Timeline

Hello All:

We just turned in our proposals, so now it is time to move on to creating a plan of action for my research. Since I am performing an experiment, I will not be able to actually get started on my data collection until February. But that does not mean that January will be a month of sitting around and doing nothing for me; I will have to prepare all the logistics of my experiment as well as learn how to analyze my data, so I can quickly write up the results section after I collect my data in February.

In terms of a timeline for the actual experiment, I am currently in the process of coordinating the use of rooms at BASIS Scottsdale for my experiment with Ms. Jordison. She has already given me a tentative agreement for use of rooms, but now we just need to finalize all of the details. Throughout January, I will also be making sure that I have enough participants. I am going to recruit BASIS Scottsdale parents to participate. Depending on how many I initially get, I might need to recruit more adults. I will go about doing this by asking people who I or my parents know from various sources, then I will ask people to reach out to people they know. Hopefully, I can get enough BASIS Scottsdale parents to participate in my experiment, but I will need about 50-60 participants, so if I do not get that many participants, I will still have January to gather more participants for my experiment.

Besides preparing the experiment, I will also need to learn how to analyze the results. I will need to research how to understand data better by cross referencing surveys. I am going to have people of different ages, genders, and incomes, so I need to learn how to analyze data from people of different demographics and compare them. I will also need to learn about how to write up experimental data and analyze it.

By late February, I should be done with the experiment and data collection, so then I will start to write up my results. My results and conclusions sections should take me to the end of March. I will need to implement what I learned in January and cross reference my data with the survey results in order to compare the relative influence of the effects. (401)

Elevator Pitch Video

Hello All:

Here is my video. I hope you enjoy it and want to invest in my research.

Initial Feelings on My Methods

Hello All:

Over the course of the past week or so, I have completed my methods assignment and gotten a much clearer vision for the direction of my research and methods. To remind anyone who is not familiar with my research, I am looking into the comparative influence of time pressure, near-misses, and priming on blackjack betting behavior.

My research presents a few challenges that I have to solve with my methods. First, I need to find participants for my study. The participants must be adults and there must be a lot of them, so I can split them into four groups (one for each effect and one for the control) and still have enough members of each group to yield meaningful results. I am a little nervous about that, but I am sure that if I start contacting potential subjects soon I can find people willing to participate.

Once I have the subjects, I need to make sure that their predispositions and biases do not affect my results and make them invalid, so I will have to survey them to understand their predispositions in regard to gambling history and riskiness. I have found a survey that has been researched thoroughly and shown to work, so I am thinking of sending it out to my subjects electronically and having them answer it before they come in to participate. Then, I can split them into groups that are representative of the population I am testing. Thus yielding more meaningful and valid results.

Once I get the subjects into my experiment, I need to find a way to standardize a measurement in order to judge the influences of each effect comparatively. I plan to do this by putting my subjects in the same situation; I will present them with an ambiguous hand of 15, which is shown to have no common betting practices and then measure how many times subjects hit or stay under each condition. I will also observe my subjects in order to gain a full perspective on the data. This standardized measure will allow me to compare the effects concretely. I will set up the situation by stacking the cards when the player is out of the room.

For each of the effects I need to vary the procedure slightly differently. I plan to have the dealer give the player a verbal three-second time limit for betting during the time pressure situation. To test the near-miss effect, I plan to set the cards up so the player should have one or two near misses prior to facing the ambiguous hand. I plan to prime the participant by showing them the number 6, which is needed to get 21, through pictures and quiet music and sounds throughout the experiment. I am a little nervous about the priming because I have to find the perfect balance of being discreet and being noticeable enough for the priming to work.

Overall my general experimental set up has me feeling pretty good. Like this confident baby.

But some of the logistical planning it is going to take has me feeling more like this baby.

