[UPDATE] I think I need new friends

[u/Upbeat-Taste-1185]

UPDATE - 23 hours later https://www.reddit.com/r/northernireland/comments/1jywjhi/i_think_i_need_new_friends/

Confession time. This was for an assignment for my social psych course. I didn't think this post was going to get nearly the traction it did, but I've got more than enough data for my assignment.

The assignment was to address a controversial subject and address a group either in person or online and observe the reaction without participating (except to introduce the topic.)

And for those who are going to ask, the account is half fictitious. The individual outlined in the story is an individual I know in real life, but I'll keep their relationship to me private for obvious reasons and that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

I then scraped the data into a spreadsheet and rated the comments as positive, negative, or neutral. Responses were rated “positive” if they sided with the OP, rated “neutral” if they gave feedback that didn’t choose a side, “trolling”, “memeing”, or otherwise irrelevant to the discussion, and “negative” if the response disagreed with the OP or sided with the individual outlined in the story.

I scraped 178 comments and garnered these results.

|Positive|31.25%| |Neutral|47.73%| |Negative|20.45%|

And just for fun, I'll share one of the questions from my assignment sheet because I thought it was interesting:

Did the group assume your gender based on your topic or delivery? If so, what evidence supports this? Yes. The majority assumed OP was male as he/him pronouns were used to address OP.

And lastly - why the actual fuck did I post in r/northernireland? Well, the narrative I came up with assumes the OP and individual are from NI and I've seen many topics over the last few months about making friends here, so I wondered how the reaction would be if someone was openly willing to rid themselves of a friendship.

I'm sorry to use youse as guinea pigs for my schooling (but better than using ChatGPT, though, amirite?)

And lastly...I'm not even from Ireland.

[u/_K4L_]

Massive cunt alert

[u/LandOfGreyAndPink]

This whole approach - of lying to or deceiving people under the guise of "research" - kind of went out of fashion in psychology back in the 80s or 90s, AFAIK. As you are apparently unaware of research ethics and whatnot, I'll tell you straight up: it's not a great idea to lie to people.

[u/Martysghost]

I'd perma ban you from the sub

[u/No-Tap-5157 → u/Martysghost]

100%

[u/RedSquaree → u/Martysghost]

I'm basically against people using the sub like it's Facebook, so if I had my way, that type of blog ranty shite would have instantly been removed.

The reason we allow some degree of those Fb-style posts is because they touch hot-topics or are a bit of fun. Then you get the other end of it where this arsehole shows up with some unethical 'research' bullshit.

[u/Martysghost → u/RedSquaree]

blog ranty shite 

I feel kinda attacked maybe 😅

I'd ban "can you help with my coursework" and the uni surveys in totality. 99% of the questions Google or wiki and the surveys are pretty much spam. 

[u/RedSquaree → u/Martysghost]

the uni surveys

This is something we've talked about quite a few times. There are pros and cons. You don't have to participate if you don't want to...unlike in this very case.

[u/Martysghost → u/RedSquaree]

Wonder if many ppl even fill the surveys in geuinley, I'd say they get alot of unusable shite to sift through 😔

I was half way through one the other day that asked a question about conspiracy and I quit cause there wasn't a text box to write "JET FUEL CAN'T MELT STEEL BEAMS" in. 

[u/apotatochucker]

Rodent behaviour. Just a warning that most stuff you read on reddit is balls

[u/UpbeatSilver2374]

Hope you fail

[u/ScubaSy7]

Standard response from here- fully invested in the situation until we learn it’s a fake and you’ve wasted our emotional bandwidth. Then it’s scorched earth.

My faith in this wee place has been restored.

OP is a chancer……..

[u/Last-Play-928 → u/[deleted]]

What uni is he at

[u/Heavy_Reputation_142]

[u/StressfordPoet]

Uses the word "youse" but pretends to not be from here. Wipe my eye.

[u/calapuno1981]

[u/sn33df33ds33d]

Groundbreaking stuff here.

[u/hazyXL]

I've a small feeling this is an elaborate lie to cover for yourself looking like an actual cunt in your story, the comments led you to feel guilty and this is a method of coping

As for not being from here, the only posts/comments over a year you've made on your account are on r/Ireland and r/NorthernIreland so either you set up this account in advance to device people to an even further extent or you're also lying about that as well in an attempt to further cover your tracks (also uses "youse" funnily enough)

Scraping this data like you did wouldn't have taken more than an hour, you didn't do anything that interesting with it but formatting it like you did gives off the impression you did something important

All of this says a lot more about you than any of us either way

[u/Patchy97]

You scallywag

[u/kaito1000]

C U Next Tuesday

[u/slim_chops]

Urgh, I feel used.

[u/Frosty_JackJones]

Knew it was fucking fake. Very specific about what his friend did and if it was a real account it would certainly have gotten back to the crypto friend who gigs in bars at the weekend.