Tendencies of the Human Mind: The Human Psyche

Overview

Objectives/Goals Due to psychological implications, one would tend to assume that there are vast differences in the views/perspectives of individuals, shaped by external influences such as religion, media, political influences, and cultural influences. The understanding of these trends of influence aids the understanding of the human psyche, and how certain decisions are made in context of these external influences. Consider the situations of pedophiles, terrorists, delinquent children, and "school bullies," for example, to address the "immoral" extremity of this spectrum of human characteristics. The purpose of this project is to address the concept of bias, stereotype, and to highlight the influence certain forms of media/propaganda have on the individual. These influences may lead to a statistically significant bias in the total population, and thus reveal the undeniable influence external sources have on the individual. One formulates ideas through these influences and thus is compelled by these sometimes subtle forces to act/react to certain situations/dilemmas in utterly arbitrary ways. This tendency of the individual to make arbitrary decisions is the focus of my project, as it first gathers information on these decisions, and then analyzes the significance of the gathered information. Methods/Materials Ti-83 Calculator Surveys to be distributed P-value table for Chi-squared test Chi-Squared formula Results All 4 tests reveal statistically significant results with all p-values less than .25, three p-values under .15, and one p-value less than .05. Thus, significant results were calculated at the end of the experiment. Conclusions/Discussion There is significant evidence to confirm the notion that the population's views are biased. There are two sides of a spectrum concerning these issues typically, and though these procedures are always subject to human error, by assuming our .5 p-value as our basis of comparison, I have calculated a statistically significant discrepancy between the recorded values and the expected proportion. Thus one is left to conclude that due to the basis of comparison being severely deviated from, the experiment has revealed there are significant psychological and behavioral implications at hand. From this experiment, one has merely deduced evidence of the existence of such biases. It is up to inference as to determining from where these biases arose.

Competition history

• CSEF 2004 Behavioral Sciences · Entry S0307

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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