Instructions: Design your own experiment using the available form. Purpose: One
ID: 3495049 • Letter: I
Question
Instructions: Design your own experiment using the available form. Purpose: One sentence stating your study. Subjects: Briefly describe the subjects in your study. I.V.: The cause that is varied in your study. D.V.: The effect in your study. Groups: Different groups representing different levels of your Independent Variable. Extraneous Variables: Any other variables that could have affected your Dependent Variable.
1. Purpose:
2. Subjects:
3. Independent Variable:
4. Dependent Variable:
5. Groups:
6. Extraneous Variables
Explanation / Answer
Purpose of Study –
Experimental investigation of the effects of authority on compliance behaviour.
Subjects: The subjects chosen for the study included undergraduate students from a large university with non-psychology background. The subjects were recruited through a message in university newsletter. The timing, location, and token reward for participants were announced. A total 30 students participated in the experiment and 60% of these were males.
The independent Variable – The independent variable varied at two different levels.
In level 1 condition, the participants received the instruction for administration of punishment from a research assistant who was dressed like an authority figure (a scientist professor) wearing white apron and speaking an authoritative tone.
At the level 2 of independent variable the instructor was same research assistant but dressed like normal participants, and making the request without an authoritative tone.
Dependent Variable – A special arrangement was made in the laboratory such that the subject participants were placed in front of an electric switchboard which seemed to connected on the other side to another participant, who was actually research assistant. The subjects were informed that the study was about effect of punishment upon learning/memory. Subject were provided with a set fo word lists with increasing lengths. They were supposed to speak out the list to participant who was on the receiving side of punishment in the form of increasing level of electric shock. Actually there were electric shock but the research assistant was trained to make vocalizations of increasing discomfort and pain as the level of punishment was increased. He was also trained to deliberately make mistakes in recalling the lists spoken out by the participants.
The dependent variable was participants’ compliance behaviour in terms of the extent to which they complied with the request for administration of punishment (passing increasing amount of electric shock) to supposed participant (actually research assistant) in spite of getting cues that he was finding it difficult to tolerate increasing levels of punishment. The dependent variable was measured in terms of degree of electric voltage (as mentioned don switchboard) upto which subjects continued to comply with instructions given by an authority figure or non-authority figure.
Groups – The participants were equally divided into two groups of equal size with random assignment of participant to either group 1 (received treatment of independent variable level 1 condition) and group 2 (received level 2 of independent variable as a treatment condition). The random assignment of participants ensures equalization of both groups before starting of experiment.
Extraneous Variable – Various conditions in the laboratory other than signs and signals of authority were kept same, thus controlling the extraneous variable by keeping constant. The instructor was same for both groups except his dressing and style of instructions. For each level of independent variable the differential analysis of males and females was conducted to see if the authority signs impact males and females differentially. Thus, gender variable was controlled through inclusion in analysis and thus separating the influence of extraneous variable like gender from the actual study variable of authority signs.