Steemgig for Science 🌀 Results

inphiknit (66)in #steemgigs • 8 years ago (edited)

The experiment is now closed. The request I made to those who submitted replies was; For 0.25 SBD, draw your home country.

These 16 people entered drawings.

@skye1 @debsmithart @ddschteinn @creatr @haphazard-hstead @tamaralovelace @gardenlady @old-guy-photos @dhouse @udgu @purplepreneur @solomonsel @appent @mrpips @hollyup @numpypython

I am thankful to have had you all participate!

So, with the data you provided and the phrasing of the request, we could have addressed various questions or hypotheses. But I wanted an answer to a question which you could say is political science, philosophy, psychology, or perhaps media related.

There is no necessarily right or wrong answer that I can discern and that sticks up to my own scrutiny. But the question which caused me to wonder how to do this experiment and proceed with it in the way we did it was;

What percentage of people think of their country in abstract terms vs literal terms? Or what first occurs to people when they hear or think about their country, something abstract or something literal?

Interestingly, all 16 of you made literal drawings of your countries, with one exception, someone who drew the entire earth.

Not too anticlimactic I hope?! Lol (Sorry!)

What are some of the problems with the procedure we followed that could have caused everyone to answer in the same way?

The earlier submissions were visible and perhaps leading, to those who submitted later.
16 people is good, but still too few.
Perhaps the request was phrased in a way which lead people to present a literal version of their country.
Anything else you can think of?

If I wanted to run it again with different people, is there a more neutral (between literal and abstract) way to pose the request?

How many people is enough?

Would one population, culture, or demographic generally answer differently to another? (How to test that?!)

And the "why" of all this is... Am I correct by saying there is no right or wrong here? Or is there a moral, noble, or ideal answer for a healthy individual, or for a healthy nation, and species? Does it depend entirely on the phrasing of the request? I.e. a person has both a literal and abstract conception of their country, and I can evoke both equally?

Anyways, you get it, so how to better test these questions? Is there a "right" answer? Any ideas?! And thanks again to everyone who joined in or has anything comment on what we did!

(Good job giphy. Anticlimactic dominoes.)