This week there are two parts to your assignment: research question and identifying ethical violations.

Please submit both parts in a single Word document using the Assignment 1 title link above by the last day of Week 1.

Part 1) Research question – provide the research question you will be using for your final project. Look at the directions in the “Final Project Overview” about choosing a research question.

• What is the relationship between color and mood?
• What is the relationship of music and mood?
• What is the impact of smelling one food while tasting another food on a person’s ability to detect what the food really is?
• How does packaging affect consumer buying choices?
• How do people respond differently to the same questions asked by people wearing different clothes?
• Which memory techniques are most useful?Who are more superstitious, men or women?How do violent video games affect your blood pressure?

Take a look at this website for some helpful tips: http://prezi.com/7fwukfxvhe88/copy-of-writing-good-research-questions/ and this website: http://psychology.about.com/od/academicresources/a/social-psychology-research-topics.htm

Part 2) Identifying Ethical Violations

• Carefully study chapter 2 of your text.
• Identify at least 2 ethical violations in the following scenario.
• Explain each of the violations you find.
• How would your redesign this study to correct for these ethical violations for the violations you find?

Mark decided that participants in this study will not be at risk, and therefore, he didn’t bother the IRB with his proposal. His study investigates the amount of discomfort people are willing to put up with in order to earn a large sum of money. He recruits students by posting ads about a “contest in which you can earn $1000.” Everyone who shows up is told that they must do whatever he tells them to do for the next several hours and that the last person to comply will earn the money. He then makes the participants eat disgusting food combinations, rub permanent markers on their own faces, and mail insulting messages to their professors. After two hours he stops the “contest,” informs everyone that it was actually an experiment, and explains that there is no prize money. Before participants leave, he gets them to sign an informed consent form to acknowledge that they “were free to leave at any time.”