PSYCH 100B Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Red Heifer, Andrew Wakefield, Sleep Deprivation
Document Summary
Discussion of issues drawing causal conclusions from correlational data, with the example being a finding that high coffee intake was associated with difficulty conceiving. Further discussion about operationalization, using the specific size of a cup of coffee or moderate caffeine intake as discussion point. Correlational studies can produce effective predictions, but only true experiments can definitively demonstrate cause and effect. An extraneous variable is any potential variable that isn"t the independent variable or the dependent variable. Some things probably don"t affect running speed of rats very much (e. g. the time the sun rose that morning), but other things might affect running speed (e. g. age, hunger). Example: rats running mazes, having been given a drug or a placebo. The finding is that the rats given the drug run the maze faster than rats given a placebo. A potential extraneous variable could be age of the rats: age is constant: all rats are the same age (e. g. 6 months old).
