9% of Americans think they could beat a crocodile in a fight. What?

https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2021/05/13/lions-and-tigers-and-bears-what-animal-would-win-f

Sorry that I haven't been posting as often lately. You would think that with the summer, I would have more flexibility, but I am working hard on some writing deadlines (for a stats textbook!), and my kids' activities have picked up considerably with soccer season starting.

This example illustrates fun data visualizations as well as a t-test.

YouGov is a polling company, sort of like Gallup. They collect many Very Serious polls and silly polls like this one, where they asked participants to state whether or not they could beat 34 different animals (from rats to grizzly bears) in an unarmed fight. Their graphic designer deserves a raise for this bar graph, including several tragic humans vs. animal memes/movie clips.

Here are a few lessons you can draw out of this funny data.

Paired t-test example: They took the participants identified as men and women and graphed out the data. Which is sort of fascinating. There is a good 6-8% of women who I wouldn't cross. I, personally, don't think they could beat a grizzly bear, lion, elephant, gorilla, and crocodile in a fight, but THEY think they could. I bet they do Cross-Fit.

Anyway, this data also serves as a very significant paired t-test. Here is the data.

Even silly studies need a method section! When we teach, we need to show our students good and proper methods sections, but this funny one would be a great introduction to APA sections. I find that the memorable examples tend to stick better.

Weighted vs. Unweighted polling data: YouGov also shared a paper report of the data, which you may find a use for in class. It mentions weighted and unweighted totals, which you could use to open up a discussion about polling techniques that help ensure representativeness.

A table for the rat data from YouGov, found here: https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/07vgk5e81j/YouGov%20-%20Human%20vs%20animal%20fight.pdf

Comments

Ways to use funny meme scales in your stats classes

Have you ever heard of the theory that there are multiple people worldwide thinking about the same novel thing at the same time? It is the multiple discovery hypothesis of invention . Like, multiple great minds around the world were working on calculus at the same time. Well, I think a bunch of super-duper psychology professors were all thinking about scale memes and pedagogy at the same time. Clearly, this is just as impressive as calculus. Who were some of these great minds? 1) Dr. Molly Metz maintains a curated list of hilarious "How you doing?" scales. 2) Dr. Esther Lindenström posted about using these scales as student check-ins. 3) I was working on a blog post about using such scales to teach the basics of variables. So, I decided to create a post about three ways to use these scales in your stats classes: 1) Teaching the basics of variables. 2) Nominal vs. ordinal scales. 3) Daily check-in with your students. 1. Teach your students the basics...

Using pulse rates to determine the scariest of scary movies

The Science of Scare project, conducted by MoneySuperMarket.com, recorded heart rates in participants watching fifty horror movies to determine the scariest of scary movies. Below is a screenshot of the original variables and data for 12 of the 50 movies provided by MoneySuperMarket.com: https://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/features/science-of-scare/ https://www.moneysupermarket.com/broadband/features/science-of-scare/ Here is my version of the data in Excel format . It includes the original data plus four additional columns (so you can run more analyses on the data): -Year of Release -Rotten Tomato rating -Does this movie have a sequel (yes or no)? -Is this movie a sequel (yes or no)? Here are some ways you could use this in class: 1. Correlation : Rotten Tomato rating does not correlate with the overall scare score ( r = 0.13, p = 0.36). 2. Within-subject research design : Baseline, average, and maximum heart rates are reported for each film. 3. ...

Rouse, Russel, & Campbell (2025) is a curated list of Psi Chi journals that are perfect for Intro Stats.

This summer, the Psi Chi Journal of Psychology Research published Rouse, Russel, and Campbell's Beyond the textbook: Psi Chi Journal articles in introductory psychology courses. It is a curated list of paywall-free Psi Chi articles, mostly with student co-authors, that are peer-reviewed and of an appropriate writing level and length to use in an Introduction to Psychology course. The authors provide the following information for each of the articles: In addition to being appropriate for Into Psych, these articles are also perfect for Intro Stats. In my classes, I emphasize the ability to read and write simple result sections. One way I would review this skill is by showing my students Results sections from published research and asking them to identify the test statistics, effect size, and other relevant information. This selection of articles features clear and concise results sections for t -tests, ANOVA, factorial ANOVA, regression, and correlation. I created a spreadsheet...

Search This Blog