I am a little nervous about trying to keep my subjects separate to avoid potential confounding variables of social interaction while gambling, which is a whole other study that needs to be done. I am also nervous about scheduling the experiments at times that work for me, my subjects, any volunteers I may need to help me, and the place that I will be doing the experiment in (ideally BASIS). Hopefully, I will get all the logistics figured out soon and it will all run smoothly. Then, I will be like this baby. (613)

Reflecting on the First Trimester

Hello All:

I'm back from my long hiatus. It has been a crazy year so far and my research has come along way. When I initially cam into AP research, I was pretty set on studying behavioral economics, specifically price anchoring. As I read more into price anchoring, I was still very fascinated with it, but I also found that research on the topic was saturated and there was not a lot for me to contribute to the field. Also, as I read into behavioral economics journals, I became more interested in time pressure, social factors, and subconscious factors that influence behavior.

Through all of my reading, I eventually came to the topic of gambling and behavioral influences of gambling. Although it is a lot different from my initial idea, I feel like I found an area that I can contribute to and am extremely interested in. After that, I had to start the lit review process and it left me looking a little like this.

At the start of the lit review, I was very lost on how to structure my argument. But as I read more, I began to realize that I had to explain all of the effects and relate them together. But that was not an easy task. The biggest problem I had with my lit review was my trouble putting my subtopics in conversation and justifying that the effects I chose were the most important to look at.

But through conversation with Mrs. Haag and my peer-review group, Kimy and Brian, I figured it all out. I had to create a new framework and add in more psychological elements in order to justify the effects that I used. 

Now that the lit review is done, I am excited to move on to the methods. I am currently thinking of using an observational study to understand the effects. I will need four groups: a control group and a group for each effect. I am a little nervous about trying to get a wide sample and a lot of people to participate in my study because without a wide variety of people, my results will not be meaningful. Hopefully, I can start reaching out to potential participants soon. As I read my literature, I will get a better sense of the specifics of my methods and create an experiment that will yield meaningful results.

Here is a meme to for reading the whole post. (417)

Good Kanye, Bad Kanye, and Eh Kanye

Hello All:
This week we are supposed to write about one thing we feel really good about, one thing we feel neutral about, and one thing we fell anxious/scared about relating to our research.

When I think about my experiment with blackjack, I feel like this

I feel like I have thought through it well and that I have at least figured out how to put my participants in the same setting and isolate my variables. I plan to have each participant be faced with an ambiguous decision on whether to hit or stay (so he/she will probably have a hand of 14 or 15), so I can measure how many times they hit and stay when I change my variable. Since the only thing I am changing is the effect I'm using to influence them, I can attribute any change in hit/stay rate to the variable (as long as I account for risk-averseness, but I will talk about that later in the post). 

When I think about putting my subtopics in conversation, I fee1 like this

The problem I'm facing is that the main gap in my research is that my subtopics (the effects I'm looking at) are not really looked at together or in conversation. I think I know how to put them in conversation; I plan to discuss how they show similar behaviors and how they might relate to each other. But I am still a little unsure about it. I'm not feeling bad or good about this part of my research. I'm sure I can get it done, but I'm definitely not jumping out of my seat eagerly to do it.

When I think about refining my scope and trying to standardize risk-averseness I feel like this

The problem I am facing is that in order to get any meaningful results, I need to make sure my participants are close to equally risky people, meaning that they are all equally prone to taking or not taking risk. This is important because if I do not account for it, I could have one group that is very risky and another that is very risk-averse (not risky), which would screw up my data. I might think that the effect I was testing with the risky group was more influential even if it was not. In order to account for this, I have been looking into researched risk-assessment tests. Some work, so I might give the test to each of my participants and measure it that way. But my other problem is that I need to find an age group of people who have the same level of risk (and that level of risk is medium). For the most effective risk mitigation, I would ideally use adults between the ages of 30 and 40 because they are not that risky and not too conservative yet as well (according to a study I'm looking into that is true). But my problem is that I do not know 60 people (that is about how many I will need) in that age group who will participate in the study. So I am trying to find the balance between a feasible scope for my experiment and as much risk mitigation as possible. So that is what I currently do not feel great about but hopefully I will figure it out soon and change to this Kanye. (563)

Research Question

Hello All:
It has been a busy week in AP research. We turned in our Annotated Bibliographies, so now we are shifting our focus to the literature review. Specifically this week, the blog posts will focus on our research question, so here is mine.

