Psychology 2800E Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Confounding, Internal Validity, Operant Conditioning

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2800E
• Professor: Patrick Brown

Document Summary

In psych, the concept of control is presented in two different ways: as a standard of comparison, as a way of reducing variability. Control provides a standard of comparison: the first and fundamental meaning of the term control is that of providing a standard against which to compare the effect of a particular independent variable. It is important to reduce variability bc it reduces the chances of having a confounding variable or measurement error. General strategies: failure to confirm a hypothesis does not necessarily mean the hypothesis is incorrect. Instead, other problems could have occurred during the experiment that make it seem as if the hypothesis is deficient. Control in the laboratory: lab research is generally preferred to field research. It is preferred bc a scientific laboratory can be set up to allow the most appropriate control over variables of interest in the particular research.