MindsetMatters: Mindset Matters
Description
Data from a study of perceived exercise with maids
Format
A data frame with 75 observations on the following 14 variables.
Condition Treatment condition: uninformed or
informed
Cond Treatment condition: 0=uninformed or
1=informed
Age Age (in years) Wt Original weight (in pounds)
Wt2 Weight
after 4 weeks (in pounds
BMI Original body mass index BMI2 Body mass index after 4 weeks Fat Original body fat percentage
Fat2 Body
fat percentage after 4 weeks
WHR Original waist to hip
ratio
WHR2 Waist to hip ratio
Syst Original
systolic blood pressure
Syst2 Systolic blood pressure after
4 weeks
Diast Original diastolic blood pressure Diast2 Diastolic blood pressure after 4 weeks
Source
Crum, A.J. and Langer, E.J. (2007). Mind-Set Matters: Exercise and
the Placebo Effect, Psychological Science, 18:165-171. Thanks to the authors
for supplying the data.Details
In 2007 a Harvard psychologist recruited 75 female maids working in
different hotels to participate in a study. She informed 41 maids (randomly
chosen) that the work they do satisfies the Surgeon General's
recommendations for an active lifestyle (which is true), giving them
examples for how why their work is good exercise. The other 34 maids were
told nothing (uninformed). Various chacteristics (weight, body mass index,
...) were recorded for each subject at the start of the experiment and again
four weeks later. Maids with missing values for weight change have been
removed.