Imagine you read a social media post from Riley, a friend of yours who discussed an altercation she had with an employee at a local Publix Supermarket. In her post, Riley noted that she ordered a cake with a specific frosting-based message on it from the Publix bakery, but that the cake she received did not include the exact wording she ordered (She ordered a cake for her graduating boyfriend that was supposed to say "ConGRADulations Jeremy! Class of 2024". The bakery overlooked the pun-based "ConGRADulations" and wrote "Congratulations" instead, i.e. "Congratulations Jeremy! Class of 2023"). When Riley saw the cake, she screamed at the baker so loudly that Riley was asked to leave the store. While Riley discussed this same incident in all study conditions, her social media post ended in one of two different ways:

In the sincere apology condition, Riley ended her post with the following: "I just wanted to let everyone know that I am very sorry for my behavior. I should not have screamed like that for what was probably an innocent mistake on the part of the baker. #SorrySorry#Sorry."

In the insincere apology condition, Riley ended her post similarly, but the apology was clearly insincere ("I just wanted to let everyone know that I am very sorry for my behavior. I should not have screamed like that for what was probably an innocent mistake on the part of the baker. #SorryNotSorry. Ha!")

After participants read Riley's social media post, they rated the extent to which they agreed with the following statement: "The apology seemed truthful." They provided ratings on a scale that ranged from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).

You predict that participants in the sincere apology condition will more strongly agree that the apology is truthful than participants in the insincere apology conditions.

1). What is the independent variable in this study?

A.Whether participants read a social media post that ended with a sincere apology, an insincere apology, or no apology.

B. Whether participants read a social media post that ended with a sincere apology or an insincere apology.

C. Their agreement with the statement, "The apology seemed truthful" on a scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).

D. Whether Riley screamed at the Publix baker or did not scream at the Publix Baker

E. There is too little information in this study to determine the independent variable.

2). What is the dependent variable in this study?

A. Whether participants read a social media post that ended with a sincere apology, an insincere apology, or no apology.

B. Whether participants read a social media post that ended with a sincere apology or an insincere apology.

C. Their agreement with the statement, "The apology seemed truthful" on a scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).

D. Whether Riley screamed at the Publix baker or did not scream at the Publix Baker

E. There is too little information in this study to determine the dependent variable.

You run a t-Test on this data set and get the following SPSS output (note that I edited out some columns that you don't need for your write-up). Using this output, interpret the information.

Group Statistics Condition (1 Sincere, 2 = Insincere) N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean Riley's apology seemed truthful Sincere Insincere 20 4.30 1.129 20 2.40 1.142 .252 .255