SOCPSY 1Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Dependent And Independent Variables, The Control Group, Random Assignment

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

Document Summary

Research methods: methods for testing causal relationships between phenomenon, when you have two related things that mean one causes the other. Variables: a variable is any characteristic or attribute that varies like gender age and income, dependent variable the outcome or the variable that is being caused by the independent. Independent variable a variable that has an effect on another variable. It"s (cid:448)er(cid:455) diffi(cid:272)ult to pro(cid:448)e (cid:272)ausalit(cid:455) i(cid:374) so(cid:272)ial s(cid:272)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)es. variable: extraneous variables possible other variable that might account for the relationship between the independent and the dependent variable. Spurious relationships: when an apparently causal relationship between variables is actually not causal, in fact they are being triggered by extraneous variable. Internal when a causal relationship is properly demonstrated. Validity of findings: external validity the information is generalizable, if it is, it is valid. If the pill is the only difference you can properly detect the actual effect: one group pretest-posttest design.