Does holding a weapon increase your aggressiveness afterward in other situations? Klinesmith et al. (2006) investigated this question by assigning 30 male college students to one of two groups. One group of 15 men were given a facsimile handgun to hold for 15 minutes, whereas the 15 men in the other group were given a toy instead.

All men were then asked to participate in a test of taste sensitivity. Each was given a glass of water with a single drop of hot sauce to taste. Each man was also asked to add as much hot sauce as he wanted to a new glass of water to be given to the next person.

(These were not actually used on the next person.) The researchers measured how much hot sauce each man added, as a stand-in for aggression, because it correlates with the amount of pain inflicted on the next person. Do the two groups differ in the mean amount of hot sauce they add to the water? Here is a summary of the results:

a. Assuming that the amount of hot sauce added per person is normally distributed in each group, would an ordinary two-sample t-test be an appropriate test for this analysis?

b. If not, what would be an appropriate method to use?

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Group Gun handlers Gun handlers Toy handlers Toy handlers Sample size 1515 1515 Mean hot sauce added 13.6113.61 4.234.23 SD hot sauce added 8.358.35 2.622.62