In the Preview for this Chapter, we discussed a study by McGee and Shevlin (2009) demonstrating that an individual’s sense of humor had a significant effect on how the individual was perceived by others. In one part of the study, female college students were given brief descriptions of a potential romantic partner.

The fictitious male was described positively and, for one group of participants, the description also said that he had a great sense of humor. Another group of female students read the same description except it now said that he has no sense of humor. After reading the description, each participant was asked to rate the attractiveness of the man on a seven-point scale from 1 (very unattractive) to 7 (very attractive) with a score of 4 indicating a neutral rating.

a. The females who read the “great sense of humor”

description gave the potential partner an average attractiveness score of M = 4.53 with a standard deviation of s = 1.04. If the sample consisted of n = 16 participants, is the average rating significantly higher than neutral (μ = 4)? Use a onetailed test with α = .05.

b. The females who read the description saying “no sense of humor” gave the potential partner an average attractiveness score of M = 3.30 with a standard deviation of s = 1.18. If the sample consisted of n = 16 participants, is the average rating significantly lower than neutral (μ = 4)? Use a one-tailed test with α = .05.