In a paper the authors distinguish between spending money on
experiences (such as travel) and spending money on material
possessions (such as a car). In an experiment to determine if the
type of purchase affects how happy people are with the purchase
after it has been made, 185 college students were randomly assigned
to one of two groups. The students in the "experiential" group were
asked to recall a time when they spent about $300 on an experience,
and then they rated this purchase on three different happiness
scales that were then combined into an overall measure of
happiness. The students assigned to the "material" group were asked
to recall a time that they spent about $300 on an object.
The mean happiness score was 5.75 for the experiential group and
5.27 for the material group. Standard deviations and sample sizes
were not given in the paper, but for purposes of this exercise,
suppose that they were as given below.
Experiential
Material
n1 = 92
n2 = 93
s1 = 1.2
s2 = 1.5
Use the following Minitab output to carry out a hypothesis test
to determine if the data supports the authors' conclusion that
"experiential purchases induced more reported happiness."
Use
α = 0.05.
(Use a statistical computer package to calculate
the P-value. Use μexperiential − μmaterial. Round
your test statistic to two decimal places, your df down to the
nearest whole number, and your P-valueto three
decimal places.)
Two-Sample T-Test and CI
Sample
N
Mean
StDev
SE Mean
1
92
5.71
1.20
0.13
2
93
5.26
1.50
0.16
Difference =
μ1 − μ2
Estimate for difference: 0.450000
95%
lower bound for difference: 0.119917
T-Test
of difference = 0 (vs >): T-Value = 2.25
P-Value = 0.013 DF = 175
t=
df=
p-value=