Free Statistics Help Book
An Interactive Multimedia introductory-level statistics book.
The book features interactive demos, simulations and case studies.
The book features interactive demos, simulations and case studies.
Case Studies :
Smiles and Leniency
Research conducted by: Marianne LaFrance and Marvin Hecht
Case study prepared by: David Lane
Overview
Dale Carnegie stated that smiling helps win friends and influence people. Research on the effects of smiling has backed this up and shown that a smiling person is judged to be more pleasant, attractive, sincere, sociable, and competent than a non-smiling person.
There is evidence that smiling can attenuate judgments of possible wrongdoing. This phenomenon termed the “smile-leniency effect” was the focus of a study by Marianne LaFrance & Marvin Hecht in 1995.
Questions to Answer
Does smiling increase leniency? Are different types of smiles differentially effective?
Design Issues
There was a single person used for all the conditions. This may limit the generalizeability of the results.
Descriptions of Variables
| Variable | Description |     |
| Smile | 1 is false smile 2 is felt smile 3 is miserable smile 4 is neutral control |
|
| Leniency | A measure of how lenient the judgments were. |
References
LaFrance, M., & Hecht, M. A. (1995) Why smiles generate leniency. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 207-214.
Links
Why Mona Lisa Smiled
Exercises
1. Create parallel boxplots for the four conditions.
2. Find the mean, median, standard deviation, and interquartile range for each group.
3. Create back-back stem and leaf displays for the false smile and neutral conditions (It may be hard to find a computer program to do this for you, so be prepared to do it by hand).
4. Compute a one-way ANOVA.
5. Use the Tukey test to compare each mean to each other mean.
6. Compare each mean to the neutral mean using Dunnett’s test.