Answer to Question #193079 in Psychology for Eoghan Hallissey

Question

1.      Jacek is a psychology lecturer. As an experiment, he asks his class of 20 students to rate their preference of dogs or cats on along the following scale:

 

·      Much prefer dogs

·      Slightly prefer dogs

·      Slightly prefer cats

·      Much prefer cats

 

Jacek then breaks his class into two groups where Group A consists of all the people who prefer cats, and Group B consists of all the people who prefer dogs. Over the next three weeks, some class time is devoted to the groups discussing their preferred animal among themselves. By the end of the three weeks, what change (if any) might we expect to see in the group members’ preferences? Why?

Answer 1

By the end of the three weeks, we expect there to be a change in the way the numbers will be distributed among the choices in the scale. This is because, after the discussion, some students may realize that they had made a haste decision and they had not considered their choice objectively. Through the discussion, some people may even change positions concerning what animal they would prefer, depending on how the discussion would proceed.