How do the effects of priming, time pressure, and near-misses compare in their ability to influence isolated individuals' behavior while playing blackjack?

Here is the justification for every part of my research question.
First things first (I'm the realest), I have to address any definitions I will need to provide, and there are quite a few in here. In my literature review, I will define priming, time pressure, and near-miss effects. Here are the definitions for all those terms.

Priming: Priming effects occur when people subconsciously perceive information through various stimuli and then base their actions on the information without even knowing they are doing it.
This definition is taken from a combination of Radel et al. and Bahrami et al., whose credibility I justify in my annotated bib.

Time Pressure: Time pressure effects occur when people are forced to make a decision within a short amount of time.
This definition is taken from a combination of Dhar and Nowlis and Young et al., whose credibility is also established in the annotated bib.

Near-Miss: Near miss effects occur when players think they were close to winning (e.g. they were one number off or had 2/3 of the correct symbols on a slot machine) and/or getting good at a purely chance game even though they were just as far from winning as if they had been 10 numbers off (because the odds are all the same).
This definition is taken from a combination of Luke Clark and Mark Dixon, whose credibility is also justified in my annotated bib.

Now that I have defined my terms, I will move onto discussing my scope. I narrowed my scope down to blackjack because it is the most manageable casino game for me to look at; all I need is a deck of cards and a room (and obviously participants) to look at blackjack. I feel that my scope is still manageable with all three effects because I just will need to come in three different days and do my experiments, which is not a big deal. I think that all three factors are important to look at since they all exist together and looking at two without the third is just ignoring an important piece of the puzzle. I also specifically say isolated because I am looking at them alone, rather than in groups, which is a whole separate area, since social behavior then kicks in.

The one major assumption I make is that the effects I bring up do affect gambling behavior. My literature review will prove that they do, so by the time I get to my question, it will be proven and not an assumption.

My independent variables are each of the effects and my dependent variable for all three experiments is the gambler's behavior. Building off that, I plan to put the subjects in the same situation during a blackjack game (so I will set up the deck how I want it and instruct the dealer how to deal) and change the condition of the subject depending on what I am testing that time. I will have 4 trials with a different of randomly selected participants to participate in each one. I will of course have a control group, who I vary nothing for. In my priming group, I plan to subliminally prime them a number (for example 6 if they were shown 15) and see whether their rate of hitting on 15 changes. For time pressure, I will give them five or ten seconds to decide and see how they react. For near-misses, I plan to have them play a few close games with the dealer and feel like they are getting good, and then see what they do when faced with the same situation as the other groups. My methods section will go into depth about my experimental design, but right now that is how I plan to investigate the question.

Finally, I think my research question fills a gap since currently these three effects are looked at in a vacuum and not compared to each other, so by putting the effects in conversation, I am filling the current gap in the research on them. Also, my research has real-world applications and significance, since the casino industry brings in billions of dollars each year and is growing (according to Kenneth Peak). So by looking at the ways people behave while gambling, I am helping to generalize gambling behaviors and helping to start the conversation about what influences people to gamble and how we can stop people from becoming gambling addicts and wasting their money away. Even though I am looking at individual behaviors, the gambling industry starts with each individual's behavior and betting, so my research therefore has a larger significance within the gambling industry.

Thanks for reading my post. Unfortunately there will be no memes today. (856)

Lit Outline

Hello All:
This week the task is to outline our lit review, so that is what I'm going to do. Just to review, my topic is on gambling, specifically people's behavior when influenced by time pressure, the near miss effect, and priming effects.

