To examine factors that cause suspects to waive their rights after they hear the Miranda warning, researchers created a situation in which students were falsely accused of cheating in an experiment, and then asked if they wanted to waive their right to have an advocate present when meeting with a professor (see Scherr & Madon, 2013). A common police tactic is to trivialize Miranda rights (i.e., say the rights are not important) to get accused individuals to waive their rights. Therefore, the researchers manipulated waiver description with two levels.

Students were told their decision about waiving their rights was either trivial or important to the outcome of their situation. The researchers also hypothesized that stress affects suspects’ understanding of their rights. To manipulate stress, students were told their cheating was either a serious or a minor violation. Twenty students were randomly assigned to each condition of the experiment. The researchers measured students’ comprehension of their rights to have an advocate present.

A. Describe the design of this study, including the independent variables and the conditions of the experiment when factorial combination is used.

B. Comprehension was measured by asking participants to explain the meaning of five statements such as, “Anything you say can and will be used against you.” Explanations were coded, with possible comprehension scores between 0 (poor) and 10 (good). Means for this measure are presented below. Describe any effects of the independent variables (assume mean differences greater than zero are significant).

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Waiver Description Trivial Important Stress Serious 7.0 7.6 Minor 8.0 8.6