Question: Describing the effects. Refer to Exercise. The P-values for all main effect and two-factor interactions are significant at the 0.05 level. Using the table, find the marginal means (that is, the mean for the no-humor treatment, the mean for the no-humor and unfavorable process treatment combination, etc.) and use them to describe these effects.
Exercise: The effect of humor. In advertising, humor is often used to overcome sales resistance and stimulate customer purchase behavior. A recent experiment looked at the use of humor as an approach to offset negative feelings often associated with Web site encounters.10 The setting of the experiment was an online travel agency, and they used a three-factor design, each factor with two levels. The factors were humor (used, not used), process (favorable, unfavorable), and outcome (favorable, unfavorable). For the humor condition, cartoons and jokes of the day about skiing were used on the site. For the no-humor condition, standard pictures of ski sites were used. Two hundred and forty-one business students from a large Dutch university participated in the experiment. Each was randomly assigned to one of the eight treatment conditions. The students were asked to book a skiing holiday and then rate their perceived enjoyment and satisfaction with the process. All responses were measured on a seven-point scale. A summary of the results for satisfaction follows:
(a) Plot the means of the four no-humor treatments. Do you think there is an interaction? If yes, describe the interaction in terms of the process and outcome factors.
(b) Plot the means of the four treatments that used humor. Do you think there is an interaction? If yes, describe the interaction in terms of the process and outcome factors.
(c) The three-factor interaction can be assessed by looking at the two interaction plots created in parts (a) and (b). If the relationship between process and outcome is different across the two humor conditions, there is evidence of an interaction among all three factors. Do you think there is a three-factor interaction? Explain your answer.