Instructions: Have you ever sat in a movie theater and seen a short public service announcement (or PSA) for the Will Rogers Institute? These PSAs typically ask moviegoers to donate to the Will Roger's Foundation, a charitable organization that provides medical aide to those suffering from lung or pulmonary issue, as well as other rehabilitation and medical education needs. If you have seen these PSAs, did you donate after seeing them in a theater? Would the number of people in the theater impact your willingness to donate?

Research on deindividuation suggests that people tend to lose both their self-awareness and their sense of evaluation apprehension when they are in a crowd. For example, this may lead normally law-abiding people to riot and loot when part of a large angry mob since they cannot be individually identified, and it might decrease their willingness to be pro-social since they may find similar anonymity in a large crowd. So how might deindividuation apply when it comes to move theater patrons who are watching a charitable PSA for the Will Rogers Institute?

Imagine we run a study to assess the role of deindividuation in a movie theater. In a prior study we give all participants a free movie ticket for them and a friend to attend a movie on a specific date. What they don't know is that the study isn't over yet! In fact, we alter the nature of the crowd in the theater they go to, with some participants (and their friend) finding themselves the only two people in the theater ("Mostly Empty" condition) or in a theater that is mostly full of moviegoers ("Mostly Full" condition). Before the movie begins, all attendees watch the same PSA from the Will Rogers Institute, and the researchers pass out a questionnaire to all patrons regarding the Institute. One question asks them to rate how willing they are to donate $10 to the Will Rogers institute on a scale that ranges from 0 (I am not willing donate) to 10 (I am very willing to donate). All questionnaires are collected before the movie begins.

The authors think that participants will be more likely to donate when they are easily identifiable as an individual rather than when they are one person in a large crowd. Thus, the authors predict that participants willbe more willing to donate when they are in a "Mostly Empty" theater than when they are in a "Mostly Full" theater.

Using this study set-up, answer the questions below

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

A. Whether the theater is Mostly Empty, Half Full, or Mostly Full

B. Whether the theater is Mostly Empty or Mostly Full

C. Ratings of how willing they are to donate money on a 0 (I am not willing to donate) to 10 (I am very willing to donate) scale

D. Ratings of how much money participants donate from $0 to $10

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 the theater is Mostly Empty, Half Full, or Mostly Full

B. Whether the theater is Mostly Empty or Mostly Full

C. Ratings of how willing they are to donate money on a 0 (I am not willing to donate) to 10 (I am very willing to donate) scale

D. Ratings of how much money participants donate from $0 to $10

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.

T-Test Group Statistics Theater Condition (1 = Mostly Std. Error Empty, 2 = Mostly Full) N Mean Std. Deviation Mean How willing are Mostly Empty 25 7.28 .980 .196 participants to donate? Mostly Full 25 6.48 823 .165Independent Samples Test Levene's Test for Equality of Variances t-test for Equality of Means F Sig. df Sig. (2-tailed) How willing are Equal variances assumed 486 .489 3.127 48 .003 participants to donate? Equal variances not 3.127 46.603 003 assumed