Study A

Researcher Chock O'Lot wants to see whether the slogan used on a candy bar affects the way people rate the candy. He then asks a group of 50 college students to rate how likely they would purchase each candy bar. The same candy is put in three different packages. First, he has the students rate a brown package that says, "The Best in the Land"; next they all rate a yellow package that says, "Smoothest Ever"; and finally, they rate a white package that says, "Mumm Mumm Good." He finds that students say they are more likely to purchase the second candy bar that says, "Smoothest Ever."

1. What is the independent variable in this study? _______________________
2. What is the dependent variable? ___________________________________
3. Describe the experimental design. __________________________________
4. Does this study have any internal validity problems? If so, identify the problem(s). ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Explain how the study might be changed so that it does not have the internal validity problem(s). ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Study B

Professor Hal O. Veen hypothesizes that people will remember high fear messages better than neutral messages. Professor Veen puts all his subjects in the same room and allows his assistants to run the experiment. Subjects first are asked to read a written neutral message and 5 minutes later assistants (who do not know which message was given) pass out a questionnaire that includes questions to determine how fearful subjects found the message and how much they remembered that message. After 10 minutes all the subjects are asked to read a fearful written message and 5 minutes later assistants again administer a questionnaire to determine how fearful subjects found the message and how much they remembered that message. The results show that subjects rated the fear message as significantly more fearful than the neutral and were able to significantly recall and write down more specific facts from the fear message than from the neutral message. Professor Veen concluded that fear enhances memory.

1. What is the independent variable in this study? _______________________
2. What is the dependent variable? ___________________________________
3. Describe the experimental design. __________________________________
4. Does this study have any internal validity problems? If so, identify the problem(s). ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Explain how the study might be changed so that it does not have the internal validity problem(s). _______________________________________________________________________