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In class we ran a goal setting experiment. In this brief document, Ill explain how we design, run and

analyze social psychology experiments.

Our hypotheses

Following goal setting theory I expected 5 to be an easy goal, 9 to be a difficult goal and 16 to be an

impossible goal. And so I expected that 9 would be the highest performing group which would show

better results than the easy and do your best.

Running the experiment

1. 4 groups. All the materials of the 4 groups was exactly the same aside from one single factor

the goal we set.

a. The 5 goal got : It is important that you commit to a specific yet attainable goal. Your

goal is to create 5 words during the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters. This goal is

difficult, but realistic. In previous studies many students were able to create 5 or more

words per round using the same groups of letters you are about to see.

b. The 9 goal got : It is important that you commit to a specific yet attainable goal. Your

goal is to create 9 words during the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters. This goal is

difficult, but realistic. In previous studies many students were able to create 9 or more

words per round using the same groups of letters you are about to see.

c. The 16 goal got : It is important that you commit to a specific yet attainable goal. Your

goal is to create 16 words during the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters. This goal is

difficult, but realistic. In previous studies many students were able to create 16 or more

words per round using the same groups of letters you are about to see.

d. The do your best goal got : Do your best to create as many words as you can during

the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters on each page.

2. Students were randomly selected into one of the groups.

3. Controlling the differences : The same instructions were given to all groups. The same time was

given to all groups.

Why is this an experiment?

Since the allocation was random and all other factors aside from the goal manipulation were exactly the

same, any differences in performance should be attributed to the manipulation. We consider personal

differences in intelligence and cognitive abilities as random noise that should be factored out when

we average the individual participants in the group.

Checking the data

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Although we did a very brief check in class to see what the results were, the data needs to be checked

using the following steps:

1. A person who is not familiar with the hypotheses (with the expected results) needs to code the

data. This is to avoid any bias in coding the results.

2. While coding, need to ignore made-up words, repetitions. Objective data only. This is why we

sometimes use two coders in order to make sure the deletion isnt biased in some way

The coded data looks like this (99 in this case is do your best) :

target round 1 round 2 round 3

16 2 2 2

16 3 3 5

9 2 3 3

16 5 2 7

16 4 4 6

99 3 3 3

9 3 3 4

5 1 4 2

5 3 5 3

99 6 6 6

16 4 2 4

99 1 3 3

16 2 5 4

16 2 3 4

5 2 3 2

9 2 3 3

5 1 1 3

9 2 2 1

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target round 1 round 2 round 3

9 4 5 3

99 3 7 5

5 5 3 1

16 7 0 5

5 3 4 3

5 2 2 1

9 5 7 6

99 3 3 6

9 3 4 4

9 2 3 1

99 2 0 3

99 3 3 3

5 2 3 3

16 2 2 4

9 1 1 1

99 2 1 3

5 4 5 3

9 4 0 3

16 2 7 3

99 2 3 5

9 3 2 2

5 2 5 4

5 2 5 3

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Analyzing the data

We use a statistical software. I use SPSS20.

To see what the average is for each group in each of the round and to compare the groups in order to

see whether there are significant differences I run a statistical test calledone-way ANOVA.

For this experiment, I mainly care about round 1 and round 3.

The result looks something like this :

Oneway

Descriptives

N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Minimum Maximum

Round 1

Goal is 5 11 2.4545 1.21356 .36590 1.00 5.00

Goal is 9 11 2.8182 1.16775 .35209 1.00 5.00

Goal is 16 10 3.3000 1.70294 .53852 2.00 7.00

Do your best 9 2.7778 1.39443 .46481 1.00 6.00

Total 41 2.8293 1.35835 .21214 1.00 7.00

Round 3

Goal is 5 11 2.5455 .93420 .28167 1.00 4.00

Goal is 9 11 2.8182 1.53741 .46355 1.00 6.00

Goal is 16 10 4.4000 1.42984 .45216 2.00 7.00

Do your best 9 4.1111 1.36423 .45474 3.00 6.00

Total 41 3.4146 1.51617 .23679 1.00 7.00

ANOVA

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Round 1

Between Groups 3.786 3 1.262 .667 .578

Within Groups 70.019 37 1.892

Total 73.805 40

Round 3

Between Groups 26.299 3 8.766 4.940 .006

Within Groups 65.653 37 1.774

Total 91.951 40

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Means Plots

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The results

These results are actually very interesting.

For round one, the differences are not significant. It means that whatever differences you see,

they could be attributed to random chance. Still, theres an interesting pattern showing that

goal 16 is the highest. The groups performed much better in round 3 compared to round 1.

o A possible explanation : Round 1 is a trial test to get participants to become familiar

with the task.

