcohol consumption on college campus. The neutral ad was really low as to be almost the true alcohol norm.

So even if the ad says “don’t drink” it still influences, at least college students, to drink more alcohol due to the pluralistic ignorance that advertisements create. Because the anti alcohol ad creates a neg view that helps shore up the norm that college students drink more than they really do.

Wow talk about the herd affect!!!! We are going to do a follow up in 2 weeks for a test-retest with out any advertisement what-so-ever and see the long term effects. Cant wait to see.

losthellhound · 03-11-2004, 05:29 PM

Great experiment, Id love to see the same thing done but instead of advertisements, put statistics on alcohol on top - as in how much do you need to drink to be legally drunk, to be considered a binge drinker, and how much to kill yourself.. then skew those numbers. make one version where the numbers are high, one where they are dead on, and the other where they are lower

3leggedfrog · 03-11-2004, 05:34 PM

hmm just reread the post. sorry its so techical. to sum up i just said is that anti alcohol advertisments (dont drink because ...) is just as bad as normal alcohol advertisments because it causes people to think everyone else is drinking more than they really are. thus to be thought of as normal they drink more.

Halx · 03-11-2004, 05:37 PM

It's great to test out social psychology theories and see them come to life.

I do that all the time with the TFP.

3leggedfrog · 03-11-2004, 05:49 PM

losthellhound hmmm intersting. that would tests peoples reaction to "scientific numbers" towards alcohol. testing peoples beliefs in people in authority mainly the medical authority. how that influnces alcohol norms. might do that for my next experiment.

losthellhound · 03-11-2004, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Halx
It's great to test out social psychology theories and see them come to life.
I do that all the time with the TFP.

Actually thats an interesting view.. Take a user and give them access to the TB after ten posts, then wait until they get a referal.. Take the user who they refered and make it so they never get the TB.. Watch for reaction from both

zfleebin · 03-11-2004, 07:29 PM

Definitely sounds interesting. Have you thought about controlling for the ad? How did you analyze your results? Whats was your n?

Gortexfogg · 03-11-2004, 08:20 PM

Very intriguing stuff. It'll be interesting to see your next results.

Cynthetiq · 03-11-2004, 09:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Halx
It's great to test out social psychology theories and see them come to life.

I do that all the time with the TFP.

yes, but if you do that in say, Bangladesh, you'll have completely different results, which is what my problem is with psychology as a science or even psuedo-science.

3leggedfrog · 03-11-2004, 10:22 PM

Cynthetiq,
Yes and no. This experiment is designed for the United States college culture only. I could design an experiment for that culture or even make a design for the world but it would be a huge experiment and cost a lot of money that, as a broke college student, I don’t have. I could apply for a grant, but as an undergrad the chances are slim of anyone giving me money. Maybe fall semester when I am doing this as a masters student someone will be dumb enough to give me money. nahhhh.
psy as a psuedo-science lol. depends on what theory you use. old Freud (what you see in movies, with the cards and tell me about your mother) then yep i agree psuedo-science but any of the new western theories hell no thats pure science. new being in the last 100 years.

Zfleebin,
controlling the ad in what way? We already control it as a pro, neutral, and an anti alcohol ad. The significance we were looking for is 05. We used statistical analysis of variance, t test. The research design is a between 3-way ANOVA

Halx,
what behavioral theory, stim and response, reward and punishments. Do this and get TB. Do that and don’t get it. noooooooo lol pav’s dog at its best.

For those who want the stats and the technical aspects pm me. Although it will take a week to get the numbers back.

kurty[B] · 03-11-2004, 11:17 PM

I like this study 3legged, I'm interested in the possible change in responses.

How did you distribute the survey, was it a random sample? If it is will the survey in two weeks be for the initial surveyors, or another random sample?

Halx · 03-12-2004, 12:17 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Cynthetiq
yes, but if you do that in say, Bangladesh, you'll have completely different results, which is what my problem is with psychology as a science or even psuedo-science.

the results are different, the *mechanisms* aren't

Beyond that, the word psychology defines a 'study' and not a 'science' so what are you worried about?

analog · 03-12-2004, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Halx
It's great to test out social psychology theories and see them come to life.

I am also a huge fan of social psychology. Great little test you have going there, I await the full results!

