Physical Variables

Social Variables
Personality Variables
Context Variables
 What are physical variables?

Physical variables are aspects of the testing

situation that need to be controlled:
 day of the week

 experimental room
 lighting

Physical Variables
 Explain elimination.

Elimination completely removes extraneous

physical variables from the experimental
situation (e.g., soundproofing a room).
Removal of extraneous physical variables
prevents them from operating differently across
different treatment conditions.

Physical Variables
 How does constancy of conditions work?

Constancy of conditions controls extraneous

physical variables by keeping all aspects of the
treatment conditions identical, except for the
independent variable.
For example, test all subjects in the same room
or at the same time of day.

Physical Variables
 How does balancing work?

Balancing controls extraneous physical

variables by equally distributing their effects
across treatment conditions.
For example, running half of the subjects
in each condition in the morning and half in
the evening.

Physical Variables
 In which order should you use these techniques?

1. Eliminate extraneous variables whenever

possible.

2. Keep conditions constant where elimination

is not possible.

3. Balance the effects of extraneous variables

when constancy of conditions is not possible.

Physical Variables
 What are social variables?

Social variables are aspects of the relationships

between subjects and experimenters that can
influence experimental results.
These include demand characteristics and
experimenter bias.

Social Variables
 Explain demand characteristics.

Demand characteristics are cues within the

experimental situation that demand or elicit
specific participant responses.
Example: students cue professors to wrap up
their lectures by packing their binders, books,
and water bottles, and by looking at the door.

Or subjects when trying to guess the hypothesis

of the study, behave to prove or disprove the
hypothesis.
Social Variables
 How can demand characteristics threaten internal
validity?

Demand characteristics can confound an

experiment if they vary across experimental
conditions.
Subjects may act to confirm what they think
is the experimental hypothesis.

Social Variables
 What is a single-blind experiment?

In a single-blind experiment, subjects are

not told their treatment condition.
For example, in a single-blind drug study,
the experimental and control groups might
receive capsules that look and taste identical.

Social Variables
 How do single-blind experiments control demand
characteristics?

When subjects are not told their treatment

condition, this eliminates cues that might
alter their behavior.

Social Variables
 What is the placebo effect?

The placebo effect is when a subject receives

an inert treatment and improves because of
positive expectancies.

Social Variables
 How do cover stories control demand
characteristics?

A cover story is a false plausible explanation

of the experimental procedures to disguise the
research hypothesis from the subjects.
They should be used sparingly, since they are
a form of deception.

Social Variables
 What is experimenter bias?

Experimenter bias is any behavior by the

experimenter that can confound the experiment.
For example, an experimenter might provide
more attention to subjects in one condition than
another.

Social Variables
 What is the Rosenthal effect?

The Rosenthal effect is the phenomenon in

which experimenters treat subjects differently
based on their expectations and their resulting
actions influence subject performance.
This is also called the Pygmalion effect and
self-fulfilling prophecy.

Social Variables
 What is the Rosenthal effect?

For example, teachers might give more

attention and feedback to high aptitude
students than to low aptitude students.
The Rosenthal effect can confound an
experiment, producing results consistent
with the experimenter’s expectations.

Social Variables
 Why is a double-blind design superior to a single-
blind design in controlling experimenter bias?

Single-blind experiments only control demand

characteristics, since subjects are blinded to
their condition.
Double-blind experiments control both demand
characteristics and experimenter bias, since both
the experimenter and subjects are blinded.

Social Variables
 How might an experimenter's personality affect
experimental results?

Research on experimenter personality shows

that when experimenters are warm and friendly,
subjects learn more, talk more, earn better test
scores, and are eager to please.
Hostile or authoritarian experimenters obtain
inferior subject performance.

Personality Variables
 How can experimenters control personality
variables?

Employ multiple experimenters to run an equal

number of subjects in each of the experimental
conditions (balancing).
Treat “experimenter” as an independent variable
in statistical analysis. If an interaction is found,
then the experiment was confounded.

Personality Variables
 How can experimenters control personality
variables?

When there is a single experimenter, minimize

face-to-face contact and closely follow the script.

Videotape sessions to confirm consistent

performance.

Personality Variables
 How do volunteers differ from nonvolunteers?

Volunteers are more sociable, score higher

in social desirability, hold more liberal social
and political attitudes, are less authoritarian,
and score higher on intelligence tests than
nonvolunteers.

Personality Variables
 What are context variables?

Context variables are extraneous variables

produced by experimental procedures created
by the research setting environment, like
assignment of participants to conditions.

Context Variables
 When might subjects select the experiment?

When we allow subjects to sign up for

experiments whose titles differ in their appeal:
“The Memory Test Experiment”
“The Heavy Metal Music Experiment”
However, this could result in a biased sample
threatening external validity.

Context Variables
 Why shouldn’t you run your friends in your
experiment?

Selecting your friends might bias your sample,

threatening external validity.

Both you and your friends might act differently

in your experiment than strangers.

Context Variables
 Summarize the folklore about subjects.

Subjects who sign up late in the semester may

be less motivated and may behave differently
than those who sign up earlier in the semester.
Rosenthal speculated that the differences seen
at the start and end of an experiment may be
just as likely due to changes in the experimenter.

Context Variables