Case Study

Explain why the researcher's conclusion about the lack of an effect of disgust is premature. How does understanding the interaction effect between disgust and private body consciousness clarify what is actually occurring in the data, and what analytical approach should they use to show this?

Case context: A student researcher is conducting a study on the relationship between ambient environment and decision-making. They replicate the factorial setup of Schnall and colleagues by assigning participants to either a clean room or a messy room, and measuring their private body consciousness (categorized as high or low). When analyzing the overall main effect of the room condition, the researcher finds no significant differences in moral judgments between the clean and messy rooms, and is tempted to conclude that disgust does not influence moral judgment.

Question: Explain why the researcher's conclusion about the lack of an effect of disgust is premature. How does understanding the interaction effect between disgust and private body consciousness clarify what is actually occurring in the data, and what analytical approach should they use to show this?

Sample answer: The researcher's conclusion is premature because it only considers the overall main effect of disgust, which averages across both high and low levels of private body consciousness. Because the disgust manipulation only affects moral judgments for participants with high private body consciousness and has no effect on those with low private body consciousness, these opposing outcomes cancel each other out in the overall average. By examining the interaction effect using simple effects analyses, the researcher can demonstrate that disgust does have an effect, but that its effect depends on the participant's level of body consciousness.

Key points:

  • The overall main effect averages across all participants, which can mask subgroup differences.
  • The effect of disgust depends on private body consciousness (an interaction effect).
  • The lack of effect in the low body consciousness group cancels out the significant effect in the high body consciousness group.
  • Simple effects analyses should be used to examine the impact of disgust at each level of body consciousness.

Rubric: The response must explain: 1) The overall main effect of disgust averages across all levels of body consciousness. 2) The effect of disgust in the high body consciousness group is masked/canceled out by the lack of effect in the low body consciousness group. 3) The researcher needs to conduct simple effects analyses to examine the effect of disgust at each individual level of private body consciousness.

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Updated 2026-05-27

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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU

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