Cynthetiq · 03-12-2004, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by 3leggedfrog
Cynthetiq,
Yes and no. This experiment is designed for the United States college culture only. I could design an experiment for that culture or even make a design for the world but it would be a huge experiment and cost a lot of money that, as a broke college student, I don’t have. I could apply for a grant, but as an undergrad the chances are slim of anyone giving me money. Maybe fall semester when I am doing this as a masters student someone will be dumb enough to give me money. nahhhh.
psy as a psuedo-science lol. depends on what theory you use. old Freud (what you see in movies, with the cards and tell me about your mother) then yep i agree psuedo-science but any of the new western theories hell no thats pure science. new being in the last 100 years.

Sorry, beg to differ, otherwise I would be a psychologist. I was in college in the late 80's and demured from continuing that as a major because of it's lack of scientific method replication. You can take scientific experiments and in the exact same conditions repeat the experiment and get the same results. There's no culture component in scientific method.

So you say it's US cultural based. Fine, take the same test to the street, and the same questioinaire in NYC may not net the same results in Miami, or in Lynchburg TN (a dry county)

Bill O'Rights · 03-12-2004, 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Halx
It's great to test out social psychology theories and see them come to life.

I do that all the time with the TFP.

Hmmm...should I be feeling like a lab rat?

zfleebin · 03-12-2004, 10:00 AM

Cynthetiq: There are many ways to control for culture using the scientific method and culutral universality has become a measure of the quality of theories. As for the lack of replication, all published tests that are approved by the A.P.A. must meet certain requirements. Among those is that they clearly identify the reliability and validity coefficients of their test. A prime example of a culturally universal test is the WAIS (Wechsler adult intelligence scale). I cant cite exact numbers without getting access to one (which I can do if you would like), but I am pretty sure the reliability coefficient of the WAIS has consistently been shown to be above .95 even cross culturally.

Cynthetiq · 03-12-2004, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by zfleebin
Cynthetiq: There are many ways to control for culture using the scientific method and culutral universality has become a measure of the quality of theories. As for the lack of replication, all published tests that are approved by the A.P.A. must meet certain requirements. Among those is that they clearly identify the reliability and validity coefficients of their test. A prime example of a culturally universal test is the WAIS (Wechsler adult intelligence scale). I cant cite exact numbers without getting access to one (which I can do if you would like), but I am pretty sure the reliability coefficient of the WAIS has consistently been shown to be above .95 even cross culturally.

I understand that they have been making headway into providing a standardized process, but the scientific method does not give a 5% span for scientific experiments. Either the experiment is replicated or not. Thus providing independent proofs from other scientists around the world that can corroborate the first scientists findings.

Psychology cannot. People are not easy to predict, and what you think works in one does not hold true 100% of the time.

kurty[B] · 03-12-2004, 03:28 PM

I agree with you Cynthetiq people are not easy to predict. And although it may be extremely difficult for social/psychological "science" to create studies that span cross-cultures and nations I do find specific studies that target certain groups as interesting. Simply breaking down the reactions on a meso or even micro scale.

I do like to try and be as wary as possible about the findings, and how the surveys were distributed, and how information was gathered (type of questions and what not). I do find studies like this interesting though.

rsl12 · 03-12-2004, 09:25 PM

3leg: what's a *neutral* alcohol ad? Any ad by an alcohol company is promoting its use, right? Does neutral mean something like an absolut vodka ad, which makes an oblique reference to the product?

3leggedfrog · 03-12-2004, 10:49 PM

rsl12 the neutral ad is a ad that shows a product that may or may not be alcohol. a bottle that may look like a wine bottle but has a blank lable. the back ground is just a blank white back ground. it neither promotes or denounces alcohol.

Cynthetiq you are mistaken about psychology not using the scientific method we do. the problem we face is the variables. what is affecting that person at the time when they make this or that decision. what biological and sociological events are influencing this person’s mental state to induce this particular response. There are so many variables to take into account for each individual. The best we can do with the amount of data at this time is make sweeping generalizations and come up with a theory. Since there is no such thing as a fact in the scientific method this is ok. Because someone will take this theory and trash it but in the process they will come up with a better theory and so on and so on. Hey just like physics. How we determine if we our hypothesis is correct or rather fail to reject the null hypothesis is by statistics. In my experiment we used .05 significance or 95% or higher probability that what we tested for is infact not due to chance. before we can even do the experiment it must pass throught a board that looks at the eithcs and possible errors that may be in our experiment for an example masking. then there is the American Psychological Association guild lines we must follow.

