From these lists, eight participants will be sent invitations to participate in the study. Each time one of these participants declines to participate, an additional individual from that category will be randomly selected and invited to participate. This will continue until a sample size of 30 has been achieved. Participants will be invited to visit the lab, where they will complete an informed consent which will inform them that their participation in the study is entirely voluntary and that they are free to withdraw at any time. They will then be placed in a quiet room alone where they will be given a paper copy of the survey and asked to provide answers to each question as honestly as possible. Upon completing the questionnaire participants will be thanked and given a piece of candy as compensation and then will be provided with a debriefing sheet and some reading material on the dangers of drunk driving as well as a list of local resources related to drinking.
Data Analysis
The data...
Scores will be calculated on each of the measures taken, which will provide a score on attitudes towards drinking, attitudes towards drunk driving and level of social desirability. Groups will then be compared (male x female, and Caucasian x African-American) using a two tailed t-test. This test is appropriate because it will compare the mean scores between groups and determine whether or not there is a significant difference in the mean scores of each group. A two-tailed test will be used because we have made no hypothesis as to the direction that we expect to find a difference (i.e. males could be more or less in favor of drunk driving). We will also test for differences in social desirability between the groups, as if there are group differences, then more complex tests such as an ANOVA or regression may be necessary to parse out the respective influences of social desirability and attitudes towards drunk driving.
