Study Interpretation (points vary by quest Dr. Davis is doing a study to investigate whether type of dress impacts observers' helping behavior. She sets up a situation on the steps of Skillman library in which a confederate experimenter falls down the stairs and drops her books. The confederate is a woman who is either professionally dressed (wearing dress pants, a silk shirt, and a suit jacket) or casually dressed (wearing leggings, a sweatshirt, and slippers). Participants were randomly assigned to witness either the professionally dressed person or the casually dressed person fall down the stairs. Dr. Davis then measures how quickly the surrounding observers help the confederate (seconds elapsed to first helping behavior with the fallen person), noting that lower numbers of seconds indicate quicker helping. She also measures the amount of helping behavior (number of books out of 10 that the participant picks up), noting that higher numbers of books indicate more helping. After the observation, Dr. Davis debriefs the participants, asks for their consent to include the prior observation in the study, and asks them a few screening questions (general mood, whether or not they already know the confederate, and general stress level). She eliminates data from anyone whose mood is exceptionally positive or negative (more than +/- 2 standard deviations from the overall mean mood level), anyone who reports knowing the confederate prior to the study, and anyone who is exceptionally stressed or relaxed (again, more than +/- 2 SDs from the overall mean stress level). Dr. Davis' experimental hypothesis is that (1) there will be no difference in amount of helping behavior (i.e., number of books) depending on how the confederate is dressed, but also that (2) the confederate who is professionally dressed will receive help more quickly than will the confederate who is casually dressed. Dr. Davis makes these predictions based on Darly & Latane's (1968) classic findings on the bystander effect showing that observers have to notice the incident, interpret it as needing help, and assume responsibility. Dr. Davis predicts that the professionally dressed person activates participants' concepts of responsibility, therefore eliciting more helping behavior from them. The table below shows the means from the study results. Differences that are NOT statistically significant are noted as ns, and statistically significant differences are noted with an asterisk (*) Seconds Elapsed to First Helping Behavior Professional Dress Casual Dress 3.3 * 15.1 Number of Books Picked Up Professional Dress Casual Dress 8.1 * 1.7