as Halx said this is a study. a study of human behavior. each of us are different but we are all humans and react in simuliar ways. thats what we are studing humanity's common reactions to certian stimuli.

kurty[B] the surveys we handed out in a double blind fashion. We printed up all the surveys and then we attached the ads, same ads for each of the 3 ads by the way. On top of the ads we placed a blank piece of paper so that we did not know what the ad was. Then we shuffled them in a random order and handed them out. So each survey had an ad but we didn’t know what the ad was. The participants didn’t know either until they removed the top blank paper. The participants were a collection of random students taking 3 general psy classes that is a prerequisite for all students to graduate called gordon rule here in florida. the only instructes the participants we given was to fill them out and not to discuss the survey until after everyone was finished. My group of 5 people over saw this.

the test retest will be the same questions now with out any ad or paper. so all we are handing out is the survey but not any influncing ads. Cynthetiq this checks out if the ads affected the survey or not beyond probability. ie will the survey respounces all become the same without the ads. if it does or comes real close then we have a valid theory. we can infer a lot with how close each catagory, pro neutral and antil, are to each other.

this experiment does have flaws, again due to lack of time and money. it does not look at cross culture, nor uneducated people, etc.... it is a good indication that we are on the right track now someone else possible me at a latter date will do a deeper study.

Cynthetiq · 03-13-2004, 09:57 AM

I'm not saying the studies aren't interesting. I find them fascinating but I take them with a grain of salt. Studies about how people act within certain situations or prediction human behavior can not be duplicated or replicated again. They are a ONE time snapshot of the flowing river.

I've not said that psychology does not use the scientific method. I said that it gives allowance for deviance from the beginning, which other sciences do not.

Everyone here has said "there's lots of variables..." part of the scientifc method is to ISOLATE those variables to help determine cause and effect.

Quote:

the results are different, the *mechanisms* aren't

Again, following the scientific method mixing two chemicals, elements, molecules, etc, observing the results and comparing against a control group. No matter where the test is done, in the US, Japan, Antartica, Saudi Arabia, if the scientists follow the same methodologies, they will have the same results. The mechanisms will be the same and the results will be the same. That's the way that it is for ALL hard sciences.

Is Psychology A Science?
One of the parts that I agree with whole heartedly in that article is "The truth is that psychological statements which describe human behavior or which report results from tested research can be scientific. However, when there is a move from describing human behavior to explaining it there is also a move from science to opinion."

I'll agree that once you use the scientific method you have been scientific in the study, that it becomes an opinion of the person conducting the study based on their personal experience.

3leggedfrog · 03-13-2004, 12:06 PM

good point but the problem you encounter with that argument is that not all scientific research is perfectly repeatable. For an example medicine, why does some drugs work while some kill the person who its trying to fix? The answer is the variables. Each person is slightly different than everyone else. In chemistry the variables are temp, atmospheric pressure, etc so even if you mix said chemical depending on the VARIABLES you may not get your desired result. In medicine each person’s biochemistry is slightly different than anyone else. When you try to predict any behavior you have a hell of a lot more variables to deal with.

I could make my experiment repeatable in nearly any college culture but it would take me about 3 to 5 years and a hell of a lot of money just to get the sample size I wanted. Maybe longer just to test what questions I needed to ask for the experiment And it may not be true for all colleges depending on the variables at that college. For an example a religious college may not have this problem or then again it may be worse. The population size would be huge for just the United States but it would be gigantic for the world (but this study is not looking at the world only American college culture, specifically my college culture). My study is very simplistic in its beginnings a sort of “hey look at this we might want to look at this some more”. It could be true for other colleges and even other areas that’s why we publish stuff like this. It all depends on controlling variables.

As for opinion well, as with any good science all hypothesis start with an opinion then you test that opinion and the results become a theory if you are right and if you are not it may point towards a possible theory or just eliminate what you thought was true so you can look in different directions. If you are trying to find a theory that encompasses everything humans do, at this time, that’s impossible. All we can do is try to find reasons why humans do the things they do. We find a possible problem then look for answers. What we are doing is looking at the big responses that keep happening and try to find reasons why. Then we test our opinion with other tests to see if they are true then have others test it as well. Cynthetiq your statement about opinion is because we have not nailed down all the variables yet. What the psychologist is stating is that someone needs to figure out a test that can nail down all the other variables that we missed. But until that they can express their opinions. A possible explanation to test for or against.

