Question

A researcher wants to examine gender differences in response to scary movies. The researcher believes that women will flinch more during a scary movie than men. To explore this idea, the researcher recruits a group of 20 women and 20 men outside a local movie theatre. The research team then measured the number of flinches (defined as sudden movements or tensing of muscles) each man or woman made during the movie What is the independent variable?

a) Gender
b) Scary Movies
c) Number of flinches
d) The movie theatre

Answer 1

b) Scary Movies

Explanation:

The independent variable is the cause - the Scary Movie

The dependent variable is the effect. Its value depends on changes in the independent variable, so the dependent variable is the number of flinches.