Understanding the Research Process
PSY/300

Understanding the Research Process 1. What hypothesis did Medvec & Colleagues set out to test in their first study of the “near miss” phenomenon? Describe the theory associated with this hypothesis. • In the summer of 1992, Medvec &Colleagues set out to test satisfaction after the Olympics competition. Based on “if only thinking”, they wanted to know if the person who won third place would be less upset than the person who won the second place. The Olympic competition was recorded, giving the opportunity to watch on slow motion. With the slow motion strategy, they were able to observe facial reaction of the gold, silver and bronze medalists. • The Phenomenon “near miss” or theory that Medvec and Colleagues were associated, tested how a person could react, or feel after a situation is altered or any other situation occurs.

2. Identify the variables in the study and describe how they were measured. How did the researchers operationalize affective response upon winning a bronze or silver medal? • The measure used on this study was recorded on a tape from the moment the participants were on the stand to receive the mdeal. It seems there were two kind of settings, such as unplanned emotions and counterfactual thinking. Measuring the two variables provided an insight on how the competitors felt and reacted. How different the silver medalist felt and reacted from the bronze competitor.

3. Who were the participants in the study and what did they do? • The participants on the study were Olympic competitors from the Olympic Games in Spain in 1992. The competitors provided a research when a “near miss” happened. Medvec and Colleagues studied the reaction in a unbiased research study. 4. Describe the data that was collected and analyzed. • The video collected (data) showed competitors from the 1992 Olympic Games receiving gold, silver and bronze medal. The study was to research whether the silver medalist had a different reaction to the bronze medalist. The observations included expected and unplanned reactions from the medalists. In the study, showed that the bronze medalist seemed to be more satisfied than the silver medalist. 5. Describe the results of the study. What did the results concluded? • The group of participants that were task to observe the Master tapes, predicted that third place would be more likely happier than the second place. These predictions were based on asymmetric counterfactual comparison of each athlete. As predicted, the results showed that the bronze medalist seemed to be happier with the competition results than the silver medalist. 6. If you were to design a follow-up experiment on this subject, what might it be? • The participants’ competition category was swimming. If I had the opportunity to follow up an experiment on this subject, I would like to follow up running categories. The reason why, is because when watching on slow motion, you can observe many facial expression, especially on the last lap. When swimming you can’t actually pay too much attention to what is really going on because your head is underwater most of the time, but when running you clearly see what is happening in your surroundings. Sometimes in these kind of competition, you can see a runner taking the lead on the beginning of the race and keep the lead until almost the end. In a running race, we can observe what kind of strategy the runner is planning, by observing the speed, and when the runner started to increase the speed. Although, most likely there will be no expression when receiving gold, medal or silver. Is very possible that we can observe all kinds of expression minutes before finishing the race.

Reference

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Copyright 1995 by the American Psychology, Inc.

“When Less is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction Among Olympic Medalists” http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/keith.chen/negot.%20papers/MedvecMadeyGilovich_ContFactSatisf95.pdf