Outline
First I need to establish that gambling is a big issue, and I will do that by looking at the gambling industry.
Premise 1: Gambling is a widespread issue involving a lot of money and the industry is growing

• Kenneth Peak says, "Global gaming profits are expected to continue to grow at a rate of 9.2 percent per year and reach $182.8 billion in 2015"
• Joshua Kerlantzick says, "All but three states (Utah, Hawaii, and Tennessee) have some form of gambling, and about 125 million Americans take a flier on one or more of these offerings every year."
• William Eadington et al. discuss the growth of casinos on Native American land

Premise 2: The money involved in gambling is flowing out of the hands of people and into the hands of big corporations and casino owners

• Cite Kenneth Peak

Premise 3: Since gambling is so widespread and is rapidly growing, it is a worthwhile issue to look into
Premise 4: Consumer behavior is easily changed by arbitrary factors

• Cite Chapman et al. and Simonson et al. who both explain price anchoring and irrational behavior when money is involved

Premise 5: Gambling, like other consumer behaviors, is changed by a number of factors, which must be investigated

• Smith et al. discusses how gamblers' do not understand their motivation clearly and they do things that they deem bad when they see the behaviors in others

Subtopic 1: Time Pressure
Definition: Time pressure effects occur when people are forced to make a decision within a short amount of time
Premise 1: Time pressure effects are common in gambling, especially when the dealer says everyone make their final bets
Premise 2: Time pressure effects make people take more risks

• Young et al. found that when presented with a risky choice and a less risky one, not necessarily physically risky but also monetarily risky, people under time pressure made the riskier choice
• Dhar and Nowlis found similar things and their findings corroborate Young et. al's

Premise 3: Gambling is a risky activity
Premise 4: Time pressure effects are exacurbated when the decision-maker must process a lot of information.

• Suri and Monroe found that people under time pressure cannot fully process information when it is presented to them
• They also found that when a lot of information is given to a participant under time pressure, they make a more impulsive decision without using the information to help them reason because they cannot process it all in the time given.

Premise 5: Since there is a lot of information given in gambling (e.g. cards, amount of money to bet) in a short time, time pressure effects would be exacerbated in gamblers
Premise 6: Time pressure effects affect gamblers' decision making ability and make them more likely to make risky bets
Subtopic 2: Near Miss Effects
Definition: Near miss effects occur when players think they were close to winning (e.g. they were one number off or had 2/3 of the correct symbols on a slot machine) and/or getting good at a purely chance game even though they were just as far from winning as if they had been 10 numbers off (because the odds are all the same).
Premise 1: Near miss effects are exhibited widely in gambling across many different games

• Gunnarsson et al. explain the effect for black jack when they say, "The participants played 50 hands of blackjack and the results showed that when the participants’ score was closer to the dealer score they rated their hand higher."
• Mark Dixon explains the near miss effect by saying, "Furthermore, no loss, no matter how much it might "look like a win", is indicative of being close to a win. Each outcome from typical casino games such as slot machines, craps, or roulette is independent of the next."
• Dixon also explains that the effect is exhibited while playing roulette
• Luke Clark also adds, "Gamblers often interpret near- misses as evidence that they are mastering the game, and in this sense, near misses appear to foster an illusion of control"
• He observes a similar effect in slot machine play

Premise 2: The near miss effect increases betting and falsely increases confidence in gamblers

• Gunnarsson et al., Dixon, and Clark all support this statement with their research, much of which was just quoted.

Subtopic 3: Priming effects
Definition: Priming effects occur when people subconsciously perceive information and then base their actions on the information without even knowing they are doing it.
Premise 1: Priming Effects can occur with visual stimuli

• Bahrami et al. performed an experiment in which subjects were flashed an image, so they could not fully register what it was. Although subjects could not tell you what number they just saw, their thoughts subtlely reflected the number. This showed that people could pick up on signals subliminally when they are not focusing or aware of the stimuli.

Premise 2: Priming effects can occur with auditory stimuli

• Radel et al. explain that people can hear conversations without registering what they heard, but later they will make decisions based on what they subliminally heard. However, when asked why they did certain things, subjects did not know. This shows subliminal auditory priming in action

Premise 3: Priming affects decisions during gambling

• Bryan Gibson et al.'s study proves this. They flashed the winning image for slightly longer than the other images on a slot machine, and participants bet more on the slots the next turn and were more confident in their chances. But the participants did not know why they did this.

