Ch. 8 Vocab

Question 1

a technique used to control the impact of extraneous variables by distributing their effects equally across treatment conditions

Answer 1

balancing

Question 2

a control procedure used to avoid confounding; keeping all aspects of the treatment conditions identical except for the independent variable that is being manipulated

Answer 2

constancy of conditions

Question 3

extraneous variable stemming from procedures created by the environment, or context, of the research setting

Answer 3

context variable

Question 4

a plausible but false explanation of the procedures in an experiment told to disguise the actual research hypothesis so that subjects will not guess what it is

Answer 4

cover story

Question 5

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

Answer 5

demand characteristics

Question 6

an experiment in which neither the experimenter nor the subjects know which treatment condition the subjects are in; used to control experimenter bias

Answer 6

double-blind experiment

Question 7

a technique to control extraneous variables by removing them from an experiment

Answer 7

elimination

Question 8

any behavior of the experimenter that can create confounding in an experiment

Answer 8

experimenter bias

Question 9

the personal characteristics that an experimenter or volunteer subject brings to the experimental setting

Answer 9

personality variables

Question 10

aspects of the testing conditions that need to be controlled

Answer 10

physical variables

Question 11

the result of giving subjects a pill, injection, or other treatment that actually contains none of the independent variable; the treatment elicits a change in subjects; behavior simply because subjects expect an effect to occur

Answer 11

placebo effect

Question 12

the phenomenon of experimenters treating subjects differently depending on what they expect form the subjects; also called the Pygmalion effect

Answer 12

Rosenthal effect

Question 13

an experiment in which subjects are not told which of the treatment conditions they are in; a procedure used to control demand characteristics

Answer 13

single-blind experiment

Question 14

the qualities of the relationships between subjects and experimenters that can influence the results of an experiment

Answer 14

social variables