SOCPSY 1Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Confounding, Random Assignment, Internal Validity

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Social Psychology
• Course: SOCPSY 1Z03
• Professor: Paul Glavin

Document Summary

Deal with aggregated and not individual behaviour in research. Because people are unpredictable in speci c actions, have free will. Goal: to explain aggregate patterns of behaviour that are regular even though individuals within the aggregate vary over time. These theories try to understand systems in which people operate. The elements of the systems are not individuals but variables. Methods for testing casual relationships between phenomena. Variable = any attribute or characteristic that varies. A variable that has an effect on another variable. The outcome or the variable that is being caused by the iv. Possible other variable that might account for the relationship between x and. Causality: temporal order (the thing that is doing the causing must happen before the thing is caused, co-variation (what you are observing moves together) A. k. a. association or correlation but: correlation does not equal causation (if you see two things move together, does not mean they are causily related: non-spuriousness.