"When Physical Reality Is Unclear, Other People Become a Major

question 75

Essay

"When physical reality is unclear, other people become a major source of information." Is this statement supported by research? How might the Schachter-Singer experiment (in which subjects were injected with a stimulant or a placebo) or the Latane-Rodin bystander intervention experiment (in which subjects, alone or in pairs, heard a confederate "fall off a ladder") be used to support or disconfirm this statement?

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Definitions:

Alternative Hypotheses

The hypothesis that there is a significant difference between groups, counter to the null hypothesis.

Type II Error

A type of error that occurs when a statistical test fails to reject a false null hypothesis.

Null Hypothesis

A default hypothesis that there is no significant difference or relationship between specified populations, any observed effect is due to chance.

Hypothesis Testing

A statistical method used to determine if there is enough evidence in a sample of data to infer that a certain condition is true for the entire population.