PSYCH101-22B Lab Assessment 4 – submit on Moodle by 5pm 24 October 2022

For this assignment, it is important to allow yourself time to use your best writing skills. That
means writing clearly, accurately, and concisely. It means using full grammatical sentences
that you have carefully proofread. And it means putting ideas completely into your own
words—as well as using appropriate references in-text. You will need to draw on all the skills
you have learned across all your labs this trimester.

Each of the 10 sections below is worth 0.5%, for a total of 5% of your grade for
PSYCH101. For each, if you have correctly provided the required information, in your
own words, then you will get the mark. Otherwise, you will get 0% for that section.

Introduction

Gather information for this section from the lab handout and 1-3 journal articles you have
found on the topic. You may use the ones from the reference list in the lab handout—as long
as you actually find and read them yourself. You can find them using the Library website
https://www.waikato.ac.nz/library/ or find different ones by doing a keyword search on
Google Scholar https://scholar.google.co.nz/. Either way, make sure you include in-text
references to articles to back up your points here. See the APA basics handout (on Moodle)
for information about how to format references in-text—there are several right ways.

Background. In 1-2 sentences describe what the general topic being studied by the class
(in Lab 4) was AND broadly why it is important to study that topic.

The class was studying Social Interdependence. This is the concept that individuals will
at times have to make choices which affect not only their own outcomes but the outcomes
of other individuals or groups. Hardin (1968) referred to the conflict of individuals
preferring their own needs over those of the group as the “tragedy of the commons”. This
topic is important to study because situations of competition and cooperation over shared
resources are common in society.

Previous Research. In 2-3 sentences describe some key previous research on this topic.
Include brief overviews of what they did (their methods) AND what they found (their results).

Previous research has found that group size has an effect on the amount of cooperation,
with less cooperation arising from increases in group size (Holt & Dawes, 1980; Komorita
& Lapworth, 1982) which Holt & Dawes have demonstrated with a variety of “take some,
give some” games and Komorita & Lapworth demonstrated with tests of N-person
dilemmas, where maximising individual interests conflicted with maximising collective
interests, which is the underlying idea behind Hardin’s (1968) tragedy of the commons.
The results of their research showed that increasing group size had a negative effect on
cooperation rates.

Study design. In 1-2 sentences, describe the key variables for the class’s study (Lab 4).
Include what the independent variable was and what its two conditions (or levels) were, AND
what the two dependent variables were and what units they were each measured in.

The independent variable for this study was group size, to analyse its effect on
cooperation. This variable was tested over two rounds, with the first round having five
 boats and the second round having eight boats. The two dependent variables were how
long the fish stocks last (measured in days), and the mean amount of money each fishing
boat earned (measured in total dollars for the entire fishing period).

Hypothesis. In 1-2 sentences, describe what pattern of results you were expecting to find in
the class study (Lab 4). Include how you expected the two conditions would compare to
each other on both of the dependent measures AND why you predicted those patterns.

It is expected that the results of this study will support the hypothesis that as group size
increases, the level of cooperation decreases. The dependent measures of both the
duration of the fish stocks lasting, and the amount of money earned, should both decrease
as evidence of a lower level of cooperation when a larger number of boats are competing
for the same resource.

Method

Gather information for this section from the lab handout and the Moodle post about the
participants (once we have the class data, following the week of Lab 4.1)—make sure you
present this information in full sentences, not as a series of bullet points. You do not need to
reference the lab handout or Moodle.

Participants. In 1-2 sentences, describe the sample of people who took part in the class
study (Lab 4). Include who they were, AND how many of them there were, AND the
proportion of each gender, AND the range of ages and the mean age.

Participants for this class study were 384 first-year psychology students at University of
Waikato. They ranged in age from 17-59 years old, with the mean age of 22.60 years.
79.2% of participants were women, 19.8% were men, 1.0% were non-binary/third gender.

Materials and Procedure. In 3-4 sentences, describe what the participants in the class
study (Lab 4) did. Include where and how they did the study, AND what materials they used
to do the study (including key online resources), AND what happened during the study
(describe the key steps that happened in the order that they happened, including what
happened in both conditions and how both dependent variables were measured).

