Could you participate in my psych study? (1 min, max)

[Wendo]

Hey Anandtech folk. I'm a college student (as well as A3D enthusiast) doing a quick study for a psychology class at Western Washington University. Would you be willing to participate? It will take less than a minute, and would be a really big help to me. I need 15 responses minimum, but more are always welcome. You can either PM me, or post your reply in this thread.

THANK YOU!

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The poet, John Koelp, wrote the following poem in four hours. Please read it and respond to the following questions.

In Life

The caretaker of Garden Street
had waved to the flowers
and whispered, you are peace
whose innocence is true
and unblemished.

I saw darkness
and the blank stare
of the eastern plains
shriveled and in decay.

Like he had said
that fateful day
of the peace inherent in beauty
and the trembling sense of humanity
it is but a whisper
that all of our hope
lies waiting.

1. On a scale from 1 (hate it) to 6 (it's ok) to 11 (love it), how much do you like the poem?
2. On a scale from 1 (terrible) to 6 (ok) to 11 (excellent), what would you say is the overall quality of the poem?
3. If the poet sold this poem to a poetry magazine, how much money do you think he would receive?
4. Age?
5. Gender?

 

[Chaotic42]

1) 4
2) 4
3) $10
4) 22
5) Male

Edit: I should note that I'm not a literature/poetry person, so if you're John Koelp, don't be offended.

 

[Anubis]

5
5
not much
23
male

and most if not all poetry does absolutly nothing for me

 

[Legendary]

1. 4
2. 4
3. $0
4. 19
5. Male

 

[Whisper]

1)6
2)6
3)Umm..depends on the magazine, since they all have fairly standard rates. But for the sake of your study, I'll say $30-40
4)30
5)Male

Edit: I wouldn't necessarily say it's a bad poem; it just seems to me that the author is trying too hard to make everything seem obtuse, while not necessarily being in touch with the true feelings behind the piece.

 

[TuxDave]

1. 7
2. 4
3. $25
4. 24
5. Male

It uses beautiful language and I like that, but overall as a poem, it doesn't give me much meaning. What is Garden Street? Why should we listen to this caretaker? What's going on? Too many questions left me empty at the end of the poem.

Edit: Now that I submitted my answer, can you PM me about what the study was about? I promise not to spoil the thread.

 

[Ender]

1. 8
2. 8
3. $50
4. 30
5. Male

By gender you mean the poet, right? Well... you gave his name so it's not much of a guess.

 

[George P Burdell]

1) 5
2) 5
3) a five dollar bill and spare change
4) 20
5) M

btw, i googled John Koelp and got nothing, so I'm thinking.... did you write this poem yourself?

 

[ironcrotch]

1. 6
2. 7
3. $100
4. 24
5. Male

 

[HermDogg]

3
6
$1-2000 (people have paid more for crappier art)
17
Male

 

[amdskip]

1) 4
2) 5
3) $35
4) 22
5) M

 

[Wendo]

Thank you all for participating in this study.

As you may have guessed, this study concentrated on what is called the effort heuristic. Simply stated, this means that people are more likely to rate something "higher" or as being more desirable if they think that the author/creator spent more time on it. This was a replication of a previous study done by Kruger et al. In his study, he used an actual poem from an actual poet to determine the prevalence of the effort heuristic in two sample groups. In my replication, I wanted to find out if the effort heuristic would still show up even if the poem was meaningless and poorly constructed. This study had two groups from two different messageboards. One group was told that the poem took 4 hours to write, the other was told that it took 18. In reality, it took me less than two minutes to write the poem using random "poetryish" words. The poet mentioned in the study, as some have guessed, does not exist.

The results of this study provide evidence that participants judging something made with low effort are unlikely to use the effort heuristic to a significant degree when rating quality. It is likely that people will rate low quality/high effort items lower than low quality/low effort items. This is likely due to participant expectations of what kind of quality should be generated if an excess amount of time is spent creating a product.

Thanks again!