Now that I have established the effects of time pressure, near miss effects, and priming effects during gambling, I need to address the gap in the research. All three effects have been studied, but they have all been treated almost as if they were in a vacuum. Since nobody has looked into the relative strength of priming, near miss effects, and time pressure (meaning which one is most powerful), that is what I plan to do and that is the gap my research will cover.

Thanks for reading to the end. Here is a meme that has nothing to do with my research. (1075)

Epic Rap Battles of AP Research

Hello All:
Today, the task is to put two of our sources in conversation, so its time for EPIC RAP BATTLES OF AP RESEARCH. (I cannot write raps, so the speeches will be more in prose, but the general format of rap battle will stay)

Luke Clark VS. Bryan Gibson

Luke Clark: Yo my name is Luke Clark and for those of you who do not know me, I research psychology at UBC in Vancouver. I believe that people make impulsive decisions while gambling, especially when they think they are close to winning. For example, if a blackjack player draws a ten when they have 12, they might think "aw man that was close, I'm getting good at this." But they'd be wrong because the chance they drew a ten is the same as that of any other card in the deck. But still, most people do not think very clearly while gambling, which leads to extra betting and loss of money. I believe that irrational behavior results from gambling, and I can back that up with experimental facts.

Bryan Gibson: Hey my name is Bryan Gibson and most of you don't know me, but I'm a researcher at University of Utah in Salt Lake City. I believe that people bet more when they think they are close to winning. My boy Luke is right that people act irrationally when gambling. I can prove it with my experiment. I quickly flashed the winning images on a slot machine to players, who then proceeded to bet more without knowing why. They didn't know why, but I do. It is because, even though they did not consciously recognize that they were seeing the winning images for longer than other images, they picked up on them subconsciously and then acted on their "gut" or really their subconscious being primed to act that way. The players who saw the winning images bet more on the slots than those who did not, but when asked why, they could not say. So my homie Luke is right that people act irrationally when gambling and when they feel like they are going to win.

I hope you enjoyed my EPIC RAP BATTLE OF AP RESEARCH. But in all seriousness, Clark and Gibson largely agree that people behave irrationally during gambling. However, Gibson is much more specified in his focus. Clark focuses broadly on people's perception of closeness to winning and skill during gambling, finding that people will bet more and act irrationally if they think they are getting good at a game or are close to winning, even if the game is purely chance. While Gibson narrows in on slot machines and show how subliminal priming affects people's betting behavior. Gibson shows how some of the behavior Clark is seeing actually occurs. And Gibson addresses my specific topic of priming during gambling, while Clark does not. I know I said that you get to decide who is next, but I lied: I am going to decide. So next up is...

Harambe                                                               Kid

         VS. 

I think we all know who is going to win that one.

RIP Harambe. I will check back in next week, until then have a good one. (533)

It's Priming Time

Hello all:
It has been an interesting and exciting week in AP Research. The mini dab has emerged as a new trend in our class, and my topic has changed (yet again). As of last week, my topic was about how time pressure affects price anchoring effects, but after talking with Saara and Divya, I realized that I needed to focus on a specific price decision in order to make my research work. Since many of the studies I read on time pressure were about risk-related behaviors, it only seemed natural to look into gambling, because it is a widespread, risky behavior that involves making decisions about money. When I looked into gambling studies, most of them did not involve price anchoring because price anchoring is an explicit form of influencing people's decisions, which is not used in real-life gambling situations. However, I did find another , more subtle version of price anchoring that is very applicable to gambling: priming. Priming is essentially subconscious price anchoring; people pick up on cues that influence their decisions without even knowing it is happening. By modifying my topic to how time pressure affects priming during gambling, I focused my research and made it more significant to real-world situations. Now that I have changed my topic to priming, it is only fitting to have a picture of "Prime Time" Deion Sanders.

