A replication of the matching hypothesis theory

Replication of the Matching

Hypothesis Theory

Project Brief

PB1

The aim of our study was to test the matching hypothesis. My alternative hypothesis was "there will be a significant positive correlation between the rated physical attractiveness in brides and grooms in newly married couples".

PB2

This is a one tailed directional hypothesis. This is because we are expecting a positive correlation on the basis of previous research.

PB3

It is a non-experimental correlational study.

PB4

There are both advantages and disadvantages of a correlational study. The main advantage is they show the relationship between naturally occurring variables. The disadvantage is that they have no cause and effect, as they are correlational.

PB5 / 6

We tested all of the participants in our study separately as we thought that they would conform if they were tested as a group. To reduce the amount of demand characteristics we tried to make all of our photographs colour and of similar quality.

Belle of the Ball

Attractiveness by Origin

English: Archeological museum, Aquileia. Funeral s...

This was aimed to try and stop participants trying to match the pictures together by the looking at their quality For example, if there were two pictures that were black and white, then the participants may rate them equally as the think this is what they should do.

PB7

We have chosen a 5% level of significance for our data.

PB8

The main ethical concern with our study is that there isn't an informed consent, as we had to use deception. This was overcome by giving a full debriefing afterwards. Another ethical issue was confidentiality. To maintain this we didn't record any of our participant's names. We had to make sure that all of our participants were fully aware of their right to withdraw. We informed them before we started the study in our standardised procedures

Abstract

In this report I will...