Tracie EoffPsych 312Assignment 2January 25, 2014Hypothesis & Variables1. A psychologist is interested in determining whether Drug A increases motor activity in rats relative to when they are not given Drug A (i.e., have not been given any drug at all).1. a. To set up this experiment the psychologist will need to get a sample group of 10 rats froma population of rats picked at random. 5 rats will be given drug A, 5 rats will be given no drugs at all.1. b. The independent variable (IV) in this study is the drug A1. c. This is an experimenter-selected IV.1. d. The dependent variable (DV) in this study will be the motor activity of the rats before andafter the experiment.1. e. To measure this the experimenter will run the rats through a maze before the test and thenrepeat the maze after the test. 2. A psychologist is interested in determining whether hunger affects a person’s mood.2. a. Alternative Hypothesis 1. When a person is hungry they become agitated.Alternative Hypothesis 2. When a person is hungry they become giddy.2. b.Alternative Hypothesis 1: The psychologist could test this theory in a control group where 20 participants could be picked at random from a population of people who regularly eat 3 meals a day with snacks in between. The group would be split into 2 groups; where one group of 10 would be given their normal diet and the other 10 would be given a small breakfast at 6am and no more food till 6 pm. Their behavior would be monitored to look for changes in mood, specifically agitation, throughout the day.2. c.The independent variable (IV) is the food intake and it is experimenter-manipulated.2. d. The dependent variable (DV) is the person’s level of agitation. To measure the level of agitation a person may be experiencing compared to their normal level of agitation, the psychologist would need to have a survey ready for the participants at the end of theexperiment. The survey will ask questions about the participants’ level of agitation as they got hungry; where 5 is very agitated and 1 is not agitated at all.3. You are interested in determining whether an individual’s ability to communicate with others is affected by that individual’s gender.3. a.Alternative Hypothesis: There is no relationship between gender and ability to communicate with others.3. b. The researcher will need 20 participants from a population of people who consider themselves good communicators. 10 of the participants will be men and 10 women all in the same age range between 25-35 years. A series of tests in communication will be givenwhere the men will communicate with other men and then with the women; the women will also communicate with the women and then the men, to determine if there is a difference in their level of ability to communicate based on gender. 3. c. The independent variable is the gender pattern. (Men with men, women with women and men with women) This is experimenter-manipulated.3. d. The dependent variable is the ability to communicate with others.3. e.To measure the ability to communicate with others the participants will be given a questionnaire that will have a question about how it felt to communicate with each personthey encountered. The question will ask if they communicated well with the other person or if they could not communicate with the other person. Based on the information gathered from the questionnaire the researcher can decide if there is a gender based ability to communicate with others.4. An experimenter was interested in the effects of reward and class standing on performance in basketball shooting. Ten college freshman and ten college seniors (neitherof which had played basketball before) were selected for participation in this study. All participants completed three different conditions. For the first 10 shots (condition 1), participants earned 5 cents for each basket; for the next 10 shots (condition 2), they earned $1 per basket; for the final 10 shots (condition 3), they earned $5 per basket. The results indicated that all participants scored more baskets when given greater/higher rewards. In addition, freshman scored more baskets than did seniors. Finally, seniors’ performance improved to a greater degree than freshmen’s as reward level increased.4. a.The independent variables are the monetary values and the students. The IV are experimenter-manipulated.4. b.The dependent variable is the number of baskets achieved by the students.4. c.The most important confound is the number of baskets made by the students compared tothe monetary value of said basket.4. d.To control for this confound the experimenters could start with a higher monetary value such as, $1 for the first 10 shots, $5 for the second set of 10 shots, and $10 for the final set of 10