Ownership Peculiarities

Q1: Ownership Peculiarities
Think about something that you have pride in owning perhaps it is the car that you bought and
fixed up, or a particular item that you had to work very hard to save up enough money to buy.
Describe this item. Now, using Arielys ownership peculiarities, analyze why you have such
pride in owing it. Describe the amount of work you had to put into getting this item. Was the
item advertised in anyway? And if so, do you believe seeing the advertisement caused you to
imagine it was yours before your bought it? Before you had it, did you imagine how great it
would be to own it? Do you believe that your imagined ownership caused you to spend more
time and effort to get it? Now if you could go back in time, would you still work as hard for this,
or would you consider other possibilities? How would you feel now if you had to downgrade to
a lesser version of your item? Would you view this downgrade as a painful loss?

Q2: More Options, More Problems!
According to Arielys door experiment, a person will keep their options open, even if it might
hurt them, or end up being worthless in the long run. Do you believe this to be true? For this
question, we would like you to examine the results and findings of Arielys door experiment. First,
briefly summarize the results of the door experiment. Next, identify a time where keeping your
options open was irrational for your long-term goals, or caused you to buy something that you
didnt truly need. Have you ever found that taking additional time in choosing between your
options caused you to miss out on something you might have otherwise enjoyed? How might you
take Arielys findings and apply them to your life such that you are not tricked into chasing
worthless options?

Q3: Poll Analysis
Investigate the validity of a poll for yourself, using what Wheelan has taught us about these
instruments’ potential biases. Start by finding a recently published poll online. (If you don’t
frequent news websites or have a particular issue in mind, an easy way to find a recent poll is to
go to a website like gallup.com, or you can Google something like new york times poll,
washington post poll, cnn poll, etc.) State what poll you’re investigating, who carried it out
and when, and where it can be found online (with a specific URL). Next, find and read the
description of the poll’s methodology, and summarize the sampling methods used to collect the
data. Then skim the poll’s questions and evaluate how well some of the more interesting
questions avoid bias through their wording. Give three examples, either of bad choices of
wording, or of good choices where different wording might have produced biased answers.
Finally, evaluate the overall validity of the poll. Does the sampling method seem like it provides a
sample representative of the respective population? Are the questions asked in such a way as to
promote honest and accurate answers?

Q4: Statistics, the Breakfast of Champions
Imagine that you’ve just collected a bunch of data on college students, particularly their eating
habits and their performance in school. Because of all that you’ve learned from Wheelan, your
sampling and measurement methods are flawless, so now you’re ready to do some hypothesis
testing. You’re convinced that college students who eat Wheaties breakfast cereal (the breakfast
of champions) get better grades than those who do not eat Wheaties. Beyond that, you believe
that the more Wheaties a given student eats, the better his or her grades will be. Describe and
explain the process of carrying out your test of this hypothesis, step by step, beginning with a null
hypothesis and finally stating your findings. (Make up the needed unknown statistics if it makes it
easier to describe and explain the process.)

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