The Animal Research Committee Research: Autumn 1991



Multiple Regression by Matrix Algebra (Assignment) — Form BWuensch and Poteat (1998: Evaluating the morality of animal research: Effects of ethical ideology, gender, and purpose. Journal of Social Behavior and Personality, 13, 139-150.) asked their participants (315 college students) to pretend that they were serving on a university committee that was charged with investigating complaints against animal research at the university. They were presented with a complaint about some ongoing research being conducted by a Dr. Wissen. The complaint included a description of the research in simple but emotional language. Cats were being subjected to stereotaxic surgery in which a cannula was implanted into their brains. Chemicals were then introduced into the cats’ brains via the cannula, and the cats given various psychological tests. Following completion of testing, the cats’ brains were subjected to histological analysis. The complaint asked that Dr. Wissen’s authorization to conduct this research be withdrawn and the cats turned over to the animal rights group that was filing the complaint. It was suggested that the research done by Dr. Wissen could just as well be done with computer simulations.Dr. Wissen’s defense included an explanation of how steps had been taken to assure that no animal felt much pain at any time, an explanation that computer simulation was not an adequate substitute for animal research, and an explanation of what the benefits of the research were. Each participant read one of five different scenarios which described the goals and benefits of the research. They were: 1.??Cosmetic—testing the toxicity of chemicals to be used in new lines of hair care products; 2.??Theory—evaluating two competing theories about the function of a particular nucleus in the brain; 3.??Meat—testing a synthetic growth hormone said to have the potential of increasing meat production; 4.??Veterinary—attempting to find a cure for a brain disease that is killing both domestic cats and endangered species of wild cats; and 5.??Medical—evaluating a potential cure for a debilitating disease that afflicts many young adult humans.After reading the case materials, each subject was asked to: 1. Decide whether or not to withdraw Dr. Wissen’s authorization to conduct the research. 2. Rate on a 9point scale how justified the research is, from “not at all” to “completely.” 3. Fill out the Ethics Position Questionnaire (EPQ), which consists of 20 Likerttype items, each with a 9point response scale from “completely disagree” to “completely agree.” 4. Provide some demographic information, including gender.There were two dependent variables, withdraw (whether or not the participant voted to stop the research), and justify (the participant’s response to a questions about how justified the research is, from 1 = not at all to 9 = completely). Our basic research questions were: 1. Are the dependent variables affected by the EPQ scores? 2. Are they affected by the respondent’s gender? 3. Are they affected by the stated goals of the research (which scenario the subject read)? The EPQ measures two dimensions, idealism and relativism. The idealism score is defined as the mean of the participant’s responses to the first ten items and the relativism score as the mean of the participant’s responses to the second ten items. The idealist believes that good ends can always be reached through the correct actions. The nonidealist will admit that actions that lead to good ends will often also lead to some undesirable consequences. Idealists may be unable to perceive animal research as having a mixture of both desirable and undesirable consequences. If they believe that causing animals to suffer is undesirable, then they may not be able to perceive other consequences of animal research as desirable, thus providing no opportunity for the good ends to justify the bad means. A relativist is one who rejects the possibility of formulating universal moral rules when judging the morality of some act. One might expect relativists, who advocate individualistic and personal analysis of ethical questions, to be less likely to conclude that another person’s action is morally incorrect.For this homework, we shall ignore the scenario variable. Justify will be our criterion (dependent) variable. Idealism, relativism, and gender will be our predictor (X) variables. Here are the data, summarized in a matrix of zero-order correlation coefficients: Pearson Correlation Coefficients / Prob > |R| under Ho: Rho=0 / N = 315 JUSTIFY IDEALISM RELATVSM GENDER JUSTIFY 1.00000 -0.35851 0.21480 0.21512 0.0 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 IDEALISM -0.35851 1.00000 -0.00834 -0.12840 0.0001 0.0 0.8828 0.0227 RELATVSM 0.21480 -0.00834 1.00000 0.04829 0.0001 0.8828 0.0 0.3930 GENDER 0.21512 -0.12840 0.04829 1.00000 0.0001 0.0227 0.3930 0.0Your assignment is to use SAS to obtain the Beta weights for a multiple regression predicting the justification scores from idealism, relativism, and gender. You should also obtain the R2 and test its significance. Take my word that each of the Beta weights is significant. For the R2 and each of the Beta weights, be prepared to share with the class your results and interpretation. Copyright 2016, Karl L. Wuensch, All Rights Reserved ................
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