Social psychologists throughout the years have shown that an aggression-sexualit

Question

Social psychologists throughout the years have shown that an aggression-sexuality link exists not only in various animal species but also in humans. Dutton and Aron (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1974) set out to show that a more general link exists in humans, namely emotional arousal of all kinds and sexual attraction. They set up their study to compare men in a high emotional arousal situation to men in a low emotional arousal situation.

Researchers wanted to test the notion that an attractive female is seen as more attractive by males who encounter her in a fear-arousing situation than by males who encounter her in a non-fear-arousing situation. In the high emotional arousal group, men deemed to be between the ages of 18 and 35 who crossed a suspension bridge 230 feet above rocks and shallow rapids in Capilano Canyon, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and were not accompanied by a female were approached on the bridge by an attractive female interviewer. The same interviewer also approached men who fit the same criteria but crossed a solid wood bridge 10 feet above a rivulet that ran into the main river. Both groups of men were interviewed on the bridge and were told that the interview was for a psychology class project on the effects of exposure to scenic attractions on creative expression. The men filled out a short questionnaire after which the interviewer wrote her phone number down on a slip of paper and said that if they were interested in the results of the experiment they could call her. The researcher talked to 18 men on the suspension bridge and 16 men on the wooden bridge. Of the 18 men on the suspension bridge that accepted her phone number, 9 called her. Of the 16 men on the solid wooden bridge that accepted her phone number, 2 called her. The researchers acknowledged the fact that there were confounding variables involved in the study. They tried to minimize these by doing other studies to try to answer the same research question. In another study, they again placed an interviewer on a suspension bridge. After selecting a man that fit the criteria to be in the study (between the ages of 18 and 35 and not accompanied by a female), the researcher flipped a coin to decide whether to interview the subject on the suspension bridge just as before, or at least 10 minutes after they crossed the suspension bridge when they were walking or sitting in the nearby park.

Question 10

Select the confounding variable which was present in the first study that the researchers were attempting to eliminate in this second study.

Length of the questionnaire

Personality traits like outgoingness of the subject

Location of the interview (at the bridge or in the park)

Whether the subject calls the interviewer or not

Question 11

Clearly explain in context how your answer to problem #10 meets the definition of a confounding variable.

Length of the questionnaire

Personality traits like outgoingness of the subject

Location of the interview (at the bridge or in the park)

Whether the subject calls the interviewer or not

Explanation / Answer

Question 10 :

Answer : Location of the interview (at the bridge or in the park)

Explanation: From the description of the second study, it is clear that the researcher wanted to ensure, in the second study, that the actual relationship between the two variables of interest does not get confounded by the variable :Location of the Interview. Due to this reason, researchers randomly with equal probability, chose to conduct the interview in the second study, either on bridge or in park. Hence, correct answer is "location of interview".

Question 11 :

Definition of confounding variable is - "It is an outside influence that changes the effect of an independent variable on a response(dependent) variable." Clearly, the variable "Location of the park" can potentially exhibit an outside influence on the relationship between the subjects' emotional arousal and sexual attraction. For eg, it may so happen that purely due to the fact that the interviews for high emotionally aroused group have been conducted on the bridge, the sexual arousal of the subjects in that group is much higher than otherwise.

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