Sei sulla pagina 1di 3

Shahan Ali Memon

samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
85-211 : Cognitive Psychology

1.

What has been found in the background literature


specifically, what is the topic to be tested? Give a brief summary.
The background research has found that noticeable endings trigger positive
attitudes. More specifically, the topic that is being tested is the effect of
salient endings on the attitudes of the people i.e. when people know
something is going to end, how their attitudes change for that thing. For
example, when students are graduating, they feel a greater affection to their
school.

2.

What are the authors hypotheses? What do the authors


predict the outcome(s) might be? If hypotheses are not stated,
explain specifically what is being tested in the study.
Authors hypothesis are that people might analyze every days last events
more positively when they are aware that those events are the last. The
authors predicted that when people know about the event being last, they
enjoy it more or generally have a positive experience. Not just that, the
authors also predicted that when the feeling of last is known, the whole
experience becomes enjoyable.

3.

What did the authors find? Briefly summarize the results.


The authors found that the participants when tested on the last condition
rated the last chocolate more enjoyable in comparison to the when they
tested on the next condition. Moreover, participants in the last condition
liked the last chocolate more than any other chocolate.

4.

What did the authors do? Briefly explain the method, naming
the independent and dependent variables (IV and DV). You must
explicitly state the variables. NOTE: Sometimes there are multiple
IVs and DVs.
The authors gave different flavored chocolates to participants and analyzed
the effect of different conditions on the participants. Each time a participant
would draw a chocolate from a hidden bag, an experimenter would say
Heres your next chocolate or that Heres your last chocolate The

Shahan Ali Memon


samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
85-211 : Cognitive Psychology

researchers then analyzed how the behavior of participants in different


conditions differed. They quantified this information by asking the
participants how enjoyable the chocolate was on a scale of 0-10. The
independent variable is the test position which is either next or last
whereas the dependent variable is the enjoyment level.
5.

Based on the results, what did the authors conclude? Did they
find support for their hypotheses?
The authors found support for their hypothesis, and concluded that the
salient-ness of the event creates a positivity bias for the end experiences.

6.

Critique the article discussing such things as: might there be


another explanation for the findings that the authors did not
consider? Were there any methodological flaws? Would you have
done anything differently? What might be done in a follow-up
study? Stating an increase in sample size (increase in the number of
participants) is not an acceptable answer for a follow-up study.
Though the authors try their best to avoid any outside factors to influence
their research, and though they mention in the discussion that the length of
the event could influence the positivity bias, I feel they miss out or neglect
on the context of the salient event i.e. they generalize their results to any
kind of last event which results in a confirmation bias. More concretely, there
could be events where their results might not be applicable. As an example,
recently I was part of Hackathon, and the last performance though
announced as and here comes the last presentation of today was criticized
the most. As a methodological correction, they should have analyzed this
experiment on different kinds of events.
As the authors mentioned, the follow-up study could be on why the
experiences get enhanced when their end is signaled. Alternatively, to
correct the methodological flaw, they could also look at the potential
boundaries where their result is not applicable.
References:

Shahan Ali Memon


samemon@andrew.cmu.edu
85-211 : Cognitive Psychology

OBrien, E. and Ellsworth, P.C. (2012). Saving the last for best: A positivity
bias for end experiences. Psychological Science, 23(2), 163-165.

Potrebbero piacerti anche