Why do we naturally tend to trust some strangers more than
others? One group of researchers decided to study the relationship
between eye color and trustworthiness. In their experiment the
researchers took photographs of 80 students (20 males with brown
eyes, 20 males with blue eyes, 20 females with brown eyes, and 20
females with blue eyes), each seated in front of a white background
looking directly at the camera with a neutral expression. These
photos were cropped so the eyes were horizontal and at the same
height in the photo and so the neckline was visible. They then
recruited 105 participants to judge the trustworthiness of each
student photo. This was done using a 10-point scale, where 1 meant
very untrustworthy and 10 very trustworthy. The 80 scores from each
participant were then converted to z-scores, and the average
z-score of each photo (across all 105 participants) was used for
the analysis. Here is a summary of the results.
Eye color
n
x
s
Brown 40 0.53 1.69
Blue 40 −0.37 1.53
Can we conclude from these data that brown-eyed students
appear more trustworthy compared to their blue-eyed counterparts?
Test the hypothesis that the average scores for the two groups are
the same.
State the null and alternative hypotheses.
H0: μBrown ≠ μBlue
Ha: μBrown > μBlue
H0: μBrown = μBlue
Ha: μBrown ≠ μBlue
H0: μBrown = μBlue
Ha: μBrown < μBlue
H0: μBrown ≠ μBlue
Ha: μBrown < μBlue
H0: μBrown = μBlue
Ha: μBrown > μBlue
Report the test statistic, the degrees of freedom, and the
P-value. (Round your test statistic to three decimal places, your
degrees of freedom to the nearest whole number, and your P-value to
four decimal places.)
t =
df =
P-value =
State your conclusion. (Use
α = 0.05.)
We do not reject H0 and can not conclude that brown-eyed
people seem more trustworthy according to this experiment.
We reject H0 and conclude that brown-eyed people seem more
trustworthy according to this experiment.