I think nail biting/ smoking is linked to what occupations people have.
Hypothesis 1 – people who bite their nails/ smoke will score talking jobs higher than non-talking jobs.
Hypothesis 2 – people who do not smoke/ bite nails will score non-talkative jobs higher than talkative jobs.
These are both one tailed hypothesises.
I also think that the people who were orally fixated will give their jobs a high score because they will enjoy their job as it stimulates the lips.
Method
Our group was told that each individual was to go and find two people. We were to find one person who smoked or bit their nails. The other person was someone who didn’t smoke or bite his or her nails. We then had to ask the two people to rate their jobs out of 10, 1 meaning they disliked their job and 10 meaning they really enjoyed their job. These questions were specifically set so that it would help us to find all the
relative information to carry out the study. After this, the group then combined their results together. This was a good idea because it was easier and less time consuming. It was difficult to get people to participate but with all the results we got 30 people.
I recorded the results in the form of a table. After gathering the results together, we had to decide which jobs, from the results, involved a lot of talking and which did not. This was difficult as we all had different opinions on what jobs involved a lot of talking, since we all didn’t have any first hand experience on all the jobs. We then split them in to categories:
Smoking/ bite nails – talkative jobs less talkative jobs
Not smoke/ bite nails – talkative jobs less talkative jobs
We obtained average results from each of the categories and then compared the results from each category.
The two variables that I am investigating in the study are
1) The type of job the person has;
2) The enjoyment and satisfaction rating. This was measured as a score out of 10 being the highest rate of enjoyment.
Results
Table – scores
Smokes/ Bites nails Not smoke/ Bites nails
Average scores:
The table and graph show the results of the average scores given by the participants in each category.
From the results, I have found:
Hypothesis 1 – people who smoked or bit their nails scored their jobs exactly the same as the people who had non-talkative jobs, this means it does not support my first hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2 – people who did not smoke or bite their nails did score the non-talking jobs higher than the talking jobs, therefore it did fit my second hypothesis.
My first hypothesis was an example of a Null hypothesis, there was no significant different in scores for talking jobs to non-talking jobs for people who smoke or bite their nails.
My second hypothesis was an example of an alternate hypothesis because there was a difference between the scores of talking jobs to non-talking jobs for people who didn’t smoke or bite their nails.
Discussion
For my results, I found that people, who smoked or bit their nails, scored their jobs the same as the people who had non-talkative jobs. This shows that it did not make any difference whether they had a job that involved a lot or a little talking. This also means it does not support Freud’s theory. Freud said that people who were orally fixated would tend to have habits such as biting their nails or smoking and would therefore prefer jobs that would stimulate their lips. However my results show that the people who were ‘orally fixated’ who had non-talking jobs scored their jobs exactly the same. So either the people may have not been orally fixated or Freud’s theory on fixation is incorrect.
The people who did not bite nails or smoke scored non-talking jobs higher than the jobs that involved a lot of talking. This means it fits with my hypothesis. It also suggests that mainly, the people in this category were not orally fixated because they didn’t need to stimulate their lips.
There were some methodological problems in this investigation:
- Judgement relating to jobs whether they were talking or not talking jobs – other people may have had a different opinion to me.
- We have no first hand experience of the jobs therefore we cannot be completely sure if our judgements have been correct so the results may be inaccurate.
- Participant may not be telling the truth – demand characteristics. They could be saying what they think the experimenter wants to hear therefore rating it differently.
- Also it depends on the environment and what the participants are surrounded with (other people around them), they might lie about whether they smoke or bite their nails.
- Rate it higher – for their self-image, or to make it better than it really is.
- They may lie about what job they do or exaggerate, again because of their self image (to look bright and intelligent).
- People also rate satisfaction for their jobs differently, such as they might enjoy their job, however rate it according to the amount of money they earn form it (e.g. nurses, fire-fighters under paid).
- The variations of the different jobs. There are many different jobs, but there is only a small selection of jobs in our results. They do not represent all the jobs in the area.
- Small sample – their was only 30 people in our investigation. Also, the questionnaire was concentrated around the area where we lived near. The questionnaire did not cover a wide area. The results were not representative. We don’t know who all the people were (each individual needed only two people) so we didn’t know what backgrounds the participants came from (parents, ethnic origins etc). The people who were mainly asked were the student’s parents or people they knew very well, this did not represent the majority of the community so the results were not very representative. To make the sample more representative, we need a lot more people to question. We need to ask around a larger area and also people from various backgrounds.
There were other problems with the end results:
- How often do they smoke or bite their nails
- Whether they were fixated in the oral stage – they could be biting their nails or smoking not to stimulate their lips but because of anxiety.
- Eating, kissing, chewing etc also indicate oral fixation – these weren’t taken to account. The people who did not smoke may have been orally fixated in a different way. This has affected our results because we don’t have enough information to back our predictions.
- The people who said they don’t bite their nails or smoke may have done so in the past and recently given up. Does this mean they are still orally fixated? According to Freud this characteristic should persist through their whole life.
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Talking jobs may be more popular because individuals enjoy interacting with other people, in general, talking jobs more than non-talking jobs. The person may not necessarily have been fixated in the oral stage.