Sharma wrote a paper suggesting disgust and fear are closely related. Sharma observed many patients postpone or avoid a simple blood test, and was unsure whether this was due to the test being painful or whether it just felt "icky". Sharma wrote that fear and disgust are both one of the five basic universal emotions, found in all cultures and societies as it is essential for survival, fear tells us to run and disgust tells us to avoid contact. However, Sharma says that some people with the phobias of spiders or insects have greater disgust sensitivity. Disgust sensitivity is a term used to describe a person who finds things disgusting easier and quicker than the majority of other people.
From the research by Bennett-Levy and Marteau, a questionnaire was made in order to be able to see the correlation between fear/deadliness and how disgusting the animal is.
Aim:
To see whether there is a positive correlation between animal characteristics and how fearful an animal is, by replicating the work of Bennett-Levy and Marteau.
Alternative Hypotheses:
- Participants will give an animal a higher fear rating if they think it is extremely likely to bite a person.
- Participants will give an animal a higher fear rating if they think it is extremely ugly.
- Participants will give an animal a higher fear rating if they think it has a strange texture.
Null Hypotheses:
- Participants will not give an animal a higher fear rating if they think it is extremely likely to bite a person.
- Participants will not give an animal a higher fear rating if they think it is extremely ugly.
- Participants will not give an animal a higher fear rating if they think it has a strange texture.
Method
Design:
The type of design used for this experiment was a correlational design. Correlation measures the relationship between 2 variables to see if there is a trend or a systematic pattern. This was appropriate to use as it has high ecological and external validity. Also, the researcher could use the results to make further predictions. A limitation of using a correlational design is that it doesn’t ask people for the reason behind their (1-5) responses. As the experiment was only done once, there is some probability that the experiment results could have just occurred by chance. However, this was overcome by using the statistical tests to make sure the correlations were highly significant.
Participants:
The researchers used an opportunity sample of the population of Barnet College. This was used as it takes little time, and therefore would not cost a lot of money. One limitation of using an opportunity sample is it can produce a biased sample as you are only choosing people who happen to be around at that time. The researchers in this study asked people to be participants in the college, therefore only mainly using 16-19 year olds. This was important as according to the British Psychological Society ethical guidelines, it is against the rules to use participants under the age of 16 years old without consent. Another limitation is mainly only extraverted people will consent to taking part. Having an extraverted characteristic, could be an extraneous variable that may affect the results. The concern with having participants of different ethnicities is not knowing each participants’ level of English language communication, as having a better understanding of the English language could give a participant an unfair advantage. However, as all the participants were from Barnet College, their literacy abilities were known to be at similar levels.
Apparatus:
- Textbooks, used for doing research
- Internet, used for doing research and finding photos on Google images
- Microsoft Software
- Stationary, such as paper, pens, stapler, and printer
- Participants
- Questionnaire (refer to appendix)
Procedure:
The researchers first designed a questionnaire, which was used in a pilot study. As a group, 40 animals were brainstormed, some usually considered scary and others considered harmless. 20 animals were randomly selected from these by writing the names of the animals on pieces of paper and picking 20 of them out of a hat. Picking the animals randomly was important as there will be no personal bias, as each individual has their own opinion of what is scary and what is not. Three variables were chosen to correlate with fear. The variables were chosen so the researchers would be able to make more than one hypothesis.
Psychological concerns: The researchers have to operationalise the variables so participants with no knowledge of psychology could understand. The choice to operationalise the variables was made by making the questions closed so it would be quicker for the participant to answer and easier to analyse the data quantitatively. The questionnaire was typed up on a computer using a common font, so that it would be easy to read. The questionnaire was kept to a maximum of two pages to encourage the participant to complete the survey to the end. The rating scale for each variant was chosen for two reasons. The first reason is that the rating scale had five choices instead of seven or more, which kept it reasonably simple for the participant to choose from. The second reason is that five is an odd number, allowing participants to choose a neutral answer. A midway point gives participants who are unsure an option they can use without feeling pressured, however, demand characteristics may make people choose the midway point just because they are bored. Next to each animal, a photo of the animal was chosen in case the participant did not know the animal by its name. The researchers did not include any scary or gross photos, such as attack photos or animals with faeces.
