Pezzo And Beckstead Report

Pezzo and Beckstead want to do something that has never been done before and that is create an experiment that uses two different scenarios to measure levels of anxiety, belief of a rumor, and the rumor transmission. Pezzo and Beckstead both teach psychology classes at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg and University of South Florida Tampa, respectively. All scientific reports must follow the scientific method; they must be reasonable, accurate, and data must be interpreted fairly. Pezzo and Beckstead follow the scientific method fairly well, but their data may not be completely accurate. In this report, Pezzo and Beckstead analyze why rumors are transmitted and the impact that is caused by belief and anxiety. These two psychologists …show more content…
There are three types of anxiety. Situational anxiety is when some situations produce more anxiety than others, Rumor-specific anxiety is when topics themselves cause more anxiety than others, and trait anxiety is when some individuals are chronically more anxious than others. If you examine the three types of anxiety, trait anxiety does not fit with the other two therefore Pezzo and Beckstead took it “out” of their experiment (Pezzo). While taking out trait anxiety does take out the real life factor with it, in order to get an accurate reading of the experiment Pezzo and Beckstead needed to take it out. If trait anxiety was left in the scenario, the results would not fit the curvilinear relation with rumor transmissions. Another example of the experiment not being a real life situation is that all rumors being used are about death. It is known that death creates high anxiety levels no matter which rumor or topic it includes. It would be worth it if Pezzo and Beckstead created an experiment that used rumors surrounding financial or social aspects, not just death and …show more content…
They also found that “this effect was qualified by a significant Belief x Rumor anxiety interaction” or that “this interaction could also be interpreted as belief moderating the effects of rumor anxiety” (97). Study one showed that when rumors were believed, rumor anxiety was related to the transmission of rumors. Study two showed us that participants who were extremely anxious transmitted more rumors than participants who were not anxious. Pezzo and Beckstead also found that “situational anxiety moderates the effects of rumor anxiety... the effect of rumor anxiety on transmission of different rumors was only significant for participants reporting high situational anxiety” (97). When situational anxiety was low, rumor anxiety levels did not matter. The two psychologists were surprised when they found out this bit of information because they believed that “both sources of anxiety combine to produce a single phenomenological experience in people”