Assignment #1 – Identifying Independent & Dependent Variables - -It is important that you be able to identify the independent variable, dependent variable, and experimental and control levels in an

experiment, so you will practice doing so for this assignment. Below are some tips to help you do well on this assignment: ➤ First read all the information provided here before trying to complete the assignment. Once you are ready to start answering the questions, read each scenario just for understanding without trying to answer the questions. After you understand what is being done in the experiment that is being described, then go back and find the IVs and DVs and answer the rest of the questions. ➤ The dependent variable is what is actually being measured in the experiment. In the statement "a researcher is measuring the effect of chocolate on happiness”, the dependent variable is happiness, happiness is affected by chocolate, or happiness depends on chocolate. ➤ The independent variable is the thing researchers manipulate. If a researcher is measuring the effect of chocolate on happiness, the independent variable is chocolate. This is the variable that the experimenter will manipulate by giving chocolate to some participants and no chocolate to others to see how it affects the dependent variable (in this case happiness). Identify the experimental and control levels of the independent variable. The control will be the one that is “business as usual" while the experimental level (or levels) gets something different (the thing the researcher thinks will cause a change in the dependent variable). If we are measuring the effect of chocolate (independent variable) on happiness (dependent variable), then the control group would get no chocolate, while the experimental group would get some specified amount of chocolate. Identify the number of levels the independent variable has. In the chocolate/happiness example, the independent variable has 2 levels (1- the group that gets chocolate and 2- group that gets no chocolate). Identify whether the design of the experiment uses groups (as in the example of chocolate) or conditions. In some research, all participants do the same task, but the task has different manipulations of the independent variable. This is true for the Stroop task, where participants must say the color of ink a word is printed in while ignoring the word itself. One list of words will be color words printed in a matching ink color (e.g., Red, Green, Blue) and the next list will be color words printed in a non-matching ink color (e.g., Red, Green, Blue). Since all participants see both lists of words, this is a condition design, not a group design. Identify the result you would expect if the hypothesis is true. In the case of the chocolate/happiness example, the result that would support the hypothesis would be that people who got chocolate would be happier than people who got no chocolate. On the next page is a challenging example, but if you take time, I promise you can understand this example and all of the questions on the assignment. Just take your time and trust yourself (and set up an in-person or Zoom meeting with me, if you need to talk to me about any of the questions)! EXAMPLE: Researchers are interested in how people respond to frustration when they are anonymous, believing that both frustration and anonymity increase aggressive behavior. In particular, they hypothesize that when people are frustrated, they are will treat others with more aggression than when they are not frustrated, and when they are anonymous to others, they will show greater aggression than when they are not anonymous. To test these hypotheses, they have participants spend 20 minutes doing either a series of easy puzzles (non-frustration) or a puzzle that has no solution (frustration). Following this, participants engage in a task where they are paired with another person (who is not actually a participant, but a person who is helping the researchers) to whom they are told to give a memory test. They are told that if their partner answers incorrectly, they are to punish the mistake by administering a dose of hot sauce, but the participant gets to choose how many teaspoons of hot sauce to give (from ¼ teaspoon up to 2 teaspoons) and how hot (on a scale of 1-5) the hot sauce is. Half of the participants in the easy puzzle group, and half in the unsolvable puzzle group are visible to their partner (non-anonymous); the other half are hidden behind a partition (anonymous) and are told that their partner will never know who they are. The researchers measure the amount of hot sauce and the hotness of the sauce that participants give and as punishments. In this example, there are 2 IVs and 2 DVs Remember! The IV is the thing researchers manipulate. The DV is the thing researchers measure. TRY TO ANSWER THIS YOURSELF BEFORE LOOKING AT THE CORRECT ANSWERS EXAMLE ANSWER a. DV #1 – amount of hot sauce given DV #2 - hotness of hot sauce given b. IV #1: frustration IV #2: anonymity c. IV #1 is manipulated using a GROUP design IV#1 has 2 levels IV #2 – is manipulated using a GROUP design IV#2 has 2 levels d. EXPERIMENTAL IV #1: unsolvable puzzle EXPERIMENTAL IV #2: participant is anonymous to partner e. CONTROL IV#1: easy puzzle CONTROL IV#2: participant not anonymous to partner NOTE: