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Help with critical thinking/experimentation


StevenZoloft

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Hi all, I was just after a bit of assistance on an assignment. I am a first year university student, and still learning about critical thinking and testing hypothesis. I need to answer, among other things, whether this scenario can be tested:

Julie noticed that more people smile at her when she wears designer clothes.  She decided to test this hypothesis on her workmates.  One day, she wore a Stella McCartney dress to the office, and attended a departmental morning tea that was held to thank staff for contributing to the company’s increased sales.  As she mingled with the group, every workmate gave her a big, broad, genuine, smile.  At lunch time, she changed into a generic label dress.  Like the Stella McCartney dress, the generic dress was new, blue, and knee length.  She then attended a meeting with upper management to discuss ways to manage a budget shortfall that was due to her department’s overspending.  She smiled at every colleague who attended the meeting but not everyone smiled back, and she considered that the few smiles she received were only small and half-hearted.  She decided to explore further.  Noting that women who give TED talks tend to wear designer clothes more often than women who attend these presentations, she surveyed 10 female speakers and 10 female audience members during meet-and-greet sessions after the speakers’ talks.  She found that the women speakers who wore designer clothes reported receiving more smiles than did the women in the audience who were not wearing designer clothes.  She concluded that wearing designer clothes is the best way for all people to elicit smiles from others. 

I am not sure if it is possible to test the ''best'' way to make ''all'' people smile. But I think you could gather support for whether or not designer or non-designer clothes elicit more smiles from others. I do see that the conclusion does not follow logically from the results.

I was thinking obviously comparing data from a large random representative sample in various situations ( I am a little unsure how to control confounding variables?) could provide data supporting or rejecting the hypothesis of type of clothes and smiles. However, testing the best way to elicit smiles for all people seems like a very hard or impossible thing to do. 
Thanks for any guidance, I really appreciate it. I am really enjoying university so far.


 

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correct it is. I have thought about the sampled populations. Part of the assignment is to pick all the things wrong with it (a lot!) and the last aspect of the question was if it can be tested, how would you go about it. It is one of 3 scenarios I have to assess. 

I have not yet learnt about scientific experimentation. I have done a bit of reading about it, mainly double blind placebo testing. I am still learning about representative samples, randomizing and how everything goes together to test for specific cause and effect.

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