Answer to Question #132147 in Psychology for Palak

Question

If a person gets 7 hours of sleep, then he will feel less fatigue than if he sleeps less. *
Null Hypothesis
Alternative Hypothesis
Two tailed hypothesis
Directional hypothesis

Answer 1

Psychological Hypothesis in Sleep and Fatigue

Sleep is the state which the body and mind have reduced activity muscle activity, the consciousness is altered and is characterised by altered consciousness. Sleep is different from wakefulness because there is decreased reaction and different from a coma because sleep is more reactive. Fatigue is the state where a person is extremely tired and low in energy, during this state one has a strong desire to sleep which interferes with normal day activities. Sleep and fatigue are two factors that are intertwined (Lavidor, Weller& Babkoff, 2003) Lack of sleep is one cause of fatigue, sleep is an important part of a person’s health, and it promotes the general well-being of a person.

‘If a person gets 7 hours of sleep, then he will feel less fatigue than if he sleep less’ is a claim that needs to be proven or disprove. To prove or disprove this hypothesis it needs to be tested. There are several ways to test a hypothesis, this methods are the null hypothesis test, alternative hypothesis test, the two tailed test and the directional hypothesis test. This tests can be used to prove or disproved the above statement.

Null Hypothesis

This hypothesis states that there is no relation between two variables that are being studied. It further emphasises that the results are not significant in terms of promoting the idea being investigated but the results are due to chance (Aczel et al., 2018). This is the most used hypothesis testing among social behavioural scientist (Gill, 1999). If the relation between sleep and fatigue is investigated under this theory, the theory will stipulate that lack of sleep will not result in fatigue. Therefore when the causes of fatigue is investigated if one of the reasons is lack of sleep, this is due to chance. The research is done on a certain number of people, those who are found to suffer fatigue it will not be necessarily caused by lack of sleep will and those that suffer suffer from lack of sleep it will not be caused by fatigue. The aim of a null hypothesis is to disprove a claim or statement. In the above case it would be trying to disprove the claim that 7 hours of sleep causes less fatigue.

Alternative Hypothesis

This hypothesis states that there is a relation between two variants being studied, one variant has an effect on another, and in addition the results are important in terms of supporting the theory under investigation and are not based on chance (New Castle University 2020). This theory allows a relation between sleep and fatigue, it states that if one is afflicted by fatigue then lack of sleep is one reason. Also it allows that lack of sleep leads to fatigue. In case a population is sampled using this theory, the results will show that fatigue leads to lack of sleep and vice- versa. This hypothesis is used when the null hypothesis is rejected, if the null hypothesis fails to disprove a certain claim a researcher turns to the alternative hypothesis. Though fatigue is not always caused by lack of sleep or vice- versa, the two are still have a relationship. The alternative hypothesis should be used to carry out the research

Two-tailed Hypothesis

This hypothesis predicts that an independent variable will have an effect on a dependent variant but it does not specify which direction this effect will take (Pilmer, 1991). This test is also referred to as non-directional due to the reason it does not specify which direction the result will take. This test is used when the hypothesis states that the population under investigation interests differs fro the null hypothesis.The two tailed theory states that fatigue does not equal lack of sleep.

Directional Hypothesis.

This hypothesis is a prediction a researcher makes regarding a relationship, a positive or negative change. This prediction is based on accepted theories, literature on the topic, past research and extensive experience.  This test is also known as one tailed test, it gives a clear direction as to which the direction a research will take (Kimmel, 1957). Based on this tests, the researcher has an idea on the direction his research will take. The research will compare two parameters, those who have slept for seven hours versus those who have slept for less than 7 hours. On the completion of the comparison, a researcher will then commence to compare the level of fatigue on the population under his research and come to his conclusion. Therefore there will be either a positive or negative correlation on his research. A positive co relation will show that 7 hours of sleep causes less fatigue and on the other hand less sleep.

In conclusion, each of the hypothesis above can be used to prove or disprove a claim, if one hypothesis does not work, the researcher has the option to use an alternative test.

                                                                  References

Aczel, B., Palfi, B., Szollosi, A., Kovacs, M., Szaszi, B., Szecsi, P., ... & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2018). Quantifying support for the null hypothesis in psychology: An empirical investigation. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 1(3), 357-366.

Kimmel, H. D. (1957). Three criteria for the use of one-tailed tests. Psychological Bulletin, 54(4), 351.

Lavidor, M., Weller, A., & Babkoff, H. (2003). How sleep is related to fatigue. British journal of health psychology, 8(1), 95-105.

Nickerson, R. S. (2000). Null hypothesis significance testing: a review of an old and continuing controversy. Psychological methods, 5(2), 241.

Pillemer, D. B. (1991). One-versus two-tailed hypothesis tests in contemporary educational research. Educational Researcher, 20(9), 13-17.

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