Colin Has Always Heard the Saying "Blondes Have More Fun

question 42

Multiple Choice

Colin has always heard the saying "blondes have more fun" and he wants to see if it's true. He's not sure what "have more fun" means, so he just decides to find out if blondes are happier. He randomly samples blondes, brunettes, and redheads on his campus and administers a validated happiness scale to each. He conducts 3 separate independent samples t tests on the dependent variable of happiness. What did Colin do wrong?

• A) there is no need to conduct the t tests - he can simply compare the sample means of the three groups to see which ones are different
• B) a one-way ANOVA would have told him which pairs of means were significantly different.
• C) Conducting multiple t tests is inappropriate because it will inflate the risk of a Type I error beyond .05; he should have conducted an ANOVA and conducted appropriately adjusted post-hoc tests
• D) nothing; his procedure and analysis are correct

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Definitions:

Mitosis

A process of cell division that results in two genetically identical daughter cells from a single parent cell.

Meiosis

A form of cell division that reduces the number of chromosomes by half, creating four haploid cells, each genetically distinct from the parent and from each other.

Reproduction

The natural method through which offspring are generated from their progenitors.

Natural Selection

The process by which organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring, a fundamental concept in evolutionary biology.