Now that my topic has finally been set, I can move on to discussing how my literature review will work. I envision myself starting by talking about the gambling industry and how many people are affected by it as well as the amount of money involved in the industry. I will also talk about how casinos use certain techniques to influence their customer's behavior and to make money. Then I envision myself transitioning into a discussion about priming. This seems to logically flow because I will have just talked about tactics casinos use to influence behavior. After introducing priming, I will talk about how casinos use time pressure to influence its customers and more broadly talk about how time pressure influences risk-based behaviors, including gambling. After that, I will explain why my research is relevant by showing why time pressure and priming are inter-related. I plan to do this by looking into a specific gambling game. Right now I think roulette is the best option for the game since there have been studies talking about roulette and roulette has a time pressure element to it (when the dealer says five seconds until s/he spins the wheel). Also roulette has many numbers involved, so it is an interesting game to look at for priming. That is my rough guess of how my literature review will look, but as I read more sources, I'm sure the most relevant organization will be come clearer to me.
A source that has been important so far in my research is "Decision Making under Time Pressure, Modeled in a Prospect Theory Framework," by Diana L. Young, Adam S. Goodie, Daniel B. Hall, and Eric Wu. This source explains how time pressure alters people's judgment and pushes people towards riskier decisions. For example, in one experiment they presented participants with two bets and in time pressure situations they took the riskier one more often. This source is fundamental in my paper since it shows why looking at time pressure and risky behaviors is relevant, but it also leaves a gap for my paper to explore. In the experiments done by Young et al. the participants had no prior predisposition to one bet, but in real life that is not the case. Another one of my sources, "Unconscious Numerical Priming Despite Interocular Suppression," explains that people are constantly exposed to numbers and signals that they are not aware of, but nonetheless influence their decisions. The intersection of these two sources leaves an interesting gap for me to research: looking into risk-base time pressure decisions when the subjects have been exposed to a predisposition (priming).
Finally, in response to Mrs. Haag's final question about the John Oliver rebuttal. I think it is a great idea and a good use of class time. I think that it will help us practice thinking critically about other people's arguments and that it will be valuable for us in research. I also think that we can totally win, so I definitely wouldn't mind doing a little extra work out of class so that we can do the exercise.

To all who read to the end, thanks for reading my extra long blog post today. As a reward (or extra punishment depending on who you are), here is a final picture of Hurricane Harambe. (777)

Breaking It Down

Hello All:
Today's blog post will focus on how I have chosen to break down my topic into subtopics. But before I can talk about that, I have to say what my topic actually is. After a week of research and quibbling over what variable I should test and what topic to choose, I have finally decided to focus on the effects of arbitrary price anchors, random numbers and signals, on people's decision-making during time pressure situations. There is a lot of research that currently shows people think more irrationally in time pressure situations and there is even some research on pricing decisions in time pressure situations, but nothing specifically on price anchoring and time pressure. The connection is important because in many real-life situations consumers are exposed to time pressure and are simultaneously exposed to subtle cues, or price anchors. So analyzing the two together explicitly will help consumers, companies, and behavioral economists understand the relationship. I also plan to standardize the group of people I test it on in order to get more consistent and credible results, but that it something I can focus on in my methods section.
So now that I have a topic, I can start dividing it into subtopics for me to research. Currently my project has two obvious large subtopics, price anchoring and time pressure effects, so I will start by dividing it into those. But both of those subtopics are still large and complex topics, so I will need more subtopics to help me in my research and writing my literature review. I plan to look into time pressure decisions as one subtopic. While my research will be specifically on price decisions, other time pressure decisions, such as those involving risk, are still made by similar parts of the brain. And much research shows that regardless of the decision, time pressure will play a role. I also plan to look at pricing decisions specifically and research on that. Then by using these subtopics in conjunction, I can create a cohesive and well-evidenced literature review. I will also look into price anchoring through different subtopics. One important thing for me to look into will be how price anchoring affects consumers' decisions on specific goods. Many price anchoring studies use many goods and look into consumer decisions on each individually. So by looking into that, I can make a better decision about how I go about my own experiment and also I can understand how specific goods change consumer decisions. Finally, I will look into the different environments that price anchoring effects occur in and how the environment changes price anchoring effects. This may seem irrelevant to my topic, but it is vital for me to understand, since the environment will affect my experimental design and also my results.
I think that through looking into these topics, I will be able to make a cohesive literature review and I will be well-equipped for my research moving forward. (493)

