Existence of Tastes Among Groups of People

¶ … existence of tastes among groups of people is essential to many fields, which include psychology, sociology, demography, politics, and marketing. Such studies allow us to establish mean tastes and preferences, whether we want to analyze a correlation in order to understand cognitive behavior better, or generate revenue models that will cater to the buying power of the greatest number of people. In this assignment, I will develop two studies that may be used to determine in one case the correlation between certain religious beliefs and mental instability and in another whether successful students prefer different beverages than unsuccessful ones.

Are certain types of religious beliefs associated with mental instability?

Freud first observed that many of his patients that suffered from various neuroses also maintained somewhat compulsive religious beliefs. However, a determination could be made between expressing obsessive behavior and applying it to religious matters and maintenance certain specific religious beliefs that may or may not be associated with mental instability.

In order to conduct a study, we must first establish what is meant by mental instability and establish a Boolean argument as to whether or not someone is mentally unstable. Characteristics that would lead us to make this distinction might include the inability to carry on a conversation, a predilection to violence, or other factors. Since they are all bound to be subjective and we need a yes/no decision, it would be wise to just find people who have been diagnosed with having some form of neurosis by an APA licensed psychologist. We would then enumerate certain beliefs and create a regression using a population of at least 30 to minimize statistical error. We would take steps to assure that our sampling was random and use an equal number of mentally stable people and mentally unstable people. We would ask yes/no questions to determine whether or not the people questioned maintained certain common and uncommon religious beliefs. Here are some examples.

I believe that I have a personal relationship with a living God.

I believe in the existence of angels.

I see dead people.

I believe that the devil exists.

I believe that the devil actively tempts me to do evil things.

We could then establish the hypothesis that certain beliefs (such as one's belief that he sees dead people) are characteristic of mental instability. The use of regressions to determine the characteristics of populations could be considered a traditional methodology. It is important to understand that religious euphoria, like all types of euphoria, can affect an entire population of people. Some simple examples might include Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia or the guys that dance with snakes in the churches of Appalachia. It could be established that cogent, functional communities maintain religious beliefs that would seem to us to be a sign of mental instability, like refusing to shave one's beard or waltzing with a rattlesnake. It is important to remember, however, that irrational behavior and mentally unstable behavior or not synonymous, as the latter connotes the ability to continually function in society, which many irrational people are able to do.

2) Do successful students prefer different beverages than unsuccessful ones (e.g.. juice, milk, beer, coffee, diet soda, high protein shakes, etc.)?

Designing a methodology that will answer this question is considerably more difficult than the last, given that a boolean argument cannot capture the range of drinking and dieting habits. For instance, the sober urban sophisticate who treats his young girlfriend to a bottle of Merlot on their anniversary has little in common with the man who keeps a one-gallon bottle of fortified wine by his bed to pour into Styrofoam cups while he does his homework. Studies have already established relationships between depression and obesity and alcoholism. If it could be determined that student eating patterns are modally distributed in clusters, these clusters could be regressed against the GPAs of the people in the group.

We could design a survey with a list of consumption 'styles' and proceed to find the mean GPA and standard deviation for each style. The first part of the test could be used to determine which style group the student fits into. Barring this, demographic data exists on the drinking habits of college students because marketing and business schools often partner with advertising firms who have a vested interest in catering to consumer habits. Assuming we determine the style groups ourselves, one could be: