Why does random assignment help control for confounding variables?
A) Random assignment ensures that participants in a study are properly motivated to perform the experimental task that will be required of them.
B) Random assignment eliminates individual differences by removing individuals with the same characteristics from the study and only using individuals who have different characteristics.
C) By randomly assigning people to groups, individual differences that may influence the dependent variable are randomly distributed throughout the conditions, rather than being systematically related to the independent variable.
D) By randomly assigning people to groups, all individuals with similar characteristics are grouped together in the same condition.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Random assignment helps control for confounding variables because it ensures that individual differences are randomly distributed across conditions rather than being systematically related to the independent variable. This means that differences in participant characteristics (such as age, sex, personality traits) are not biased towards one condition or the other. This allows researchers to confidently attribute any differences observed in the dependent variable to the independent variable and not to confounding variables.

Why Does Random Assignment Help Control for Confounding Variables