For round 3, the differences between the groups are significant. This means that the differences

we see in the plot for round 3 are not random. The pattern shows that the conditions of goal 16

and do your best outperformed goal 5 and goal 9. The highest performing seemed to be the

goal 16 group.

Possible implications

It could be that the goal 16 didnt seem impossible to those who got it and that it created a strong

motivation. Perhaps an impossible goal could have been 50. In this experiment it seemed that setting a

goal that was too easy too away motivation more than a high goal gave motivation because we see the

goal 5 and the goal 9 as clearly being lower than do your best.

This means that for future experiments we should consider changing the following:

1. Changing the conditions to : goal 5 (easy), goal 16 (difficult but perceived achievable), goal 50

(impossible), and do your best (control condition).

2. Running more than 3 rounds. We saw that it could take time for people to get used to the the

task.

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

Word Creation Exercise

Your task is to create words using the seven letters listed at the top of each page. Eachword must be an English word, two or more letters long, other than a proper noun, made

by using each of the 7 letters only once per word, and used in only one form.

On each page, you will have one minute to create your words. Write your words in the

spaces provided.

SAMPLE LETTERS

AEDBKUG

Possible words: bad, bed, bag, beg, bug, bade, bake, bead, dug, duke, keg

It is important that you commit to a specific yet attainable goal. Your goal is to create 9

words during the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters. This goal is difficult, but

realistic. In previous studies many students were able to create 9 or more words per

round using the same groups of letters you are about to see.

Do not turn the page until you are instructed to do so.

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OELHMAZ

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________6. ___________________7. ___________________8.

___________________

9. ______________________________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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UADQWER

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________6. ___________________7. ___________________8.

___________________

9. ______________________________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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OADMHUP

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________6. ___________________7. ___________________8.

___________________

9. ______________________________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

Word Creation Exercise

Your task is to create words using the seven letters listed at the top of each page. Eachword must be an English word, two or more letters long, other than a proper noun, made

by using each of the 7 letters only once per word, and used in only one form.

On each page, you will have one minute to create your words. Write your words in the

spaces provided.

SAMPLE LETTERS

AEDBKUG

Possible words: bad, bed, bag, beg, bug, bade, bake, bead, dug, duke, keg

It is important that you commit to a specific yet attainable goal. Your goal is to create 5

words during the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters. This goal is difficult, but

realistic. In previous studies many students were able to create 5 or more words per

round using the same groups of letters you are about to see.

Do not turn the page until you are instructed to do so.

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OELHMAZ

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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UADQWER

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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OADMHUP

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

Word Creation Exercise

Your task is to create words using the seven letters listed at the top of each page. Eachword must be an English word, two or more letters long, other than a proper noun, made

by using each of the 7 letters only once per word, and used in only one form.

On each page, you will have one minute to create your words. Write your words in the

spaces provided.

SAMPLE LETTERS

AEDBKUG

Possible words: bad, bed, bag, beg, bug, bade, bake, bead, dug, duke, keg

Do your best to create as many words as you can during the allotted 1 minute using the 7letters on each page.

Do not turn the page until you are instructed to do so.

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OELHMAZ

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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UADQWER

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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OADMHUP

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

___________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

Word Creation Exercise

Your task is to create words using the seven letters listed at the top of each page. Eachword must be an English word, two or more letters long, other than a proper noun, made

by using each of the 7 letters only once per word, and used in only one form.

On each page, you will have one minute to create your words. Write your words in the

spaces provided.

SAMPLE LETTERS

AEDBKUG

Possible words: bad, bed, bag, beg, bug, bade, bake, bead, dug, duke, keg

It is important that you commit to a specific yet attainable goal. Your goal is to create 16

words during the allotted 1 minute using the 7 letters. This goal is difficult, but

realistic. In previous studies many students were able to create 16 or more words per

round using the same groups of letters you are about to see.

Do not turn the page until you are instructed to do so.

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OELHMAZ

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________6. ___________________7. ___________________8.

___________________

9. ___________________10.___________________11.___________________12.___________________13.___________________14.___________________15.___________________16.___________________

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UADQWER

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________6. ___________________7. ___________________8.

___________________

9. ___________________10.___________________11.___________________12.___________________13.___________________14.___________________15.___________________16.___________________

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OADMHUP

1. ___________________2. ___________________3. ___________________4. ___________________5. ___________________6. ___________________7. ___________________8.

___________________

9. ___________________10.___________________11.___________________12.___________________13.___________________14.___________________15.___________________16.___________________

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Name : _______________ Student ID : ________________

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