Butler Chocolate Experiment
Eating Chocolate Helps Students Become Happier
Henry Vuong
Dennis Lin
Stella Zhang
Introduction:
Our experiment is based on a former experiment described in the article A Scientific Experiment, In Search of Chocolate Happiness. It was an experiment in a mall Cafe called Butler Chocolate, with a purpose of finding a way to help shoppers become happier. By giving each customer a piece of Butler 's chocolate, the Cafe hoped to increase the number of smiling faces at the mall. Early findings have shown the importance of the research with shoppers averaging a happiness rating of 4/10 to begin, rising dramatically to an average of 5.6 after a Butler’s chocolate sample - a 16% increase in happiness. (Butler 's Chocolates 2014)
Our group found this experiment compelling and decided to replicate it, however, we added another phase. It was to have the participants, from both experimental and control groups, watch a funny video, our purpose was that we did not want them to know which group they were in.
As mentioned above, we divided our test subjects into two group, experimental and control groups. We wanted different survey results between the two; therefore, we had to differentiate the methods of testing them. We were to compare them based on the control group and to find a figure that is significant enough to show whether the …show more content…
experiment success or not. Because of this, the Experimental group got to eat chocolate while the Control group did not, therefore, the chocolate is the independent variable and the Experimental group’s result is the dependent variable.
There were some ethical concerns while preparing this experiment. Some examples are that the questions might not relate directly to the topic happiness, the participants might find the questions’ wording strange or abstruse, etc.
After reading the article and discussing the experiment, we believed that eating chocolates could change students ' emotion and help them become more joyful.
Methods:
Participant: The participants in this experiment are all students at Fairmont Prep, from grades 10-12. We used 14 students and they were not randomly sampled because they are all in Mrs. Montenegro’s AP Psychology sixth period. The participants are from every ethnicity, and there was not a dominant race. We used test subjects from both genders male and female, in order to see if there would be a difference between their results.
Materials: In our experiment, we used Hershey’s Kisses milk chocolate. The chocolate bag comes with 2 pounds of chocolate pieces; therefore, the participants could take how many they wanted. As for the video, it was on Youtube so we could easily search it. The video was about a man stressing over office work, and his behavior toward stress was the hilarious part. Moving on to our survey, we used a list of questions, asking about self-confidence and happiness. For each question, the answer shows a point of joy, and in the end, the participants need to add up the score and see their level of happiness through a happiness measuring scale (see Appendix).
Procedure: Firstly, we began with separating the class into two groups, Control and Experimental.
The Control group went outside with Dennis while the other group stayed in the classroom with Stella and I. We then both started to show the participants the funny video. As the Experimental group was watching, I began passing out chocolate to them. For I brought a party size bag, participants in class could get as much chocolate as they want; therefore, they would be satisfied having enough chocolate. After the video, the Control group then returned to the classroom and Stella began to pass out surveys for the test subjects to fill
out.
Results:
After calculating the experimental results, it was shown that eating chocolate did not come close to decreasing stress levels of the participants. Comparing the two groups, their results show a little difference, that the Experimental group was slightly happier than the Control group, but not significant enough to be claimed successful. For the Experimental group, the mean is 43.7, the modes are 43 and 49, he median is 43, the range is 37-49, the standard deviation is 5.0. For the Control group, the mean is 42.3, the mode is 49, the median is 46, the range is 26-50, the standard deviation is 8.9 (See Table 1 and Figure 1). In the end, our results did not have statistical significance, according to a t test.
Discussion:
There are always confounding variables in every experiment. In our testing time, some issues that might have happened were that some students might not enjoy the chocolate, some might not find the video entertaining, some might have had a bad day, some might find the classroom too cold or the outside too hot, etc. These are all factors that may affect our experiment 's results.
In my opinion, the reasons why our experiment did not work are the confounding variables and the video we showed. There was not any issue with the videos except the fact that it might have increased the participants’ happiness levels too high to a point that the chocolate could not increase anymore. In other words, the video worked in two different ways. It set a same level of joy for both groups, and it made them become too happy. And that could be why the chocolate had little effect on their happiness levels, due to the fact that the Experimental group pay more attention to the video, not the chocolate.
Hence, if I have a chance to redo this experiment, I will try to find a way not to let the participants know their groups and not to make them happier at first at the same time. By doing this, the chocolate will affect the Experiment group more significantly and the results might turn out well.
References:
Myers, David G. Myers ' Psychology for AP. New York, NY: Worth, 2011. Print.
"A Scientific Experiment, In Search of Chocolate Happiness." Scoop. N.p., 13 June 2014. Web.
