Question

In order to test the effectiveness of hypnotic analgesia, 10 deeply hypnotized volunteers are compared with 10 unhypnotized participants on the amount of time each person can hold his or her hand in a bucket of ice water. What are the dependent and independent variable sin the experiment?

Answer 1

Independent Variable: Hypnotic Analgesia

Dependent Variable: Amount of time a person can hold their hands in ice water.

Explanation:

A dependent variable is the variable under study, i.e. it is the variable that is being observed for changes when other variables are altered. It is also known as the response variable.

An independent variable is the variable that is changed to study the effect of this change on the dependent variable. It is also known as the explanatory variable.

In the case study provided the researcher is performing a test to determine the effect of hypnotic analgesia on the amount of time a person can hold his or her hand in a bucket of ice water.

So the independent and dependent variables are:

• Independent Variable: Hypnotic Analgesia
• Dependent Variable: Amount of time a person can hold their hands in ice water.