1. I think her behavior of lifting her feet while going over railroad tracks in the car is a learned behavior and not one that is genetically predisposed. It’s hard to say if any of her behavior could be explained by genetics. One way this could be genetic is if she had some kind of mental disorder causing her to believe lifting her feet would make her more popular but I think all of it would be explained purely by her environment. Perhaps she has been around the more popular of her peers and witnessed them lifting their feet while riding over rail road tracks, causing her to believe that she will be more popular.
2. I do think her age and where she is living could have something to do with her beliefs. Her age and the age of her peers could play a factor in how easily she believes or makes assumptions. A 13 year old may be more likely to believe that lifting your feet while driving over rail road tracks will make you more popular. Age and location could definitely be two primary influencing factors of her environment. If it was caused by a mental disorder, this could be when she first starts to see signs of it developing and her environment could be stimulating for the disorder.
3. a) In this experiment, popularity will be measured by the amount of Facebook friends that a person has. We would first monitor the Facebook friends of the participants to see regular patterns of increase and decrease and then during and after the experiment to see how the amount of Facebook friends is affected by the act of lifting one’s feet while driving over the railroad tracks.
b) My hypothesis for this experiment is that lifting your feet while in the passenger seat of the car while driving over rail road tracks will not lead to making her more popular with her peers. I believe that there will be no correlation between the two. I cannot think of any reason why the two would be related.
c) To test my hypothesis, I would use experimental