Psych 100: Introduction to Psychology
Sue Frantz
Experimental Design
Design an experiment to test ONE of the hypotheses that can be found under the “Experimental Design” section of the Psych 100 website.
Hypothesis:
Watching comedies will improve the sense of social support among inpatients diagnosed with schizophrenia
Description of your design (10 points):
Fifty people with schizophrenia living in institutions will be randomly assigned to watch either comedies or a mixed set of movies (dramas, romance, action, comedies etc.). By using random assignment, the two groups will be very similar at the beginning, so that any differences in the groups in the end can be attributed to the movies they watched.
Two films will be shown twice a day each five days a week for three months. At the end of the three months, each group of patients will be asked questions about the social support they feel from staff and the social support they feel from their families.
Confounding variables are other ways the groups may inadvertently differ. For instance, if one group saw their movies in the morning while the other group saw their movies in the evening, we wouldn't know if the differences in perceived social support was due to the kinds of movies they saw or when they saw then. To eliminate this potential confound, both groups need to view their movies at the same time.
Independent variable(s) – be certain to identify your experimental and control conditions (5 points):
IV: Films -- . mixed films (control condition) vs comedies (experimental condition)
Dependent variable(s) (5 points):
DV: Perceived social support as measured using a questionnaire.
* Gelkopf, M., Sigal, M, & Kramer, R. (1994).
Therapeutic use of humor to improve social support in an institutionalized
schizophrenic inpatient community. Journal of Social Psychology, 134(2), 175-182.