Question

A researcher thinks that a person's mood has an effect on how helpful that person is likely to be. To test this, the researcher has participants come to the laboratory where they are first given a difficult test and then either heavily praised or strongly criticized for their test performance. As it happens, the researcher has one of two research assistants, one who is a bit rude and the other more friendly, running each participant through the experimental procedure. After the praise or critical feedback, each participant is asked to help the research assistant in moving some heavy boxes into another room. The researcher observes how many boxes each participant moves in helping the research assistant. One possible confound for this experiment is ________.

Answer 1

Answer:

One possible confound for the experiment is the attitude of the research assistants.

Step-by-step explanation:

A confounder simply means a variable that has impact in influencing both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association.

So, we can conclude that the attitudes of the research assistants have positive and negative impacts in determining the reactions of both participants in the experiment.

The rudeness of a research assistant will negatively impact the response of the participant allocated to him/her.

The calmness of the other research assistant will positively impact the response of the participant allocated to him/her.