During a computer laboratory class, participants took part in an online fishing game located
at https://cloudinstitute.org/fish-game. Participants were instructed to play two rounds of a
version of the game where they could harpoon one fish per day for a maximum of ten days,
with each fish being worth $2 but fish stocks being limited and non-replenishing if too many
were taken; the total catch capacity of the lake being 20 fish and the remaining amount of
fish replenishing by 25% every night. The object was to both make as much money as
possible whilst also being able to fish for as long as possible. Communication and trust
were held constant by participants not broadcasting their catch levels. Each day within the
game, participants were able to choose to catch a fish, or skip that day. The game was
played twice, with the first round having a total of five boats and the second having eight
boats. The game automatically ended when the fish stocks had been depleted, and the
measures of total duration and total earnings for each round were recorded.
 Results

Gather information for this section from the lab handout and the results of the analyses you
ran in SPSS during your lab session. See the APA basics handout (on Moodle) for
information about how to format figures, and the lab handout for examples of how to
properly format the statistics (note the italics!).

Figures. Below are the two graphs you saw in SPSS during your lab session (Lab 4), one
for each dependent measure, but they have already been partially formatted for you. Finish
correctly formatting them, including numbering them, and giving them informative titles. You
may move or resize them as needed to make sure they are visible and readable.
Figure 1

Mean duration of fishing by group size in The Fish Game

Note: Graph based on data generated by 384 participants playing two rounds of The Fish
Game and self-reporting their average number of days spent fishing (error bars show 95%
confidence intervals)

Figure 2

Mean earnings per boat by group size in The Fish Game

Note: Graph based on data generated by 384 participants playing two rounds of The Fish
Game and self-reporting their average number of days spent fishing (error bars show 95%
confidence intervals)
Statistics and Interpretation. In 3-4 sentences, describe what pattern of results you found
in the class study (Lab 4) for each dependent measure, AND report the necessary statistics
to support the description (using the results of the analyses you ran in SPSS during your lab
session, Lab 4), AND interpret the findings—including stating how this pattern compares to
the one you hypothesised in the introduction. Make sure the statistics are APA formatted.

The size of the group had a large and statistically significant difference (F(1, 383) = 1584.2,
p < .001, ηp2 = .81) on the duration of each fishing game, with the game lasting longer in
the round with 5 boats (M = 9.47 days) than in the round with 8 boats (M = 5.52 days).
Group size was also found to result in a large and statistically significant difference (F(1,
383) = 3215.91, p < .001, ηp2 = .85) on the mean total earnings in each round of the game,
with earnings being higher in the round with 5 boats (M = $15.71) than in the round with 8
boats (M = $7.28). These findings are consistent with our hypothesis that a larger group
size would have a negative effect on both duration of the fishing game and how much the
boats earned.

Discussion

Gather information for this section from the lab handout, the 1-3 journal articles you have
found on the topic, and your interpretation of the analyses you ran in SPSS during your lab
session (but do not repeat the numerical results already reported earlier). Make sure you
include in-text references to the articles to back up your points as needed. See the APA
basics handout (on Moodle) for information about how to format references in-text—there
are several right ways.

Implications, Limitations, etc. In 2-3 sentences describe how the main findings from the
class study (Lab 4) compare to the main findings from the key previous research on this
topic (which you described in the introduction)—what can we now conclude? AND describe
at least one of the following: A limitation of the class study; a possible real-world application
of the findings from the class study; an interesting next step for future research on this topic.

In alignment with the research on cooperation done by Holt & Dawes (1980) and Komorita
& Lapworth (1982) an increase in group size in this study was found to promote
competition and have a statistically significant negative effect on the measures used for
dependent variables, which in this instance were total earnings and total days of fishing.
One limitation of this particular study was that communication between participants was
not included as a variable. As Dawes (1980) points out, communication can more than
double rates of cooperation within groups regardless of humanisation and commitment. A
further step of this study could see participants communicate within their groups when
they had caught a fish, to see if this knowledge affected either of our measures.

References

Gather information for this section from the 1-3 journal articles you have found on the topic.
Write the full references below for every journal article you referred to above (and only if you
referred to it above). You do not need to reference the lab handout or SPSS or Moodle. See
the APA basics handout (on Moodle) for information about how to format the references
section.

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162(3859), 1243–1248.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1724745
Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Dawes, R. M. (1980). Social dilemmas. Annual Review of
Psychology, 31, 169–193. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.31.020180.001125

Komorita, S. S., & Lapworth, C. W. (1982). Cooperative choice among individuals versus
groups in an N-person dilemma situation. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 42(3), 487–496. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.42.3.487