when it is depicted as a solution to misery, whereas more people will be against abortion when it is portrayed as a selfish reaction of parents to the conception of a child. MethodsParticipants:The forty participants (20 males and 20 females) were randomly selected among the freshmen students of Amherst College. These freshmen students are residents of South and North Dormitories.Procedure:Two survey forms were designed to investigate the response of the participants on the issue of abortion. The question in each survey differed in the way it was phrased. The question in one survey (pro-choice) depicts abortion as a required solution to alleviate a woman from misery, whereas the other survey (pro-life) describes abortion as a merciless murder of human life. The questions on the two surveys were framed as follows:Survey A: Do you think it is proper for a woman, who has become pregnant through a horrible rape, to have an abortion?Survey B: Do you think it is right to kill through abortion helpless babies simply due to the selfish motives of parents?Each survey was randomly given to 10 males and 10 females to ensure that results are not greatly affected due to a disproportionate gender ratio. The participants were instructed to read the questionnaire carefully and respond on a one-to-five scale with 1 being “disagree strongly” and 5 being “agree strongly.”One independent variable used in this experiment was the wording of the question. The dependent variable is the response of the participants to the questions posed. If the hypothesis was correct that the framing of the question will influence participants’ responses, then there will be a significantly higher percentage of participants inclined towards favoring abortion on the pro-choice survey, whereas a correspondingly low percentage of those on the pro-life survey. ResultsThe following averages...