Contrary to popular belief we are predictable animals to some extent just ask or look at someone close to you. The problems are variables that we cannot predict affecting people. For an example I can predict with a pretty high probability that if you have a buttoned shirt you would button it starting from the top working you way downwards, but since I said that it can affect you to change that behavior. You can rationalize it saying that you might miss a button and the top which are the most important anyway. But you still button your shirt from top to button don’t you? That is what psychology is looking at when we do studies. What are the common behaviors and what are the reasons why. It may not be true for everyone just like penicillin is not a wonder drug for everyone but its still warrants our attention.

3leggedfrog · 03-13-2004, 12:20 PM

hey we are moving beyound what this thread is for so i started a new one. For all other debates on if Psychology is a science please go to this thread.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...threadid=48911

aarchaon · 03-17-2004, 04:03 AM

Tell people not to do something and you can be assured that people will do it out of sheer contempt, and the buzz it gives them when they know they shouldn't be doing it.

wubbawubba · 03-17-2004, 06:14 AM

Good post. Very interesting read.

03-11-2004, 05:12 PM	#1 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	talk about following the herd! psy experiment results Hey I just did a psychological experiment and needed to share the results with you guys. Hey Art television you might be interested in this My experiment was originally looking for root causes of pluralistic ignorance of alcohol norms on college campus. What that means is an exaggerated artificial alcohol norm on college campus. For an example say you think drinking 10 beers an hour is wrong and your friend thinks the same thing, but the both of you thinks that the other person thinks that is normal as long as you are in college. So you both think drinking 10 beers an hour is wrong but because of your environment, ie college campus, it not only expected its normal. Because both think the other is going to say that 10 beers an hour is ok, as long as you are in college, you both think and say it. Thus an artificial norm is invented. Ok I had this 4 question survey. One question asked what sex are you? The next do you live on campus. The next two questions asked how many drinks of alcohol does the average college student drink during the weekend, and then weekday. Before you could get to the survey on top of it was an alcohol ad. We had three ads a pro alcohol ad, and anti alcohol ad, and a neutral alcohol ad. So we had three different types of surveys but with the same questions. Ok the results …………. Both the pro and the anti alcohol ads created an artificially high perception of alcohol consumption on college campus. The neutral ad was really low as to be almost the true alcohol norm. So even if the ad says “don’t drink” it still influences, at least college students, to drink more alcohol due to the pluralistic ignorance that advertisements create. Because the anti alcohol ad creates a neg view that helps shore up the norm that college students drink more than they really do. Wow talk about the herd affect!!!! We are going to do a follow up in 2 weeks for a test-retest with out any advertisement what-so-ever and see the long term effects. Cant wait to see. __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day."

03-11-2004, 05:29 PM	#2 (permalink)
losthellhound Thats MR. Muffin Face now Location: Everywhere work sends me	Great experiment, Id love to see the same thing done but instead of advertisements, put statistics on alcohol on top - as in how much do you need to drink to be legally drunk, to be considered a binge drinker, and how much to kill yourself.. then skew those numbers. make one version where the numbers are high, one where they are dead on, and the other where they are lower __________________ "Life is possible only with illusions. And so, the question for the science of mental health must become an absolutely new and revolutionary one, yet one that reflects the essence of the human condition: On what level of illusion does one live?" -- Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

03-11-2004, 05:34 PM	#3 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	hmm just reread the post. sorry its so techical. to sum up i just said is that anti alcohol advertisments (dont drink because ...) is just as bad as normal alcohol advertisments because it causes people to think everyone else is drinking more than they really are. thus to be thought of as normal they drink more. __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day."

03-11-2004, 05:37 PM	#4 (permalink)
Halx Please touch this. Owner/Admin Location: Manhattan	It's great to test out social psychology theories and see them come to life. I do that all the time with the TFP. __________________ You have found this post informative. -The Administrator [Don't Feed The Animals]

03-11-2004, 05:49 PM	#5 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	losthellhound hmmm intersting. that would tests peoples reaction to "scientific numbers" towards alcohol. testing peoples beliefs in people in authority mainly the medical authority. how that influnces alcohol norms. might do that for my next experiment. __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day."

03-11-2004, 07:29 PM	#7 (permalink)
zfleebin Addict	Definitely sounds interesting. Have you thought about controlling for the ad? How did you analyze your results? Whats was your n? Last edited by zfleebin; 03-11-2004 at 07:33 PM..

