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A clinical psychology team is designing an experiment to test whether a new herbal supplement reduces anxiety compared to a placebo. Describe how the team should apply the practice of blinding to prevent both researcher and participant expectations from biasing the outcomes.
Question: A clinical psychology team is designing an experiment to test whether a new herbal supplement reduces anxiety compared to a placebo. Describe how the team should apply the practice of blinding to prevent both researcher and participant expectations from biasing the outcomes.
Sample answer: The team should apply double-blinding by ensuring that neither the participants receiving the pills nor the researchers administering the supplements and measuring anxiety levels know which individuals are assigned to the active herbal supplement group or the placebo group. This setup prevents both participant expectations and experimenter expectancy effects from altering the data.
Key points:
- Applies blinding to both participants and researchers.
- Specifies that neither group knows the condition assignments (herbal supplement vs. placebo).
- States that this arrangement prevents experimenter expectancy effects and participant expectations from biasing the study.
Rubric: The answer must specify that the researchers and the participants should both remain unaware of the condition assignments (active supplement vs. placebo) to prevent experimenter expectancy effects and participant expectations.
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Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU
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A clinical psychology team is designing an experiment to test whether a new herbal supplement reduces anxiety compared to a placebo. Describe how the team should apply the practice of blinding to prevent both researcher and participant expectations from biasing the outcomes.