Question

A researcher is interested in studying changes in marital satisfaction over the course of marriage. She hypothesizes that marital satisfaction is highest when couples are newly married, that it decreases during the middle years of marriage, but rises again during later years of marriage. In order to test her hypothesis, she recruits fifty married couples within each of the following conditions: (1) married less than 10 years; (2) married 15-20 years; (3) married more than 25 years. All 150 couples (50 from each condition) complete a standardized measure of marital satisfaction. What is the dependent variable?

Answer 1

In the context of this research study, the dependent variable is the outcome or the measure that the researcher is interested in observing changes in as marriage progresses. Since the researcher is examining changes in marital satisfaction over the course of marriage, the dependent variable in this study is "marital satisfaction."

The researcher is testing the hypothesis that marital satisfaction varies at different stages of marriage – it is highest among newlyweds, decreases in the middle years, and then increases again in the later years. To measure this, married couples from different stages in their marriages (less than 10 years, 15-20 years, and more than 25 years) have been recruited to complete a standardized measure of marital satisfaction.

Therefore, the dependent variable is the metric resulting from this standardized measure of marital satisfaction. This variable is "dependent" in that it is expected to change based on the duration of marriage, which is the independent variable (or the variable being manipulated or categorized into different groups in the study).

Answer 2

Marital satisfaction

Explanation:

The hypothesis is: marital satisfaction is highest when couples are newly married. In this case, the cause is to be newly married and the effect is marital satisfaction. When you are doing a study with statistics to prove a hypothesis, the cause is the independent variable and the effect is the dependent variable. Then, the dependent variable is marital satisfaction.