Jay's+design+Block+F+2011

Your nurse friend insists that men are less likely than women to wash their hands after using a public restroom. Is this belief just a myth?

HYPOTHESIS: Men are less likely than women to wash their hands after using a public restroom.

EXPERIMENT:

Independent variables: Ratio of gender (50:50), experiment environment (public restroom that ensures availability of soap, towel, clean water etc), ethnicity (Korean), age (10 years or older), given time in the restroom (unlimited), choice of deposit (urinal or fecal)

Dependent variable: washing of hands

Subjects will come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds (such as lower AND higher social status) In other words, random selection with equal numbers of males and females from the society is necessary.

The subject must not be aware that he/she is undergoing an experiment (hidden camera for accurate results), since that would change one’s normal behavior.

The restrooms must be empty of people other than the subjects, since watching other people wash hands might stimulate conformity.

The results will be collected and compared. Must seek to find if the difference in results, if one exists, is due to the independent variable and not to error or chance occurrence (see p.614 Appendix A of Introduction to Psychology 8e)

CRITIQUE: