One of the examples in this chapter discussed unique invulnerability, the belief that people will provide estimates of age at time of death that are greater than the average life expectancy in the population. In a follow-up to this article, the author again demonstrated this phenomenon, this time recognizing the fact that the actuarial age of death for people with higher levels of education is actually older than 75 and may in fact be 83 (Snyder, 1997). The estimated age of death provided by these students is presented below:

Use the data from this class to test whether the unique invulnerability bias occurs for people with higher levels of education.

a. Calculate the mean and standard deviation of the estimates of age of death.

b. State the null and alternative hypotheses (H₀ and H₁) (allow for the possibility that the estimated age of death may be less than the actuarial age in the population).

c. Make a decision about the null hypothesis.
(1) Calculate the degrees of freedom (df).
(2) Set alpha (α), identify the critical values (draw the distribution), and state a decision rule.
(3) Calculate a statistic: t-test for one mean.
(4) Make a decision whether to reject the null hypothesis.
(5) Determine the level of significance.

d. Draw a conclusion from the analysis.

e. Relate the result of the analysis to the research hypothesis.

Transcribed Image Text:

Estimated Age of Estimated Age of Estimated Age of Student Death Student Death Student Death 1 80 7 96 13 102 2 94 8 88 14 80 3 82 9 106 15 85 4 84 10 82 16 90 5 88 11 85 17 89 6 85 12 102 #