03-11-2004, 08:20 PM	#8 (permalink)
Gortexfogg I and I Location: Stillwater, OK	Very intriguing stuff. It'll be interesting to see your next results.

03-11-2004, 10:22 PM	#10 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	Cynthetiq, Yes and no. This experiment is designed for the United States college culture only. I could design an experiment for that culture or even make a design for the world but it would be a huge experiment and cost a lot of money that, as a broke college student, I don’t have. I could apply for a grant, but as an undergrad the chances are slim of anyone giving me money. Maybe fall semester when I am doing this as a masters student someone will be dumb enough to give me money. nahhhh. psy as a psuedo-science lol. depends on what theory you use. old Freud (what you see in movies, with the cards and tell me about your mother) then yep i agree psuedo-science but any of the new western theories hell no thats pure science. new being in the last 100 years. Zfleebin, controlling the ad in what way? We already control it as a pro, neutral, and an anti alcohol ad. The significance we were looking for is 05. We used statistical analysis of variance, t test. The research design is a between 3-way ANOVA Halx, what behavioral theory, stim and response, reward and punishments. Do this and get TB. Do that and don’t get it. noooooooo lol pav’s dog at its best. For those who want the stats and the technical aspects pm me. Although it will take a week to get the numbers back. __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day."

03-11-2004, 11:17 PM	#11 (permalink)
kurty[B] Sauce Puppet	I like this study 3legged, I'm interested in the possible change in responses. How did you distribute the survey, was it a random sample? If it is will the survey in two weeks be for the initial surveyors, or another random sample?

03-12-2004, 10:00 AM	#16 (permalink)
zfleebin Addict	Cynthetiq: There are many ways to control for culture using the scientific method and culutral universality has become a measure of the quality of theories. As for the lack of replication, all published tests that are approved by the A.P.A. must meet certain requirements. Among those is that they clearly identify the reliability and validity coefficients of their test. A prime example of a culturally universal test is the WAIS (Wechsler adult intelligence scale). I cant cite exact numbers without getting access to one (which I can do if you would like), but I am pretty sure the reliability coefficient of the WAIS has consistently been shown to be above .95 even cross culturally.

03-12-2004, 03:28 PM	#18 (permalink)
kurty[B] Sauce Puppet	I agree with you Cynthetiq people are not easy to predict. And although it may be extremely difficult for social/psychological "science" to create studies that span cross-cultures and nations I do find specific studies that target certain groups as interesting. Simply breaking down the reactions on a meso or even micro scale. I do like to try and be as wary as possible about the findings, and how the surveys were distributed, and how information was gathered (type of questions and what not). I do find studies like this interesting though.

03-12-2004, 09:25 PM	#19 (permalink)
rsl12 On the lam Location: northern va	3leg: what's a neutral alcohol ad? Any ad by an alcohol company is promoting its use, right? Does neutral mean something like an absolut vodka ad, which makes an oblique reference to the product? __________________ oh baby oh baby, i like gravy.

03-12-2004, 10:49 PM	#20 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	rsl12 the neutral ad is a ad that shows a product that may or may not be alcohol. a bottle that may look like a wine bottle but has a blank lable. the back ground is just a blank white back ground. it neither promotes or denounces alcohol. Cynthetiq you are mistaken about psychology not using the scientific method we do. the problem we face is the variables. what is affecting that person at the time when they make this or that decision. what biological and sociological events are influencing this person’s mental state to induce this particular response. There are so many variables to take into account for each individual. The best we can do with the amount of data at this time is make sweeping generalizations and come up with a theory. Since there is no such thing as a fact in the scientific method this is ok. Because someone will take this theory and trash it but in the process they will come up with a better theory and so on and so on. Hey just like physics. How we determine if we our hypothesis is correct or rather fail to reject the null hypothesis is by statistics. In my experiment we used .05 significance or 95% or higher probability that what we tested for is infact not due to chance. before we can even do the experiment it must pass throught a board that looks at the eithcs and possible errors that may be in our experiment for an example masking. then there is the American Psychological Association guild lines we must follow. as Halx said this is a study. a study of human behavior. each of us are different but we are all humans and react in simuliar ways. thats what we are studing humanity's common reactions to certian stimuli. kurty[B] the surveys we handed out in a double blind fashion. We printed up all the surveys and then we attached the ads, same ads for each of the 3 ads by the way. On top of the ads we placed a blank piece of paper so that we did not know what the ad was. Then we shuffled them in a random order and handed them out. So each survey had an ad but we didn’t know what the ad was. The participants didn’t know either until they removed the top blank paper. The participants were a collection of random students taking 3 general psy classes that is a prerequisite for all students to graduate called gordon rule here in florida. the only instructes the participants we given was to fill them out and not to discuss the survey until after everyone was finished. My group of 5 people over saw this. the test retest will be the same questions now with out any ad or paper. so all we are handing out is the survey but not any influncing ads. Cynthetiq this checks out if the ads affected the survey or not beyond probability. ie will the survey respounces all become the same without the ads. if it does or comes real close then we have a valid theory. we can infer a lot with how close each catagory, pro neutral and antil, are to each other. this experiment does have flaws, again due to lack of time and money. it does not look at cross culture, nor uneducated people, etc.... it is a good indication that we are on the right track now someone else possible me at a latter date will do a deeper study. __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day." Last edited by 3leggedfrog; 03-12-2004 at 11:18 PM..

