Date of Award

January 2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Heather Terrell

Abstract

An experiment was performed to assess the efficacy of Post-experimental Inquiry (PEI) questions. Experiments involving deception assume participant naiveté to the study protocol. The present study implemented a PEI to assess the influence of an ethnic prime on stereotyped attitudes in order to assess PEI accuracy. A confederate (posting as another participant) additionally informed some participants as to the true purpose of the study, a violation of study integrity. The PEI was used to assess accuracy in two ways: awareness of the study hypotheses and admission to receiving information. The PEI was itself manipulated in one of two ways; the introduction of a descriptive norm paragraph (vs. control) and default option swapped (vs. control). Participants informed of the study hypothesis reported higher awareness and admitted more information. The norm prime and default option swapped conditions did not increase PEI accuracy. The implications for PEI accuracy are discussed.

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