SUBJECT: PSY 087 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

NOTES BY: sage cutie

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
PROF: Gengie Alducente
Cover story A plausible but false explanation of
the procedures in an experiment told to disguise
CHAPTER 8: SOLVING PROBLEMS
the actual research hypothesis so that subjects will
CONTROLLING EXTRANEOUS VARIABLES
not guess what it is.
Physical variables Aspects of the testing conditions
Experimenter bias Any behavior of the
that need to be controlled.
experimenter that can create confounding in an
experiment.
ELIMINATION AND CONSTANCY
> Rosenthal effect The phenomenon of
experimenters treating subjects differently
Elimination A technique to control extraneous
depending on what they expect from the subjects;
variables by removing them from an experiment.
also called the Pygmalion effect.

Constancy of conditions A control procedure used

Double-blind experiment An experiment in which
to avoid confounding; keeping all aspects of the
neither the experimenter nor the subjects know
treatment conditions identical except for the inde-
which treatment condition the subjects are in; used
pendent variable that is being manipulated.
to control experimenter bias.

Balancing A technique used to control the impact of

extraneous variables by distributing their effects
equally across treatment conditions
Social variables The qualities of the relationships
between subjects and experimenters that can
influence the results of an experiment.
Demand Characteristics The aspects of the
experimental situation itself that demand or elicit
particular behaviors; can lead to distorted data by
compelling subjects to produce responses that
conform to what subjects believe is expected of them
in the experiment.
PERSONALITY VARIABLES
the personal characteris- tics that an experimenter
or volunteer subject brings to the experimental
setting.
Context variable Extraneous variable stemming from
procedures created by the environment, or context, of
the research setting.
CHAPTER 9: BASIC BETWEEN DESIGNS
Between-subjects design A design in which differ-
ent subjects take part in each condition of the
experiment.

CONTROLLING DEMAND CHARACTERISTICS

Effect size A statistical estimate of the size or
magnitude of the treatment effect(s).
Single-blind experiment An experiment in which
subjects are not told which of the treat- ment
ONE INDEPENDENT VARIABLE: TWO GROUP
conditions they are in; a procedure used to control
DESIGNS
demand characteristics.
Two-group design The simplest experimental
> Placebo effect The result of giving subjects a
design, used when only two treatment conditions are
pill, injection, or other treatment that actually
needed.
contains none of the independent variables; the
treatment elicits a change in subjects' behavior
TWO INDEPENDENT GROUPS
simply because subjects expect an effect to occur
Two-independent-groups design An experi- mental
> Placebo group In drug testing, a control
design in which subjects are placed in each of two
condition in which subjects are treated exactly the
treatment conditions through ran- dom assignment.
same as subjects who are in the experimental
> Random assignment The technique of
group, except for the presence of the actual drug;
assigning subjects to treatments so that each subject
the prototype of a good control group.
has an equal chance of being assigned to each
SUBJECT: PSY 087 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
NOTES BY: sage cutie

treatment condition. commonly used multiple-groups design in which the

subjects are assigned to the different treatment
EXPERIMENTAL GROUP - CONTROL GROUP conditions at random.

Experimental condition A treatment condition in
which the researcher applies a particular value of an
independent variable to subjects and then measures
the dependent variable; in an experi- mental
group-control group design, the group that receives
some value of the independent variable.
Experimental group The subjects in an experi-
mental condition.
Control condition A condition in which subjects
receive a zero value of the independent variable.
Control group The subjects in a control condition.
Pilot study A mini-experiment using only a few
subjects to pretest selected levels of an independent
variable before conducting the actual experiment.
CHAPTER 10: BETWEEN SUBJECTS
FACTORIAL DESIGN
Factor An independent variable in a factorial design.
Factorial design An experimental design in which
more than one independent variable is manipulated.

Higher-order interaction An interaction effect

TWO - EXPERIMENTAL GROUPS DESIGNS
involving more than two independent variables.
> Interaction The effect of one independent vari-
Two-experimental-groups design A design in
able changes across the levels of another inde-
which two groups of subjects are exposed to
pendent variable; can only be detected in factorial
different levels of the independent variable.
designs.
Two-matched-groups design An experimental
Main effect The action of a single independent
design with two treatment conditions and with
variable in an experiment; the change in the
subjects who are matched on a subject variable
dependent variable produced by the various levels of
thought to be highly related to the dependent
a single factor.
variable
Shorthand notation A system that uses numbers to
describe the design of a factorial experiment.
MATCHING BEFORE AND AFTER EXPERIMENT
Two-factor experiment The simplest factorial
design, having two independent variables.
Precision matching Creating pairs whose
subjects have identical scores on the matching
variable.
CHAPTER 11: WITHIN SUBJECTS DESIGNS
Range matching Creating pairs of subjects whose
Within-subjects design A design in which each
scores on the matching variable fall within a
subject takes part in more than one condition of the
previously specified range of scores.
experiment; also called a repeated-measures design.
Rank-ordered matching Creating matched pairs > Power The chance of detecting a genuine
by placing subjects in order of their scores on the effect of the independent variable.
matching variable; subjects with adjacent scores
become pairs. Within-subjects factorial design A factorial design
in which subjects receive all conditions in the
experiment.
MULTIPLE GROUPS
Mixed design A factorial design that combines
Multiple-groups design A between-subjects design within-subjects and between-subjects factors.
with one independent variable, in which there are
more than two treatment conditions.

Multiple-independent-groups design The most Order effects Change in subjects' performance that
SUBJECT: PSY 087 EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
NOTES BY: sage cutie

occurs when a condition falls in different positions in a

Randomized partial counterbalancing The
sequence of treatments.
simplest partial counterbalancing procedure in an
individual subject by presenting all treatment
CONTROLLING FOR ORDER EFFECTS:
conditions twice, first in one order, then in the
COUNTERBALANCING
reverse order.
Fatigue effects Changes in performance caused by
Latin square counterbalancing A partial
fatigue, boredom, or irritation.
counterbalancing technique in which a matrix, or
Practice effect Change in subjects' performance square, of sequences is constructed so that each
resulting from practice. treatment appears only once in any order position.

Progressive error Changes in subjects' responses

that are caused by testing in multiple treatment
conditions; includes order effects, such as the effects
of practice or fatigue.
Counterbalancing A technique for controlling
order effects by distributing progressive error
across the different treatment conditions of the
experiment; may also control carryover effects.
which The experimenter randomly selects as many
sequences of treatment conditions as there are
subjects for the experiment
Carryover effect The persistence of the effect of a
treatment condition after the condition ends.
Balanced Latin square A partial counterbalancing
technique for constructing a matrix, or square, of
sequences in which each treatment condition (1)
appears only once in each position in a sequence and
(2) precedes and follows every other condition an
equal number of times.

Subject-by-subject counterbalancing A
technique for controlling progressive error for each
individual subject by presenting all treatment
conditions more than once.

Reverse counterbalancing A technique for con-

trolling progressive error for each

Block randomization A process of randomization

that first creates treatment blocks containing one
random order of the conditions in the experiment;
subjects are then assigned to fill each successive
treatment block.

Across-subjects counterbalancing A technique

for controlling progressive error that pools all sub-
jects' data together to equalize the effects of
progressive error for each condition.

Complete counterbalancing A technique for con-

trolling progressive error using all possible
sequences that can be formed out of the treatment
conditions and using each sequence the same
number of times

Partial counterbalancing A technique for con-

trolling progressive error by using some subset of
the available sequences of treatment conditions.