PSYCH 1010 Lecture 6Outline of Last Lecture 1/26I. The scientific methodII. Philosophy and psychologya. Rationalismb. EmpiricismIII. Social sciencesIV. Natural sciencesV. DeterminismOutline of Current Lecture 1/28I. The Experimenta. Phenomenonb. HypothesisII. 2 basic variablesa. Independent Variableb. Dependent Variable III. 2 Groups:a. Experimental groupb. Control groupc. C. confounding variablesCurrent Lecture 1/28I. The ExperimentThe experiment is a highly structured experience designed to isolate cause and effect.a. Phenomenon – A Greek word meaning that which reveals itselfb. Hypothesis – A presumed relationship among variables. We will use the example that a researcher believes that there is a correlation between violence on television and violence in children. This is his hypothesis.II. 2 basic variablesa. Independent variable – The variable that is manipulated. It is the presumed cause of the experimental hypothesis. It is free and independent to directly cause the hypothesis. For example, this particular researcher conducts an experiment forming 2 groups of 20 children. One group watches Kill Bill, a very violent movie, while the other watches Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. He will see how the kids play at recess after being exposed to violence. The selected clips from Kill Bill are the independent variable because their purpose is to manipulatethe group into proving the hypothesis. b. Dependent variable – is the variable that the researcher measures. This is when the researcher measures the effects that the Kill Bill clips (independent variable) had on the control group.III. 2 groups:a. Experimental group – The group that receives the independent variable of interest. In this case, the group that watched the Kill Bill clips is the experimentalgroup.b. Control group – A comparison group that is as much like the experimental group as possible except it does not receive the independent variable of interest (the Kill Bill clips) In this case, the children watch Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, a non-violent educational program. c. Confounding variable – occurs when an uncontrolled variable is unequally linked or tied to the independent variable. What is most of the kids in the experimentalgroup came from violent home lives and most of the ones in the control group were all well-nurtured? There is an infinite number of confounding variables that can skew the results of an experiment. The solution to confounding variables is replication. If the hypothesis is proven multiple times across multiple experiments, it eliminates these confounding