PSY 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Stanley Milgram, Institutional Animal Care And Use Committee, Experiment
Document Summary
Experimental methods - purpose is to explore cause and effect by manipulating one or more factors, while holding other factors constant. Independent variable (iv: variable that is manipulated by experimenter, the factor of interest to the experimenter, the one that is being studied to see if it will influence behavior. In a quasi-experiment, called the grouping variable (gv) Dependent variable (dv: variable that is measured/observed/recorded by experimenter, dv depends upon the independent variable, this is your outcome variable. Control variable (cv: held constant during an experiment, ex. Time of day, temperature, time of last meal, knowledge of subject. Random assignment to condition: each participant has an equal chance of being in any particular condition, conditions are independent of the participant, random assignment is necessary to establish causality in a true experiment. O(cid:373)eti(cid:373)es it"s (cid:374)ot possi(cid:271)le to (cid:272)o(cid:374)du(cid:272)t a(cid:374) e(cid:454)peri(cid:373)e(cid:374)t. for e(cid:454)a(cid:373)ple, it is(cid:374)"t possi(cid:271)le to assign a child a specific race for the purpose of an experiment.
