Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

The Experimental Method31The ResultsCrum and Langer used a variety of statisticalmeasures to analyze the data theycollected. Here are the experiment’s keyfindings:• Participants in both groups reportedno changes in exercise outside ofwork, or in their eating, drinking, orother personal habits.• The informed group reported higherlevels of perceived exercise even thoughtheir actual exercise activity levels atwork and outside of work did not change (see Figure1.6). The informed group also changed their perception of their work-relatedactivities. The physical activities they engaged in at work were now perceived asexercise. In contrast, the work-related perceptions of the control group did notchange.• The informed group participants showed significant improvements over thecourse of the study in all physical health measures except diastolic blood pressure(see examples in Figure 1.7). In contrast, none of the health measures forthe control group participants showed significant changes.1050Perceived Regular ExerciseSession 1Session 2Informed group1050Perceived Work as ExerciseSession 1Control groupFigure 1.6 Changesin Perception ofExercise in Hotel ExperimentThe two graphsat left show thechanges in the perceptionsof the experimentalgroup participants,who were informedabout the health benefitsof work-related exerciseduring the firstsession. Even thoughSession 2their behavior at workand outside of workdid not change, the new information increasedtheir perceptions of how muchregular exercise they were getting andthat work-related tasks were a form ofexercise. In comparison, perceptionswere unchanged in the control groupparticipants, who did not receive informationabout the health benefits ofwork-related exercise.14936130Mean weight147145143Body fat percentage35Systolic blood pressure125120115141Session 1Session 234Session 1Session 2110Session 1Session 2Crum and Langer (2007) noted that the informed group’s change in belief andexpectations was accompanied by some remarkable health improvements:After only 4 weeks of knowing that their work is good exercise, the subjects in the informedgroup lost an average of 2 pounds, lowered their systolic blood pressure by 10points, and were significantly healthier as measured by body-fat percentage, body massindex (BMI), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). These results support our hypothesis thatincreasing perceived exercise independently of actual exercise results in subsequentphysiological improvements.Informed group Control group Figure 1.7 Changes in PhysiologicalVariables in Hotel Experiment Just fourweeks after being told about the healthbenefits of work-related exercise, the informedgroup participants showed significantimprovements on several health measures,including weight, percentage of bodyfat, and blood pressure. Control group participants,who were not told about thehealth benefits of work-related exercise,showed no changes on the same measures.Reporting the FindingsCrum and Langer’s study was published in Psychological Science, the leading journalof the Association of Psychological Science (APS). The APS news release about theirexperiment attracted considerable attention from print and online media.One criticism of the study is that members of the informed group might have behaveddifferently after being told about the benefits of exercise (Spiegel, 2008). Eventhough the informed group reported no changes in their behavior or diet, subtlechanges may have occurred, such as eating healthier foods, walking more, and soforth. To investigate that possibility, Crum is planning a longer study that would monitorphysical activity using pedometers and track food consumption using daily logs.