Madison wants to examine the effect of a defendant's appearance on judgment of guilt for a crime.She has participants read an identical account of a crime except for the defendant's appearance.A group of high school students receive a description of an attractive defendant while a group of senior citizens receive a description of an unattractive defendant.Both groups are then asked to rate the defendant's guilt on a 7-point scale.A major confound in Madison's experiment is
A) the manipulation of appearance.
B) the measure of guilt.
C) the description of the crime.
D) the age of the participants.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The age of the participants is a major confound in Madison's experiment because the two groups of participants are not comparable due to age differences. Age can have an effect on judgment of guilt, and therefore, the results of the study would not be valid as a result of the confounding variable.

Madison Wants to Examine the Effect of a Defendant's Appearance