What were the findings of this study? What was the hypothesis?
Transcribed Image Text: The current study was designed to measure EoMQ (Fear of Missing out)
in participants when they read that they will be the only ones not attending a social event while
all their friends can attend. Three conditions described which friends were going to the concert:
all, none, and some. In general, we predicted that if participants imagined they were the only
person unable to attend an event while all other social media friends could attend then, they
would experience higher EoMO, feelings than when either none or some of their social media
friends were able to attend, with no differences in EMO feelings emerging between conditions
where either none or only some other social media friends were able to attend. More specifically,
we predicted that if participants imagined they were the only person unable to attend an event
while all other social media friends FOMO ANALYSIS 7 could attend, then they would feel
more frustrated and more likely to feel like they were missing out than participants who read that
none or only some other social media friends were able to attend.
Participants
For our second study, 209 individuals participated in the study. The two-hundred and nine
participants comprised of 39.7% (n=83) males, 58.4% (n = 122), 0.5% (n = 1) other, and 1.4%
(n = 3) who did not specify their gender. The ages from our study ranged from a minimum of 15
to a maximum of 55 years old (M= 23.44, SD = 8.41). The sample population comprised of
73.7% Hispanic (n = 154), 10.0 % Caucasian (n=21), 6.2% African American (n = 13), 0.5%
Native American (n = 1), 3.3 % Asian American (n = 7), 4.8 % reporting "Other" (n = 10), and
1.4% (n = 3) who did not specify. Note that two participants did not provide any materials.
Procedure and Materials
In relation to the uniform standards for informed consent, potential participants were asked if he
or she is willing to participate in an online study. Additionally disclosing if there were any risks
to the participants in this study. If potential participants agreed to continue then the research
materials were presented to the potential participants through Qualtrics software. Once
participants agreed to participate in the study, they were permitted to the entire survey which
includes five sections. Participants were randomly assigned to four conditions: All Can Attend
and Limited Tickets, All Can Attend and Unlimited Tickets, None Can Attend and Unlimited
Tickets, and the last condition was None Can Attend and Limited Tickets. Similar to study One,
participants were asked to look at a Facebook Home Page for Ben Addams and read the initial
post and the responses from his friends. Participants were asked to imagine that they provided
the last response. The Facebook Home Page consisted of Ben FOMO ANALYSIS 22 Addams'
last post and under his post are five friends, Lisa Nichols, Erika Siu, Carlos Herrera, Ari Anaz.
and a "YOUR RESPONSE" that participants imaged they posted themselves. Parallel to study
one, all the responses consisted of the same wording including the "YOUR RESPONSE". All
participants read the same post from Ben that said, "Hey everyone! I've got great news. I knew
we're all thrilled that the Covid Quarantine is over and life is final back to normal. But REAL
normal means ENTERTAINMENT IS BACK! Yep, that's right. Remember that night our we
had scheduled for fall, 2020 until it got cancelled? Well, I just got an alert that he's back in town
and he's ready to ENTERTAIN! You know who I mean (and if you don't know who, then you're
no friend of mine!). I need to book tickets ASAP." But the last few sentences differed across
conditions. In the "Limited" Condition the last few sentences stated "It is already nearly sold out
already, and I can only get 6 tickets. I'm one of them, so that leaves just 5 left for you guys. Let
me know ASAP everyone! Tickets are limited!" In the "Unlimited" Condition the last few
sentences stated "It is a huge place, so there are tons of tickets, and I can get as many as I want.
I'm getting mine, so let me know how many I need to get for you guys. Let me know ASAP
everyone! Tickets are unlimited!" Participants assigned to the "All Can Attend and Limited
Tickets" Condition read Ben's Facebook post that highlighted that they were only 5 tickets
available. Beneath Ben's post were the same responses from his friends as in study one stating
all friends will attend the event. Whereas participants assigned to the "None Can Attend and
Unlimited Tickets" Condition, saw the same post from Ben but the difference was the responses
from Ben's friends. In this condition, everyone replied under Ben's Facebook post stating that
they cannot attend the event. FOMO ANALYSIS 23 Participants randomly assigned to the "All
Can Attend and Unlimited Tickets" Condition read Ben's Facebook post that highlighted
unlimited tickets. Under the post were responses from all Ben's friends replying that they will all
attend the event. Whereas participants randomly assigned to the "None Can Attend and
Unlimited Tickets" Condition saw the same post from Ben but the aspect that differs in this
scenario is the responses from Ben's friends. In this condition, all of Ben's friends replied stating
that they cannot attend the event.
Results
Our second survey conditions, attendance (All and None) served as our independent variable and
the recall of how many tickets were available served our dependent variable. With this
information, we ran a manipulation check which revealed a significant effect, X 2 (1) 103.24, p
<.001. The majority of the participants in the "All" condition correctly recalled that all the
friends were attending the event (92.5%). As well as the majority of the participants in the
For our first analysis, we ran a 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA with scarcity (Limited or Unlimited) and
attendance (All or None) as our independent variables and "I would feel frustrated" as our
dependent variable. There was no main effect for scarcity, E(1, 203) = 1.28, p > .05. There were
no meaningful differences between limited tickets (M = 3.69, SD = 1.40) and unlimited tickets
(M = 3.92, SD = 1.33). There was also no main effect for attendance, E(1, 203) = 1.82, p>.05.
There was no significant difference between all attending (M = 3.92, SD = 1.40) and none
attending (M = 3.67, SD = 1.33). There was no significant interaction, E(1, 203) = 0.78, p = .379.
This indicates that participants did not differ in their assessments of whether they would feel
frustrated when all attended and limited tickets available (M = 3.74, SD = 1.48), none 29 can
attend and limited tickets available (M = 3.65, SD = 1.32), all attended and unlimited tickets
available (M = 4.12, SD = 1.29), or when none attended and limited tickets available (M = 3.70,
SD = 1.35) We ran another 2 X 2 factorial ANOVA with tickets (Limited or Unlimited) and
attendance (All or None) as our independent variable and "I would feel like I was missing out"
as our dependent variable. There was no main effect for tickets EL1, 203) = 0.00, p > .05. There
were no meaningful differences between limited tickets (M=4.13, SD = 1.47) and unlimited
tickets (M = 4.14, SD = 1.57). However, there was a significant main effect for attendance, E1,
203) = 10.66, p <.001. Participants felt like they were missing out when all the friends attended
the event (M = 4.45, SD = 1.50) than when none of the friends would attend (M = 3.79, SD =
1.46). However, there was no significant interaction between tickets and attendance, E(1,203) =
1.06, p > .05. Thus, there were no differences in participants feeling of missing out between all
can attend and limited tickets (M = 4.35, SD = 1.53), none can attend and limited tickets (M =
3.89, SD = 1.37), all can attend and unlimited tickets (M=4.56, SD = 1.46)) and none can attend
and unlimited tickets (M = 3.67, SD = 1.46).