Final answer:
A confederate is an assistant employed by social psychologists to manipulate situations and elicit specific behaviors or responses from participants.
Step-by-step explanation:
Social psychologists often manipulate situations by employing an assistant to play a role. This assistant is known as a confederate. A confederate is an individual who is part of the research team and acts as if they are also a participant, but they are actually following a script or instructions to elicit specific behaviors or responses from the real participant(s). By using a confederate, social psychologists can create specific social scenarios to study human behavior and interactions.
Learn more about Confederate role in social psychology experiments