Ethical concerns: The researchers could not collect data concerning the name of the participant for confidentiality; however, gender, age, and ethnicity can be collected. Gender was collected to see whether males and females have different opinions on what is scary. Males generally like to keep up a “macho figure”, whereas females generally do not mind telling people they are scared. Age was collected to ensure that participants were older than sixteen, as for participants less than sixteen; consent from a parent/guardian would be needed for ethical reasons. Along with the questionnaire, standardised instructions were also written so each participant would be treated the same way, so there would be no confounding variables. Having standardised instructions also makes sure the researcher does not forget to tell the participant of the ethical comments/questions, such as the right to withdraw and asking for consent.
After the researchers had made the questionnaire and written the standardised instructions, each researcher was able to go and find participants using an opportunity sample.
The researchers went up to a person in the college grounds, and read out the standardised instructions. If the person consented, their answers were used as part of the results.
After completing the pilot study and changing the problems found in the questionnaire, the researchers were able to execute the actual study by the same method.
Results:
This section of the coursework contains scatter graphs correlating the different variables with fear and the significance results from the Spearman’s Rho test.
“Is it likely to bite you?” mean response
From the graph above, correlating fear (Y) and if it is likely to bite you (X), a positive correlation can be seen. These results indicate that the alternative hypothesis was correct. The animal which had the highest rating for both fear and whether the animal is likely to bite you was the crocodile.
“Is it ugly? E.g. is the animal unpleasant to look at” mean response
From the graph above, correlating fear (Y) and ugliness (X), a positive correlation can be seen. These results indicate that alternative hypothesis two was correct. The animal with the highest fear rating, and a significantly high variable rating was the crocodile. The animal with the highest variable rating, and a significantly high fear rating was the scorpion.
“Are you scared because it has a strange texture? E.g. soft, slimey etc” mean response
From the graph above, correlating fear (Y) and scared due to strange texture (X), a positive correlation can be seen. These results indicate that alternative hypothesis three was correct. The animal which had the highest rating for both fear and whether the animal has a strange texture was the crocodile.
As all three graphs showed a positive correlation, a spearman’s rho test was done to find which of the variables were the most significant.
Spearman’s Rho:
The significance level, P< 0.005, was chosen because this is a common significance level in psychology, and it means we can be certain of the significance of the results. From the data in the table above, it can be seen that the variable with the highest significance level is “likelihood of being bitten” with an observed value of 0.73 and the one with the least significance level with an observed value of 0.62 is the variable ugly. From this we can conclude from the three hypotheses that the most important factor in fear of an animal, of the ones studied, is the perceived likelihood of being bitten.
The Spearman’s rho was chosen as it is a measure of the linear relationship between two variables. This means the distances between scale points are the same, i.e. the difference of opinion between choosing 1 and 2 is the same as the difference between choosing 2 and 3. This was chosen due to the data being an interval measure.
Discussion:
The relationship between “likeliness to bit you” and fear was found to be significant (Rs = 0.57, P< 0.005) demonstrating a strong positive correlation between these two variables. From these results, it was the first alternative hypothesis which was correct, and the first null hypothesis was incorrect.
The relationship between “Is it ugly?” and fear was found to be significant (Rs = 0.57, P< 0.005) demonstrating a strong positive correlation between these two variables. From these results, it was the second alternative hypothesis which was correct, and the second null hypothesis was incorrect.
The relationship between “Are you scared because it has a strange texture?” and fear was found to be significant (Rs = 0.57, P< 0.005) demonstrating a strong positive correlation between these two variables. From these results, it was the third alternative hypothesis which was correct, and the third null hypothesis was incorrect.