My Syria-ous Topic Crisis (tbt AP Seminar)

Hello All:
At the beginning of the week, I was very set on what I wanted to do. I wanted to pursue behavioral economics and more specifically price anchoring effects and how they varied with age. For anyone who does not know, price anchoring is when a random number or outside influence changes someone's willingness to pay a certain price for a certain item. After I read a research paper on price anchoring, I went to the works cited page and started going to the different cited articles, since I figured they would be similar in topic and academic. But what I failed to recognize is that the paper I read compiled many sources on topics that I found extremely interesting but were not directly related to what I was looking for. I read articles on time-pressure decision making and group decision making and was fascinated by both of those topics. So after browsing the web for a class period, I went from very sure of what I wanted to do to very unsure of which of my options to choose. I was feeling a little like Mr. Krabs.

So I took a step back and asked myself how I could possibly combine some of the topics I am interested in. I came up with a combination of group decision making and price anchoring; I wanted to see if price anchoring or group thinking was more powerful. But after a discussion in class, I was told/realized that I was trying to make things fit together that did not necessarily and that I was trying too big a scope for the class. So now I have a few options for my topics that I would enjoy. I am thinking about either doing price anchoring in relation to changing age groups (as I originally planned), how time pressure affects pricing decisions, or how group thinking affects pricing decisions, especially if one member is different from the rest of the group (i.e. older). Hopefully I can make a decision in the coming days and get on track to having a great research project.

For all of my topics, I will begin the literature review/annotated bibliography process by looking on JStor and EBSCO with key words like price anchoring, group decisions, and time pressure decisions. I will see what I find and I will continue to refine my search. I have also found a few free behavioral economics journals with accredited papers and PhD authors, so I will look on those to find more specific papers in the behavioral economics field. I also plan to use the cited works from papers I read to find other papers that I should be familiar with relating to my topic. Through these methods, I plan to complete my literature review over the next few months and a meaningful and interesting research paper over the next year. (482)

Refining My Research Topic

Hello all:
For those of you who do not know me my name is Max Rosenberg and I am currently a Senior at BASIS Scottsdale taking AP Research. I came into the class with an idea of what area I wanted to pursue, but I did not know the specifics of where my project was headed. I also came into the class with a few goals for my AP Research experience. My first goal is to create a complete product, meaning that I want to have some conclusive and quantifiable findings from my research. MY second goal is to have fun and pursue something that I find extremely interesting. Finally, my third goal for my research is to produce something that has real world applications. For me, real world applications does not necessarily have to entail doing research for a company or creating a product that is ready for use, but rather it means that my research and findings can be read and applied in both an academic and professional setting.
As I mentioned earlier, I came into AP Research with a topic in mind for my research project: behavioral economics, specifically price anchors or branding. Since I already had a starting point, I started refining my topic by looking at behavioral economics papers. I read a paper on price anchoring and am currently reading a paper on branding. I have found in my reading so far that both price anchoring and branding have significant research databases for me to use. That is both a positive and a negative. The large database is good because it gives me a lot of material for my literature review and shows that price anchoring and branding are significant within the field of behavioral economics, but the large database may leave little room for me to do new research. However, in my reading thus far I have noticed a lapse in the data: nobody is researching the effects of price anchoring and branding on different age ranges. The gap in research may provide me with a very interesting question that is also relevant in both an academic and business setting. In the coming week, I plan to do more research and refine my question further, but right now, I think I have a good starting point for an interesting and fun year of AP Research. (391)