The US Tobacco Control Act restricts cigarette advertisers from explicitly stating that their product is less harmful than others. However, marketers use terms like “organic” or “natural” tobacco to give the impression that their product is less harmful. Nicotine & Tobacco Research (July 2019) presented the results of a designed study to investigate the use of this marketing tactic and the public’s perception of harm. One factor used in the study was the claim made in the printed advertisement for Natural American Spirit cigarettes. Five different ad claims were studied: (1) “organic,” (2) “natural,” (3) “additive-free,” (4) “light,” and (5) “regular.” A sample of 1114 US adults were randomly assigned to view one of the five cigarette advertisements. Each participant then responded to the statement: “Compared with other cigarettes, would you say the cigarettes you just saw are . . . ” The response options were a lot less harmful (coded as 1), a little less harmful (2), equally harmful (3), a little more harmful (4), and a lot more harmful (5). The researchers employed an analysis of variance to compare the mean perceived harm responses for the five ads.

a. Identify the experimental units for this study.

b. Identify the dependent variable for this study.

c. Identify the factor and factor levels for this study.

d. Write the null and alternative hypothesis tested with the ANOVA.

e. The ANOVA F-test was statistically significant (p-value 6 .01). Interpret this result, practically.