Media Biased Change in Beliefs or Opinions
Description
DESCRIPTION: Test the hypothesis that media information has immediate and delayed effect on peoples per-existing opinion. Data collected from 91 students giving opinion on 6 health related questions before and after, as well as one week after, watching a recorded TV interview with a cardiac surgeon. The opinion of the surgeon is very biased. The number of YES (agree with health related statement) increased statistically significantly immediately after and remained statistically elevated even one week after as based on a one sample t-test, reference mean value 0. While the change in the number of YES was elevated one week later, it tended to decrease in contrast to immediately after, which may indicate a dissipation in the learned/biased information.
Files
Steps to reproduce
Present subjects with 6-10 health related questions, such as: "Vaccination is safe." Present a video that argues against your statements (in fact you choose the statements from the video/TV interview or documentary by formulating the opposite (!) statements that you hear in the video). Assess opinions about the statements at three times: 1. before presenting the video 2. immediately after presenting the video 3. one week after the presentation of the video Measure the change in the number of YES or NO Calculate change scores vis-a-vis own opinion (baseline) Analyze change scores with one sample t-test, change from zero (hypothesis: the change in YES or NO answers is greater than zero)