research issues

• What is the definition of an extraneous variable?


  anything that could influence the DV
• What is the definition of demand characteristics?


  participants change their behaviour as they have predicted the aim of the study
• What are the types of demand characteristics?

  • Hawthorne effect
  • Screw-you effect
  • Social desirability bias
• What is the definition of the Hawthorne effect?


  participant guesses aim and tries to please by over-performing
• What is the definition of the screw-you effect?


  participant guesses aim and tries to annoy by answering incorrectly
• What is the definition of social desirability bias?


  participant acts unnatural as they are worried how they will be percieved
• What are the types of extraneous variables?


  • Participant variables
  • Situational variables
  • Experimenter/Investigator variables
  • Demand characteristics
• What are some examples of participant variables?


  gender, age, ethnicity, mood
• What are some examples of situational variables?


  group size, unanimity, anonymity, task difficulty, temperature
• What are the factors of experimenter variables? 


  • Physical characteristics - gender/appearance
  • Unconscious bias - subconsciously affected by social stereotypes
  • Leading questions - influences predetermined answers

  Avoid with double-blind procedure
• How to reduce research issues?

  • Randomisation
  • Standardisation - procedures identical for all participants
  • Single-blind procedure - two conditions of DV + participants don't know conditions
  • Double-blind procedure - participants and researcher don't know the conditions
• Confounding variable

  uncontrolled extraneous variables that negatively affect results