Introduction

Description

In the experiment, parked cars were approached by either an expensive car or a cheap one. The approaching car waited for the spot, and while waiting either honked once or did not honk at all.

Variables Accounted For

  • 240 observations
  • Two types of cars
    • Q45
    • Nissan Maxima
  • Sex of the driver: male or female
  • Race of the driver

Introduction contd..

Introduction contd..

Questions to Address:

Research Question #1

Does a driver take longer to leave his/her spot if he/she is honked at by the waiting car?

We’ll use:

Research Question #2:

How is a male driver’s time to leave affected by the status of the waiting car? How is a female’s time affected? Are the two sexes affected the same way?

We’ll use:

Numerical Method: Favorite Statistics

Graphical Method: Density Plot

Results

Research Question #1

The resulting cross table should indicate which sex is more predispoed to being honked at.

##         horn
## sex      no_horn yes_horn
##   female      38       46
##   male        39       33

We can also examine the relationship between these two variables using row percents.

##         horn
## sex      no_horn yes_horn  Total
##   female   45.24    54.76 100.00
##   male     54.17    45.83 100.00

Output for Cross-table and Row Percents

The row percent shows us that 54.17% of males and 45.24% of females were not honked at, while 45.83% of males and 54.76% of females were honked at. This also shows that females might be honked more then males because they tend to take longer to back out. The table addresses the question by showing which sex is more likely to be honked at considering who took longer to back out.

Research Question #1 Contd..

Now, lets examine the same relationship while also observing what affect being honked at had on a sex’s time. We will use a box and whisker plot.

Box and Whisker Plot

Output for Box and Whisker Plot

The box and wisker plot shows that there is a slight difference in the time it took an individual to back out of their parking spot when the driver was being honked at. The graph adresses the question by showing if the driver got honked at or not and how the individual’s time was affected. En Masse, if the driver was honked at, it slightly lengthened the time it took the individual to back out of their parking space.

Research Question #2

Now, let’s observe the relationship between the subject’s sex and the time it taks the individual to back out of their parking space using Favorite Statistic method.

Favorite Statistics

##      sex   min      Q1 median     Q3   max     mean       sd  n missing
## 1 female 17.49 27.2775 35.515 44.605 96.42 38.87488 17.37221 84       0
## 2   male 11.24 21.2175 26.775 43.520 94.03 34.73194 19.07590 72       0

Output for Favorite Statistics

The favorite statistic shows in the tables that the females on average take longer to back out of the parking space than males. It addresses the question by showing females take longer than males.

Let’s examine the same relationship using a density plot.

Output for Density Plot

The density plot illustrates that females take longer than males, though there is not an overwhelming gap between the two sexes. Females tend to take 60 seconds or make to back out of a parking spot. This is considerably longer than their male counterparts. This graph addresses the question that, while males and women may be affected in the same way, females differ from males in the time it takes them to back out of a parking space.

Additional Statistics

Scatterplot

Possible Theories the Graph Could Account For

Theories:

Discussion/Conclusion

Results

One possible conclusion drawn from the preceding data: Woman who are honked at will take the most time to back out of a parking space.

There are several theories that might be founded on this data, but one might be that women who are honked at are more predisposed to vindictiveness when rushed.

However, it might also be theorized that women simply take longer to leave due to a variety of causes, including the possesion of a purse, the possession of many bags, etc.

A Different Perspective

“Territorial Defense in Parking Lots: Retaliation Against Waiting Drivers” is the original study from which the precedent information was drawn.

Firstly, we will compare the mean of the two groups (honked at and not honked at) to discern any difference that may have occured between them in time:

## diffmean 
## 12.27336

From this data, we can conclude that there was a significant difference in the time taken to back out of a paring space between the two groups.

Randomization

## diffmean 
## 2.712811

The reuslting mean is now significantly lower than the first. To ensure that this pattern is continuous, though, we must run this code several times over.

Again!

Here is the resulting data placed within a density plot:

Analysis

Prior to the experiment, the researchers placed subjects into two separate groups depending on whether they would be honked at or not, so that they could easily keep track of all of their data. The establishment of these groups caused a fluctuation of the data, which ultimately corrupted their conclusions.

What we have done with the preceding data has eliminated chance variation within the experiment.