Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Actually, we can describe the practical meaning of the interaction another way
(we said earlier that there were two ways to do so). That second way is:
The effect of
gender
on sophistication rating is not the same for each
age group
.
8.5
MEANWHILE, BACK AT MADEMOISELLE LA LA…
You'll remember that Cinny Bittle was sceptical about Mademoiselle La La Founder
Mary Flynn Myers' hypothesis that there's a fundamental difference between per-
ceived sophistication by men and women. Bittle thought your analysis was going to
be a “colossal waste of time,” but asked you to proceed anyway, to appease Myers.
It turns out Myers' hunch was a good one. Using a two-factor ANOVA, you were
able to determine that the effect of
gender
on sophistication rating is not the same for
each
age group
. In fact, there is a reversal of sophistication ratings between genders
for some age groups. The youngest male age group rated the sophistication higher
than the same age group for females, but male ratings were lower than female rat-
ings for the higher age groups. This makes sense for Mademoiselle La La, since the
company doesn't offer much in the way of older men's attire. Its limited offerings for
men target men between the ages of 18 and 45 years.
No sooner have you inished your analysis when you run into La La Founder
Mary Flynn Myers as you cross the grand atrium of company headquarters. She's
dressed to the nines, sporting a beautifully cut Armani skirt suit. She recognizes
you, smiles and stops to chat.
“Good morning,” she says with a smile. “I'm glad I ran into you because I was
wondering about the status of your latest research. Do you have an update?”
“Yes, I was just inishing up.”
“Great,” she beams. “I'm all ears!”
“Well, we initially determined that there were clearly differences in perception of
sophistication by age.”
“Right,” she smiles. “So how did you proceed?”
“I ran a two-factor ANOVA on the data we originally collected from the survey.”
“Ah, ANOVAs,” she sighs with a smile. “I remember them from grad school.
Don't remember the 2-factor part though. What's that?”
You're thrilled that she has some basic understand of what's coming. You already
like her, so you try very hard to not sound too professorial.
“We were looking at the two factors of age and gender and their impact on per-
ception of sophistication. Whenever you look at two factors simultaneously, you
need to deal with the potential of interaction.”
“Interesting. Keep going.”
“The 2-factor ANOVA showed that sophistication rating is different by gender,
and the gender differences are not the same for each age group.”
“With statistical signiicance?” she asks.
“Absolutely. The
p
-value for the age-gender interaction was way below 0.05.”
“Well done,” she says. She's warming to you. “So what exactly are the differences?”
Search WWH ::
Custom Search