03-13-2004, 12:06 PM	#22 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	good point but the problem you encounter with that argument is that not all scientific research is perfectly repeatable. For an example medicine, why does some drugs work while some kill the person who its trying to fix? The answer is the variables. Each person is slightly different than everyone else. In chemistry the variables are temp, atmospheric pressure, etc so even if you mix said chemical depending on the VARIABLES you may not get your desired result. In medicine each person’s biochemistry is slightly different than anyone else. When you try to predict any behavior you have a hell of a lot more variables to deal with. I could make my experiment repeatable in nearly any college culture but it would take me about 3 to 5 years and a hell of a lot of money just to get the sample size I wanted. Maybe longer just to test what questions I needed to ask for the experiment And it may not be true for all colleges depending on the variables at that college. For an example a religious college may not have this problem or then again it may be worse. The population size would be huge for just the United States but it would be gigantic for the world (but this study is not looking at the world only American college culture, specifically my college culture). My study is very simplistic in its beginnings a sort of “hey look at this we might want to look at this some more”. It could be true for other colleges and even other areas that’s why we publish stuff like this. It all depends on controlling variables. As for opinion well, as with any good science all hypothesis start with an opinion then you test that opinion and the results become a theory if you are right and if you are not it may point towards a possible theory or just eliminate what you thought was true so you can look in different directions. If you are trying to find a theory that encompasses everything humans do, at this time, that’s impossible. All we can do is try to find reasons why humans do the things they do. We find a possible problem then look for answers. What we are doing is looking at the big responses that keep happening and try to find reasons why. Then we test our opinion with other tests to see if they are true then have others test it as well. Cynthetiq your statement about opinion is because we have not nailed down all the variables yet. What the psychologist is stating is that someone needs to figure out a test that can nail down all the other variables that we missed. But until that they can express their opinions. A possible explanation to test for or against. Contrary to popular belief we are predictable animals to some extent just ask or look at someone close to you. The problems are variables that we cannot predict affecting people. For an example I can predict with a pretty high probability that if you have a buttoned shirt you would button it starting from the top working you way downwards, but since I said that it can affect you to change that behavior. You can rationalize it saying that you might miss a button and the top which are the most important anyway. But you still button your shirt from top to button don’t you? That is what psychology is looking at when we do studies. What are the common behaviors and what are the reasons why. It may not be true for everyone just like penicillin is not a wonder drug for everyone but its still warrants our attention. __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day."

03-13-2004, 12:20 PM	#23 (permalink)
3leggedfrog Psycho Location: Hiding from the penguins they come to take my sanity away!	hey we are moving beyound what this thread is for so i started a new one. For all other debates on if Psychology is a science please go to this thread. http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...threadid=48911 __________________ "enjoy life to the brim but do not spill it" quoted off my tatoo "Iam myself every day." Last edited by 3leggedfrog; 03-13-2004 at 12:49 PM..

03-17-2004, 04:03 AM	#24 (permalink)
aarchaon Insane	Tell people not to do something and you can be assured that people will do it out of sheer contempt, and the buzz it gives them when they know they shouldn't be doing it. __________________ Green. Yellow. Blue.

03-17-2004, 06:14 AM	#25 (permalink)
wubbawubba Tilted Location: Lexington	Good post. Very interesting read.