Final answer:
The independent variable is 'listening to heavy metal music,' and the dependent variable is 'agitation level of the people.' The independent variable is what causes the change, while the dependent variable is what is being measured and affected.
Step-by-step explanation:
When identifying an independent and a dependent variable in a hypothesis or a study, we generally regard the independent variable as the cause and the dependent variable as the effect. In the context of whether people get agitated from listening to heavy metal music, the independent variable would be 'listening to heavy metal music,' since it’s the condition being manipulated or the factor being investigated. The dependent variable would be the 'agitation level of the people,' since this is what the researcher would measure and would expect to change as a result of exposing people to the independent variable. In social studies and scientific research, the hypothesis needs to clearly state the expected relationship between these variables. For instance, in the previously mentioned table examples, the education of an individual (independent variable) is hypothesized to have an effect on the social class (dependent variable), or gender (independent variable) could affect the rate of income (dependent variable).