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PSYC2012 - PSYCHOLOGY: AN EVIDENCE-BASED APPROACH 2

ASSESSMENT 2: Data Analysis Assignment

            You have been provided with the data for this assignment as an SPSS file. The data file has been provided with generic variable names (V1, V2, etc.), which you should change. You will need to provide more detailed VARIABLE LABELS and VALUE LABELS in the data file.

            The hypothetical study examines the relationship between body mass index (BMI), sex, and different measures of response inhibition, delay of gratification, and positive/negative affect. The researchers recruited 120 adults and recorded their sex (V1: 1 = female; 2 = male) and BMI (V2: 1 = underweight; 2 = normal; 3 = overweight). Participants reported their level of hunger (V3) – at the start of the study – on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = “not hungry at all” to 9 = “extremely hungry”.

Participants then completed a range of self-report measures:

·         Kirby Monetary Choice Questionnaire: 27 items, each presenting two choices: either an immediate reward (e.g., “$55 today”) or a larger delayed reward (e.g., “$75 in 61 days”). The higher the overall score (V4), the more likely is the person to choose the smaller, immediate rewards.

·         Brief Sensation Seeking Scale: 8 items, scored on a Likert scale from 1 = “strongly disagree” to 5 = “strongly agree”. Example item: “I like wild parties”. The higher the overall score (V5), the more likely is the person to seek novel and stimulating experiences.

·         The Tightwad-Spendthrift Scale: 4 items, scored using either a 1-11 (item no.1) or 1-5 (items 2-4) ratings. The higher the score (V8), the more difficultly people have in controlling their spending. Tightwads (i.e., those with low scores), on the other hand, tend to become anxious and experience pain when they have to spend money.

·         The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule – Expanded form (PANAS-X): Participants are presented with a list of 60 adjectives (e.g., confident, joyful, upset, angry), and are asked to indicate the degree to which they feel each of these positive and negative emotional states in general. Items are scored on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = “very slightly or not at all” to 5 = “extremely”. V9 includes positive and V10 negative affect scores. High scores on V9 and V10 represent high levels of positive and negative affect, respectively.

Finally, participants completed a Go/No-Go task, which measures inhibitory control. A Go/No-Go task presents two stimuli; one is a “go” target to which participants are instructed to respond as fast as they can (e.g., by pressing spacebar on a keyboard), and the other is a “no-go” target to which one must withhold responses. Failure to withhold responses to no-go targets is known as a commission error. The lower the commission error, the better is the inhibitory control. The current study used happy and sad faces as the stimuli. In the first half of the task, happy faces were the go and sad faces were the no-go targets. In the second half, the sad faces became the go while the happy faces were the no-go targets. Previous literature suggests those with reduced inhibitory control find it more difficult to resist responding to happy than sad faces. V6 represents commission errors to happy no-go targets, and V7 commission errors to sad no-go targets.