The “group total” wording is a bit trickier since the group totals would be higher than 10 to 30, so the “group average” makes more sense to include in study two).

After some feedback on the direction of study two, it looks like we are going to use Anchoring Heuristics (High versus Low) as our new independent variable for study two. That is, in some conditions we will tell participants that pilot study participants solved a high number of math problems (around 30) before moving onto other parts of the survey; in other conditions, we will tell them that pilot study participants solved a low number of math problems (around 10). I will refer to this independent variable as the Anchoring Condition.
We will continue to focus on the same Social Loafing manipulation from study one for our first independent variable, but we will only keep the “Individual Total” versus “Group Average” levels of that independent variable (We will drop the “Group Total)” condition. It overlapped with the “Group Average” condition in study one, so keeping both the “Group Average” and “Group Total” conditions is needlessly repetitive. The Group Average condition might be easier to use since we can note with the anchoring conditions that pilot study participants solved around 10 or 30 problems, hinting at an “average” 10 to 30. The “Group Total” wording is a bit trickier since the group totals would be higher than 10 to 30, so the “Group Average” makes more sense to include in study two). I’ll call this the Social Loafing Condition.
This design gives us a 2 (Social Loafing Condition: Individual Total versus Group Average) X 2 (Anchoring Condition: High versus Low) factorial design. That is, there will be four conditions:
Condition #1 – Individual Total and High Anchor
Condition #2 – Individual Total and Low Anchor
Condition #3 – Group Average and High Anchor
Condition #4 – Group Average and Low Anchor
As you begin writing your study two literature review for Paper III, keep this new “Anchoring” independent variable in mind. You’ll need to find prior research that looks at anchoring and use that literature to help support or justify your study predictions. Good keywords for PsycInfo might be “anchoring heuristics”, “heuristics”, “cognitive processing”, “focalism”, “anchoring and adjustment”, and the like. Keep in mind that the anchoring heuristic is one of many types of heuristics. For your Paper III, it might help to explore heuristics (and “human cognition”) in general and then narrow down towards the anchoring heuristic at the end of your Paper III.
For your hypotheses, remember that you will need to focus on both main effects (the effect of each independent variable on its own) and an interaction (the influence of both independent variables interacting together). Each of your scaled dependent variables—like “Total Math Score” or “I believe I completed more math problems than the average participant”, which is on a scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree)—will need its own main effect and interaction hypotheses. I’ll give you an example below looking at the dependent variable “Total Math Score”, but you will need to think about the three hypotheses (two main effects and one interaction) for your second dependent variable yourself.
1). Main Effect, Social Loafing Condition (Individual Total v. Group Average). DV = “Total Math Score”
“IF participants are told that their individual total score will be used to determine the “best performance”, THEN they will attempt to solve more math problems than participants who are told that their score will be combined with the scores of other participants as a group average score.”
(Note that this is similar to our study one prediction. The only thing that really differs is the lack of the “Group Total” condition. This prediction ONLY looks at the independent variable “Social Loafing Condition”)
2). Main Effect, Anchoring Condition (High v. Low). DV = “Total Math Score”
“IF participants are told that prior pilot study participants solved around 30 math problems, THEN they will attempt to solve more math problems than participants who are told that prior pilot study participants solved around 10 math problems.”
(Note#1: The reasoning behind this prediction is that participants should anchor their math problem completing around the anchor number. That is, participants in the low condition they may look at 10 as a good target and complete around the same number. Those with the high anchor should do the same using a target of around 30 problems.)
(Note #2: You will write your second literature review with this prediction in mind – find support to back it up! But again here, this prediction ONLY looks at the independent variable “Anchoring Condition”. If your review of the literature does not support this prediction, feel free to alter it, but you do need to justify why you think you might get your predicted outcome using prior studies in your second literature review).
3). Interaction, Social Loafing Condition (Individual Total v. Group Average) X Anchoring Condition (High v. Low). DV = “Total Math Score”
“IF participants are told that their individual total score will be used to determine the “best performance” and they are told that pilot study participants solved around 30 math problems (high anchor), THEN they will attempt to solve more math problems than any other condition, with those who are told that their score will be averaged with other group members and that pilot study participants solved around 10 math problems (low anchor) attempting to solve the fewest math problems. Participants in the group average and high anchor conditions and participants in the individual total and low anchor conditions should fall between these extremes.
(Note that you will need to also justify this interaction prediction in your literature review. If you disagree with the prediction, that is fine. You can alter it, but you do need to justify the predictions that you create given the new independent variable).
Keep in mind that each dependent variable you plan to look at in your study two will need three hypotheses (two main effects and one interaction hypothesis). You also want some overlap between study one and study two, so you might want to focus your predictions for study two on the samedependent variables you analyzed in study one.
Good luck as you work on Paper III.
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