Sometimes there are just different experimental levels without any clear control level. If that is the case, just put NONE for this answer and identify all the levels for the experimental manipulations and identify each in part D f. SUPPORTING RESULT: The group that did the unsolvable puzzle would give more and hotter hot sauce punishments than the group that did the easy puzzle, and the group that is anonymous when giving the memory test would give more and hotter hot sauce punishments than those who were not anonymous when they gave the test . NOTE: Results are reported in terms of what was measured, so the correct answer here is NOT that the experimental group gave more and harsher punishment to their partners. If you start working on the assignment and feel lost, please watch the video lecture I have provided to help you. In that video, I explain every part of this assignment in detail. If you still feel confused after watching that video, please set up a to meet with me, either in my office or via Zoom so I can help you understand whatever it is that has you stumped! Okay, the questions start on the next page. The first few are easy, but they get harder as you go. Remember, take your time reading each scenario for understanding before you start trying to answer the questions. If you take time to try to understand the experiments, I think you will be able to figure this out, and please set up a meeting with me if you need help! The first few are easy, but they get harder as you go, so make sure take time to understand the example! 1. A professor notes that students in her 3-hour lab seem to get sloppy by the end of the class and make many mistakes in their work. She thinks that the sloppy work is due to fatigue and hypothesizes that providing students with caffeine half way through class will result in students making fewer errors than when they do not have caffeine. To test this hypothesis, she provides the students in the class with a caffeinated drink of their choice and measures the numbers of errors they make. During the same class the next week, she provides students with a decaffeinated version of the same drink and measures the number of errors they make. (5 points) 2. An industrial organizational psychologist believes that poor stress management results in higher rates of worker absenteeism and believes that reducing stress will result in workers missing less work. To test this, he recruits workers at a large company to participate in a study. Half the participants are given a 4-hour stress management training while at work. The other group is given 4 hours off of work with pay. The number of sick days taken by each group of workers was examined for the next six months. (5 points) 3. A positive psychologist believes that people will find humorous things funnier if they experience the humorous thing with others than if they experience that humorous thing by themselves. To test this, the scientist has 120 participants watch a half-hour comedy and counts the number of times participants laugh. After the comedy ends, she also has participants rate how funny they found the comedy on a scale of 1 to 7. One fourth of participants watch the comedy alone, one fourth watch it with one other person, one fourth watch it with 2 other people and the last quarter of participants watch the comedy with 3 other people. (5 points) 4. A researcher hypothesizes people will behave more less morally that later it is in the day. To test this, she has participants come in for an experiment in the early morning (before 9am), mid-afternoon (between 2 and 4pm), or late evening (9-11pm). When participants come to the lab, they are told they are taking part in a study about motivation and mathematical ability. The room for the experiment contains a desk with several things on it, including a calculator that is on when the participant enters the room. To make sure the participants are aware of the calculator, the researcher always says, "Let me turn this off before you get started," and then turns the calculator off but leaves it on the desk. Then each participant is given 30 difficult multiplication and division problems along with some scratch paper. They are told to use the scratch paper to solve the problems and to only write the answers on the paper with the questions. Then they are also told that they will receive one dollar for every question they get right. After that, the researcher says to each participant, “I'm busy right now, so I am going to be down the hall in my office. You just finish these problems on your own, and when you are done bring me the paper with the answers. You can just throw the scratch paper in the trash." Then the researcher leaves. The participants are video recorded without their knowledge, and the researcher counts how many times participants 'cheat' by using the calculator to solve the problems. (5 points). 