Please read the instruction and the rubric carefully, and make sure to meet all the standards. Answers receiving full credit tend to be between 350 and 750 words in length (per question) Average 500 words per question.

There are two required book, one is Ariely, Dan. 2010. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (Revised and Expanded Edition). HarperCollins.* Another is Wheelan, Charles. 2013. Naked Statistics: Stripping the Dread from the Data. W.W. Norton Company. These two books are attached.

Reading Range:

Ariely (Chapter 7-10)

• The High Price of Ownership
• Keeping Doors Open
• The Effect of Expectations
• The Power of Price

Wheelan

• Chapters 7-10

Q1: Comparing Personal vs. Market Value [40 points]

Think of something that you own and are especially pleased to own, like your most comfortablerecliner or sofa, your most stylish piece of clothing, or the bicycle that has accompanied you onso many adventures and pleasure rides. How much would you hope to get for this item if youwere to sell it? Next, find something comparable (and comparably old or worn) being advertisedonline (for example, on eBay or Craigslist). How does the price of this item compare to yourasking price? Do you think that the price is fair? That is, would you buy the item for that price? Isthe seller an individual or a business? Granted that this isn’t nearly as rigorous as the kind ofexperiments that Ariely describes, what would you conclude about “the price of ownership,”based on what you have found, and how do your findings compare to Ariely’s?

Q2: Balancing the Effect of Expectations [30 points]

How do you feel about the overall role of suggestion, expectation, and the placebo effect in ourlives? On one hand, Ariely points to some of the ways in which these can color our judgment andcause us to make bad decisions. On the other hand, he also points to some of the ways in whichthey can color our judgment for the better, making food taste better, making music sound better,and even making us feel better physically. To what extent, then, is irrationality harmful, and towhat extent beneficial? Is it a worthy goal to want to eradicate all irrationality, even in itsoccasional benefits? Is a firm grasp of reality and rationality more important than the perceivedquality of our food, music, and health? Or do we need a bit of irrationality in our lives, becausecertain parts of life would be less enjoyable without it? Finally, can we sharpen our rationality insome areas (where rationality is beneficial) while being irrational in others (where irrationality isbeneficial), or are we bound to go more or less all the way in either direction?

Q3: Poll Analysis [40 points]

Investigate the validity of a poll for yourself, using what Wheelan has taught us about theseinstruments’ potential biases. Start by finding a recently published poll online. (If you don’tfrequent news websites or have a particular issue in mind, an easy way to find a recent poll is togo to a website like gallup.com, or you can Google something like “new york times poll,”“washington post poll,” “cnn poll,” etc.) State what poll you’re investigating, who carried it outand when, and where it can be found online (with a specific URL). Next, find and read thedescription of the poll’s methodology, and summarize the sampling methods used to collect thedata. Then skim the poll’s questions and evaluate how well some of the more interestingquestions avoid bias through their wording. Give three examples, either of bad choices ofwording, or of good choices where different wording might have produced biased answers.Finally, evaluate the overall validity of the poll. Does the sampling method seem like it provides asample representative of the respective population? Are the questions asked in such a way as topromote honest and accurate answers?

Q4: Statistics, the Breakfast of Champions [40 points]

Imagine that you’ve just collected a bunch of data on college students, particularly their eatinghabits and their performance in school. Because of all that you’ve learned from Wheelan, yoursampling and measurement methods are flawless, so now you’re ready to do some hypothesistesting. You’re convinced that college students who eat Wheaties breakfast cereal (the “breakfastof champions”) get better grades than those who do not eat Wheaties. Beyond that, you believethat the more Wheaties a given student eats, the better his or her grades will be. Describe andexplain the process of carrying out your test of this hypothesis, step by step, beginning with a nullhypothesis and finally stating your findings. (Make up the needed unknown statistics if it makes iteasier to describe and explain the process.)