Discrimination in hiring has been illegal for many years. It is illegal to discriminate against any person on the basis of race, gender, or religion. It is also illegal to discriminate because of a person’s handicap if it in no way prevents that person from performing that job. In recent years, the definition of “handicap” has widened. Several applicants have successfully sued companies because they were denied employment for no other reason than that they were overweight. A study was conducted to examine attitudes toward overweight people. The experiment involved showing a number of subjects videotape of an applicant being interviewed for a job. Before the interview, the subject was given a description of the job. Following the interview, the subject was asked to score the applicant in terms of how well the applicant was suited for the job. The score was out of 100, where higher scores described greater suitability. (The scores are interval data.) The same procedure was repeated for each subject. However, the gender and weight (average and over-weight) of the applicant varied. The results were recorded using the following format:

Column 1: Score for average weight males

Column 2: Score for overweight males

Column 3: Score for average weight females

Column 4: Score for overweight females

a. Can we infer that the scores of the four groups of applicants differ?

b. Are the differences detected in part (a) because of weight, gender, or some interaction?