Due to the significance level being 0.005, this means there is only a 0.5% chance that the results are due to chance; therefore I can conclude that the reliability is significantly high
However, it is difficult to know the reliability of the results, due to not looking in detail about ethnicity. This can be a problem as if they lived in a different country; they may be used to different animals than participants in the United Kingdom, e.g. for someone living in the United Kingdom a spider may not scare them, whereas in Africa the spiders can be poisonous, therefore may scare Africans more.
The results found by the researcher are highly similar to the results found in the background research being: Bennett-Levy and Marteau showed there is a strong correlation between fear of small harmless animals and an animals' appearance, therefore showing that my alternative hypothesis are correct. All three hypothesises were correct due to there being positive correlations and a significant amount of the observed value.
A limitation of the experiment done was the participant sample did not represent the entire population, due to the participants being all college students, mostly of the same age, made the experiment lack ecological validity. A possible modification could be to either find participants using an opportunity sample at a place where different aged people go, such as, in a shopping centre on Saturday. Another alternative could be to use a different sampling method altogether, such as a quota sample.
A limitation of the questionnaire is it cannot be done by illiterate people. Although there were photos to show which animal was which, the numbers may have confused some less educated individuals. A possible modification could be that a computer oral programme where the questions are said out loud, and the participant clicks on the suitable smiley face.
Further research for this experiment by could be to increase participant sample, as the sample used for this experiment was only 30, which is relatively small. Further research could also be done by doing a cross cultural study, using the same method at the present study.
A suggestion for further research on this topic, being a correlation between fear and appearance, could be to see if a possibility as to why children bully other children who look different, such as wearing braces on teeth, could be because they are scared of them. This research could dramatically help children who are bullies, as instead of punishing them, they could receive counselling. Due to the relationship between “Is it ugly?” and fear was found in this study to be significant (Rs = 0.57, P< 0.005) demonstrating a strong positive correlation between these two variables, it is significantly likely that similar results may be recorded from the idea of finding a correlation between fear and whether a person looks different.
Conclusion:
After replicating the study, originally done by Bennett-Levy and Marteau, the results found were the same. This supports the conclusion that there is a strong correlation between fear of animals and an animals’ appearance.
References:
Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
What aspects of animals are humans prepared to fear?
Key Studies in Psychology
Richard D Gross
Hodder and Stoughton
First Published in 1990
Seligman (1971)
Key Studies in Psychology
Richard D Gross
Hodder and Stoughton
First Published in 1990
Watson and Rayner (1920)
Key Studies in Psychology
Richard D Gross
Hodder and Stoughton
First Published in 1990
Sigmund Freud
Key Studies in Psychology
Richard D Gross
Hodder and Stoughton
First Published in 1990
Seligman (1971)
Key Studies in Psychology
Richard D Gross
Hodder and Stoughton
First Published in 1990
Ohman et al
Key Studies in Psychology
Richard D Gross
Hodder and Stoughton
First Published in 1990
Tomarken et al (1989)
Research into cognitive explanation of phobias
Michael W. Eynsenck and Clara Flanagan (2001)
“ Psychology for A2 level” Psychology Press
Vijai P. Sharma, PhD
Copyright 2000, Mind Publications
Appendices:
Standardised Instructions:
“Hello, may I have a moment of your time?”
If they say no: “Have a good day”.
If they say yes:
“We are conducting a questionnaire for a piece of psychology coursework. Your identity and answers will remain confidential and you have the right to withdraw at any time. Do you consent?”
If they say no: “Thank-you for listening, have a good day.”
If they say yes: “Please can you fill in this questionnaire” *hands questionnaire to participant*.
After the participant has finished, we debrief the participants by saying:
“We asked you to complete a questionnaire as we are studying animal phobias in psychology class. We are trying to find a correlation between the way an animal looks and whether a person finds it scary. Do you have any other questions you would like to ask?”
If they say yes: *answer questions, remember to be polite and patient*
If they say no: “Thank you so much for your time. Have a nice day”.