You are a new researcher in a social psychology lab. The study you are working on is examining the effects of alcohol on aggressiveness. You are aware of the hypotheses of the study and eager to find evidence that supports them, and you find yourself acting in a less polite manner with participants who are assigned to the alcohol condition. This differential treatment of participants across conditions will threaten

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Treating participants differently based on which condition they are assigned to threatens the internal validity of the study, as it may be unclear whether any observed differences between conditions are due to the independent variable (alcohol) or to differential treatment of participants. This can lead to inaccurate conclusions about the effects of alcohol on aggressiveness, and make it difficult to replicate or generalize the findings. It is important to maintain consistent and ethical treatment of all participants in a study, regardless of their assigned condition, in order to ensure the validity and reliability of the results.

You Are a New Researcher in a Social Psychology Lab