Chapter 8

Question 1

What are blank confounding variables?

Answer 1

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Question 2

History (as a confounding variable)

Answer 2

It refers to any significant event, other than the IV, that occurs between DV measurements

Ex. measuring Nazi propaganda before, post test occurred after France fell to the Nazis! Results were due to the event not propaganda

Question 3

Maturation (as a confounding variable)

Answer 3

Refers to systematic time-related changes

how much time must occur before maturation changes can take place varies widely

maturation can affect:
sleep, if they’ve eaten, motivation
all of these things can then influence results/answers

Question 4

Testing (as a confounding variable)

Answer 4

when you take a test more than once, scores on the 2nd test may vary simply because you took the test a second time!

this is also known as the practice effect
where there is a beneficial effort on a DV caused by previous experience with the DV

Question 5

Reactive measures (as a confounding variable)

Answer 5

measurement that is reactive changes the behavior in question simply by answering it

Ex. attitude questionnaires

because if an experimenter is a woman you may give answers sympathetic to women.
if the experimenter were of a different race than you, you may not give answers that make you seem prejudice

Question 6

Instrumentation Decay (as a confounding variable)

Answer 6

refers to changes in measurement of the DV that are due to the measuring ‘device’. Whether that be a human or piece of equipment
(ex. fatiguing of a spring scale, how a judge rates something)

Question 7

Statistical regression (as a confounding variable)

Answer 7

regression to the mean, because when you have extreme scores it is simply difficult to maintain that degree of extremity over repeated measures

Question 8

Selection (as a confounding variable)

Answer 8

you need equivalent participants/groups

with bad selection, differences we observe between our groups after the experiment may actually reflect differences that existed BEFORE the experiment began

Question 9

Diffusion/imitation of treatment (as a confounding variable)

Answer 9

negates/minimizes the difference between groups in the experiment

occurs if participants in one treatment become familiar with the treatment of another group and copy that treatment