Question: Baum and Gatchel (1981, Cognitive determinants of reaction to uncontrollable events: Development of reactance and learned helplessness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 1078-1089) found that students living in long-corridor dorms (housing 30 to 40 residents per corridor) had greater feelings of helplessness than those living in short-corridor dorms (housing less than 20 residents per corridor). A resident director at Texas wished to test this finding to learn whether corridor length impacted students' sense of alienation. She randomly assigned 20 students to live in a residence hall, with 10 students in long and 10 students in short corridors for the year. At the end of the year, each student completed a measure of alienation. Below are her data—does corridor length affect feelings of alienation?

Note. Higher scores for alienation indicate higher degrees of reported alienation.