TABLE 11-1
Psychologists Have Found That People Are Generally Reluctant

question 70

Multiple Choice

TABLE 11-1
Psychologists have found that people are generally reluctant to transmit bad news to their peers. This phenomenon has been termed the "MUM effect." To investigate the cause of the MUM effect, 40 undergraduates at Duke University participated in an experiment. Each subject was asked to administer an IQ test to another student and then provide the test taker with his or her percentile score. Unknown to the subject, the test taker was a bogus student who was working with the researchers. The experimenters manipulated two factors: subject visibility and success of test taker, each at two levels. Subject visibility was either visible or not visible to the test taker. Success of the test taker was either top 20% or bottom 20%. Ten subjects were randomly assigned to each of the 2 x 2 = 4 experimental conditions, then the time (in seconds) between the end of the test and the delivery of the percentile score from the subject to the test taker was measured. (This variable is called the latency to feedback.) The data were subjected to appropriate analyses with the following results.
$\begin{array}{lcrrrr}\text { Source } & d f & S S & \text { MS } & F & P R>F \\\hline \text { Subject visibility } & 1 & 1380.24 & 1380.24 & 4.26 & 0.043 \\\text { Test taker success } & 1 & 1325.16 & 1325.16 & 4.09 & 0.050 \\\text { Interaction } & 1 & 3385.80 & 3385.80 & 10.45 & 0.002 \\\text { Error } & 36 & 11,664.00 & 324.00 & & \\\text { Total } & 39 & 17,755.20 & & &\end{array}$

-Referring to Table 11-1, what type of experimental design was employed in this study?

• A) completely randomized design with 4 treatments
• B) 2 × 2 factorial design with 10 observations
• C) randomized block design with four treatments and 10 blocks
• D) none of the above

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Definitions:

Average Fixed Cost

The fixed costs of production (costs that don't change with the level of output) divided by the quantity of output produced.

Marginal Product

The additional output resulting from a one-unit increase in the input of a particular productive resource, holding all other inputs constant.

Average-Total-Cost

The cost per unit of output, calculated by dividing the total cost (fixed and variable costs) by the total quantity produced.

Marginal-Cost

The expense associated with producing one additional unit of a good or service, critical for decision-making in business and economic policy.