PSYC 217 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Confounding, Dependent And Independent Variables, Operational Definition
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Variables - any even, situation, behaviour, or individual characteristics that can take more than one value (it varies) Situational variable - describes characteristics of a situation or environment. Ex: the length of words you read in a book; the number of people who are squeezed into a classroom. Ex: reaction time, performance on a cognitive task. Response variable - the responses or behaviours of individuals. Participant variable - the characteristics of individuals that they bring with them to study. Mediating variable - a psychological process that occurs between a situational variable and a particular behaviour response that helps to explain the relationship between them. Operational definition - definition of a concept that specifies the operation used to measure or manipulate the concept. Variables must be operationally defined so that they can be studied empirically. Ex: distance between people standing next to each other. Two general approaches to the study of relationships among variables.