5. An educational psychologist believes that teachers' ons of students' academic potential is influenced by their knowledge of how educated students' parents are. To test this, the researcher carries out an experiment with teachers at a school. Teachers were told one of the following four things about the educational background of the parents of 120 different: 1) parents are college graduates, 2) parents have high school diplomas, 3) parents didn't graduate high school, or 4) there was no information available about the parents' education. The researcher then had the teachers rate each the child's academic potential on a scale of 1-10. (5 points) 6. A psychologist hypothesizes that being sleep-deprived will increase the desire for high-calorie foods. To test this, the researcher has one group of participants get a full night's sleep (defined as 7-9 hours of sleep), another group a half a night's sleep (defined as 3.5 to 4.5 hours) and another group get no sleep. After that, participants rated how desirable 90 different foods were on a scale of 1-5. 30 of the foods had low calorie content (under 150 calories), 30 had moderate calorie content (300 to 400 calories), and 30 had high calorie content (600 to 800 calories). The researcher then compared the desirability ratings to see if they differed. (10 points). 7. A developmental psychologist hypothesizes that inflated praise will decrease challenge-seeking in children with low self-esteem but not in children with high self-esteem. To test this, the researcher first use a questionnaire to determine if each child's esteem is high or low. Then the children were asked to try to draw a famous painting, and they were told that a professional painter (who in reality did not exist) would examine their drawing. Each child then received a handwritten note that they were told was written by the painter. Half the high self-esteem and half the low self-esteem children then received a note said, "You made an incredibly beautiful drawing!" The other half of the high and low self- esteem children received a note that said, "You made a good drawing!" Children were then told they had to replicate two more drawings, but they got to choose either two difficult-to-replicate or two easy- to-replicate drawings. Easy drawings were identified by the researcher saying, “If you choose to draw these easy pictures, you won't make many mistakes, but you won't learn much either." Difficult drawings were identified by the researcher saying, “If you choose to draw these difficult pictures, you might make many mistakes, but you'll definitely learn a lot, too." The researcher recorded the number of times children in the different conditions chose to draw the easy-to-replicate or difficult-to-replicate pictures. (10 points) 8. An affective neuroscientist (a psychologist who studies the neurological and physiological basis of emotions) hypothesizes that women are attracted to different types of men at different times during their ovulatory cycle. In particular, when women are fertile, she hypothesizes they will be attracted to more physically imposing, dominant appearing males, characteristics that are markers of genetic fitness (Cads) and be interested in short-term relationships with them. When they are not fertile, she hypothesizes that they will be attracted to men who appear more likely to engage in a long-term, monogamous relationship (Dads) and be interested in long-term relationships with them. To test this, women are shown dating profiles of men fitting the researcher's operational definition of “Cads” and Dads" at different times during their ovulatory cycle, and they are asked to rate the attractiveness of each (on a scale of 1-10) and to code the type of relationship they'd consider with each man on a 1-3 scale with 1= short-term relationship (e.g., a one-night stand, short-term dating relationship, short-term affair while in another relationship), 2= no preference between short and long-term relationship, 3= long-term relationship (e.g. cohabitate or marry). The researcher then analyzes the ratings on both dimension and compares fertile and non-fertile women's ratings of Cads and Dads on these two dimensions. (10 points) 9. A positive psychologist hypothesizes that using social media decreases well-being and increases loneliness and that reducing social media use improves people's well-being and reduces their sense of loneliness. She further hypothesizes that depressed people are more benefited by reducing their social media use than non-depressed people. Prior to the beginning of the study period, participants complete the Beck Depression Inventory to determine if they are depressed or not. To determine the participants' wellbeing before the experiment, she has all participants complete the Psychological Wellbeing Scale, and to determine their loneliness, she has them complete the UCLA Loneliness Scale. Then she randomly assigns half the depressed and half the non-depressed participants to limit their Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and TikTok use to a total of 30 minutes per day across all platforms, while the other half are allowed to use social media accounts as usual for three weeks. At the end of the three-week period, the researcher again has participants complete the Psychological Wellbeing Scale and UCLA Loneliness Scale and compares their pre-experiment and post-experiment scores to see if the pre- and post-experiment scores differ across the manipulations of the different independent variables to see how reducing social media use affects (10 points) 10. A cognitive psychologist is interested in the effect of emotional distraction on a cognitive task. She hypothesizes that emotionally distracting images will reduce people's speed and accuracy in