Finally, I want you to focus on a fun research methods task. At the end of the c

Question

Finally, I want you to focus on a fun research methods task. At the end of the chapter 1 slides, there is a link to the movie Ghostbusters, which has a horrible study. For the final part of this first week discussion, I want you to discuss this film clip. What was wrong with the Ghostbusters ESP experiment and how could it be improved to meet scientific standards? Specifically, try to identify three things: the hypothesis, the independent variable (the variable the researcher manipulated), and the dependent variable (the variable the researcher measured).

Explanation / Answer

Venkman performs an ESP experiment in the begining of Ghostbusters. He tells the subjects to guess the card and if they are wrong he gives them electric shock. Venkman says it is to study " the effects of negative reinforcements on psychic ability". This is criticised because electric shocks are an example of positive punishment and not negative reinforcement. Here the hypothesis was that when the subjects were given a shock, this would strngthen their response. However, the response decreased as it proved more to be an "obedience to authority" experiment. The independent variable is the outcome of wrong answer which is electric shock and the dependent variable is the responsiveness. Instead of a punishment, if a reward was given, the experiment would have worked.

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