PSYC 2030 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Confounding, Dependent And Independent Variables
28 Dec 2019
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Document Summary
A dependent variable that tests the independent variable. Subject variables: participant variables (also known as subject variables) are the unique, specific and individual characteristics of the participants in an experiment. Subject variables offer much less control than manipulated independent variables because they are always changing. It is not as stable as studying objects or consistent things. A person"s characteristics (subject variable) can change depending on the circumstances. Example: a generally happy person can suddenly become depressed if their relative just died or they witnessed a traumatic event. An experimenter cannot make causal claims about subject variables but can document different performances on the dependent measure. A causal claim means that one thing causes the other between variables. Example: that a drug has a certain effect on preventing a disease. Confounding variable: unintended/ accidental manipulation of an extraneous variable that happens because that variable (called a confound) is associated with an independent variable in an experiment.
