Is That What You Really Meant? Conforming with Others Responses

Size is Only a Number:

Does the Breed and Size of a Dog Matter?

Hannah Lien

Shenandoah University

Abstract

 As a class, we decided we wanted to know if the breed of the dog and the size of a dog had an effect on how much someone would like to own a dog. We selected an Australian Shepard and a Pit Bull Terrier for our breeds. Next, we found pictures of these dogs when they were small and large. Taking all this information we used Qualtrics to create a survey link that we sent to Amazon Mechanical Turk to get participants to take our survey. Results showed a significant main effect for the breed of the dog and a significant interaction for the breed x size of the dog. When the picture of the small Pit was shown participants rated it higher then when it was the large picture. Although, when the Shepard was shown size did not mater it still got a high rating.

Keywords: dog, Qualrtrics, own

Size is Only a Number: Does the Breed and Size of a Dog Matter?  

        In this study, we are investigating the possible main effects and interactions between the breed and size of a dog. For our breeds, we selected an Australian Shepherd and a Pit Bull Terrier. The independent variable of size will be measured by being small or large. Our dependent variable was the question, “How much would you like to own this dog?” measured on a 1 (“Not at all”) to 8 (“Extremely”) scale. I believe there will be a significant interaction between the breed and the size of the dog. This will be present with the breed we selected being a Pit Bull Terrier and an Australian Shepard people usually associate the Pit with being a more aggressive and not as family friendly of a dog. When shown the Pit as a small dog it does not seem to give off that effect as much as it does when it is full grown. Then when people see the Shepard as a small dog and then a large dog then tend to only see the difference in size and not personality. I think there will be a significant main effect for the breed of the dog. This is because of how people view different breeds of dogs and the dog’s characteristics. The size of the dog will not have a significant main effect as a person doesn’t just ever look at the size of the dog without considering the breed of it.

Method

Participants        

        In this study, the participants were gathered by volunteer sampling from Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), an online site where people can apply to be a “worker” and complete task from “requesters” who will then pay them. All participants were 18 years or older. We paid people $ .30 per person to complete the survey. One demographic we asked our participants about was if they have children under the age of 12 years old, 24.7% of the participants did have children under 12 years old, 75.3% of the participants did not. Another one was what their current living situation: 64.8% “Single-family house”, 5.6% “Townhouse”, 9.3% “Apartment with roommate”, 18.5% “Apartment without roommates”, .6% “Residence Hall”, or 1.2% “Mobile Home”. Lastly, we asked the participants to identify their gender with the results as listed: 47.5% “Female”, “6% “Genderfluid”, 51.2% “Male”, and .6% “Prefer not to answer”.

Materials 

         With our dependent variable and demographics, we created a survey using Qualtrics which created a link for us to use as the survey. For stimulus material for the survey as a class we found a picture of each of the two breeds as a puppy and then full-grown dog. The survey would show participants one of the four pictures and would then be asked to answer our question of, “How much would you like to own this dog” on a scale of 1 (“Not at all”) to 8 (“Extremely”). Our professor then sent the survey link to AMT to allow participants to take it. We were able to generate 162 responses in less than an hour.

Procedure

        As a class, we voted on the topic for the study we were going to conduct. After deciding to use the question, “How much would you like to own this dog” and then
we selected our three demographics. Next decided one what two breeds of dogs we were going to use. We then found a picture of a small and large dog for each breed. We took all this information and put it together in survey form through Qualtrics and sent it to AMT for the participants to take the survey. The results were received in under an hour. Which we then were able to upload into SPSS to create a 2x2 factorial ANOVA to use to look for significant main effects.

Results

        A 2x2 between-subject’s factorial ANOVA was performed to examine the effects of the breed of the dog (Australian Shepard or Pit Bull Terrier) and the size of the dog (small or large) on the amount someone would like to own it. Looking at the overall means of the Australian Shepherd as a small dog (M=5.95; SD=2.376) compared to it as a large dog (M= 6.26; SD=2.049) did not have a significant difference. Whereas the Pit Bull Terrier as a small dog (M=5.83; SD=2.218) compared to it as a large dog (M=4.49; SD= 2.543) had a significant difference.  Results showed a significant main effect for the size of the dog, F(1, 158) = 6.91, p = .009 and a significant presence of dog breed x dog size interaction, F(1, 158) = 5.20, p < .024. There was no main effect for the size of the dog F(1, 158) = 2.02, p < .157 without the specific breed being present. The breed of the dog had a significant effect on how much someone would like to own it. The interaction showed that the effect of the breed of the dog depended on the size of the dog, in that the two dogs were just as likely to be chosen, unless the pit bull terrier was full grown.