Tables:
Table 1
Experimental group
Control group
Mean
43.7
42.3
Mode
43, 49
49
Median
43
46
Range
37-49
26-50
Significant Figure
5.0
8.9
Figures:
Henry Vuong
Dennis Lin
Stella Zhang
Introduction:
Our experiment is based on a former experiment described in the article A Scientific Experiment, In Search of Chocolate Happiness. It was an experiment in a mall Cafe called Butler Chocolate, with a purpose of finding a way to help shoppers become happier. By giving each customer a piece of Butler 's chocolate, the Cafe hoped to increase the number of smiling faces at the mall. Early findings have shown the importance of the research with shoppers averaging a happiness rating of 4/10 to begin, rising dramatically to an average of 5.6 after a Butler’s chocolate sample - a 16% increase in happiness. (Butler 's Chocolates 2014)
Our group found this experiment compelling and decided to replicate it, however, we added another phase. It was to have the participants, from both experimental and control groups, watch a funny video, our purpose was that we did not want them to know which group they were in.
As mentioned above, we divided our test subjects into two group, experimental and control groups. We wanted different survey results between the two; therefore, we had to differentiate the methods of testing them. We were to compare them based on the control group and to find a figure that is significant enough to show whether the …show more content…
experiment success or not. Because of this, the Experimental group got to eat chocolate while the Control group did not, therefore, the chocolate is the independent variable and the Experimental group’s result is the dependent variable.
There were some ethical concerns while preparing this experiment. Some examples are that the questions might not relate directly to the topic happiness, the participants might find the questions’ wording strange or abstruse, etc.
After reading the article and discussing the experiment, we believed that eating chocolates could change students ' emotion and help them become more joyful.
Methods:
Participant: The participants in this experiment are all students at Fairmont Prep, from grades 10-12. We used 14 students and they were not randomly sampled because they are all in Mrs. Montenegro’s AP Psychology sixth period. The participants are from every ethnicity, and there was not a dominant race. We used test subjects from both genders male and female, in order to see if there would be a difference between their results.
Materials: In our experiment, we used Hershey’s Kisses milk chocolate. The chocolate bag comes with 2 pounds of chocolate pieces; therefore, the participants could take how many they wanted. As for the video, it was on Youtube so we could easily search it. The video was about a man stressing over office work, and his behavior toward stress was the hilarious part. Moving on to our survey, we used a list of questions, asking about self-confidence and happiness. For each question, the answer shows a point of joy, and in the end, the participants need to add up the score and see their level of happiness through a happiness measuring scale (see Appendix).
Procedure: Firstly, we began with separating the class into two groups, Control and Experimental.
The Control group went outside with Dennis while the other group stayed in the classroom with Stella and I. We then both started to show the participants the funny video. As the Experimental group was watching, I began passing out chocolate to them. For I brought a party size bag, participants in class could get as much chocolate as they want; therefore, they would be satisfied having enough chocolate. After the video, the Control group then returned to the classroom and Stella began to pass out surveys for the test subjects to fill
out.
Results:
After calculating the experimental results, it was shown that eating chocolate did not come close to decreasing stress levels of the participants. Comparing the two groups, their results show a little difference, that the Experimental group was slightly happier than the Control group, but not significant enough to be claimed successful. For the Experimental group, the mean is 43.7, the modes are 43 and 49, he median is 43, the range is 37-49, the standard deviation is 5.0. For the Control group, the mean is 42.3, the mode is 49, the median is 46, the range is 26-50, the standard deviation is 8.9 (See Table 1 and Figure 1). In the end, our results did not have statistical significance, according to a t test.
Discussion:
There are always confounding variables in every experiment. In our testing time, some issues that might have happened were that some students might not enjoy the chocolate, some might not find the video entertaining, some might have had a bad day, some might find the classroom too cold or the outside too hot, etc. These are all factors that may affect our experiment 's results.
In my opinion, the reasons why our experiment did not work are the confounding variables and the video we showed. There was not any issue with the videos except the fact that it might have increased the participants’ happiness levels too high to a point that the chocolate could not increase anymore. In other words, the video worked in two different ways. It set a same level of joy for both groups, and it made them become too happy. And that could be why the chocolate had little effect on their happiness levels, due to the fact that the Experimental group pay more attention to the video, not the chocolate.
Hence, if I have a chance to redo this experiment, I will try to find a way not to let the participants know their groups and not to make them happier at first at the same time. By doing this, the chocolate will affect the Experiment group more significantly and the results might turn out well.
References:
Myers, David G. Myers ' Psychology for AP. New York, NY: Worth, 2011. Print.
"A Scientific Experiment, In Search of Chocolate Happiness." Scoop. N.p., 13 June 2014. Web.
Tables:
Table 1
Experimental group
Control group
Mean
43.7
42.3
Mode
43, 49
49
Median
43
46
Range
37-49
26-50
Significant Figure
5.0
8.9
Figures: