Science of Psychology, Essay Example

Every company that makes a product claims to either be better than the rest, or a unique innovation. Every insecticide maker claims their product kills faster and lasts longer than their rivals. In order to test this hypothesis I would also look at alternative hypothesis that completely discounts the products all together. (Judea Pearl, 2000).

I would get two insect repellents of equal amounts e.g. 100ml. the experimental group will be an equal number of various species of insects which were breed together and of the same age. I would have a third group that would be the control group that would receive no exposure to the repellents. In the first experiment I would use a timer, a glass box and a camera to film the results. The containers would have a small space to let the air out and in. I would have a contraption that would release the repellent for an equal amount of time into each of the boxes.

The control would have nothing released into. A timer would be set to see how fast each repellent would take to kill the insects in each of the different experimental groups. That is flying insects would be treated separately from crawling insects. This is due to the difference in resilience e.g. a mosquito compared to a roach. The repellent being the independent variable the dependent variable would be how long would it take for the insects in each experimental group to die, how long it took and most importantly which repellent was most effective. The other experiment would involve mixing both insect groups and repeating the experiment to see if there is a difference when separate (insects) or when they are together.

Repellent packaging is often unique though the names would not be on the packages they will be of the rival repellent company that is being targeted. The repellents will have to be in packaging that is exactly the same. This would be the double blind of the experiment to give it authenticity and greater degree of scientific rigor. Neither the researchers nor the viewers of the experiment will know who the control group is or the experimental group is. Single blind is where the researcher knows which repellent is which. (Dodge, 2003)

This has a disadvantage of the researcher giving away subconscious queue to the audience. .(Dodge, 2003)The reason for doing this is to avoid observer bias, or conscious deception. A researcher’s cognitive bias which is a form of reactivity will unconsciously influence the audience via body language queues. (Yule, 1950)

Placebo effect or disambiguation is when the guinea pig believes the medication would have an effect this is a purely cognitive effect and not based on anything real.(Yule, 1950) It is simply because they believe. In this situation the control where nothing but water vapor is sprayed will be the placebo or disambiguation will be observed.

Correlation is a measure of a relationship between variables. The statement “that correlation is not causation” emphasizes that a relationship between two automatically one causes the other. For instance, does being in a loving relationship increase life span or is the inverse of the same. The number of variable precludes that this may not actually be the case either way. .(Yule, 1950)

What do we mean when we say there is a statistically “significant difference” between the two groups? This means there is a quantitatively large enough variance in the two groups from a mathematical stand point.(Dodge, 2003)

Works Cited

Judea Pearl,.(2000). Causality: “Models, Reasoning, and Inference,” Cambridge University Press.

Dodge, Y. (2003) The Oxford Dictionary of Statistical Terms, OUP.

Yule, G.U and Kendall, M.G. (1950), “An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics.” Cambridge University Press.