First homework For the claim below: a) List the variable(s) involved in the claim. b) Write one question for each of the 4 validities, as relevant. You are not answering the questions yet--just a

PSYCH 212 Homework Date: _________________

Chapter #3: Three Claims, Four Validities: Validities and Causal Criteria

1. For each claim in the chart below, list the variable(s) involved in the claim. Then they write one question for each validity, as relevant. You are not answering the questions yet—just asking questions that would be appropriate for each validity.

2. James K. McNulty and colleagues tested an intervention for helping a marriage maintain its spark: pictures of puppies and bunnies. Participants in the study included 144 married couples, all under the age of 40 and married for less than 5 years. On average, participants were around 28 years old and around 40% of the couples had children. At the start of the study, couples completed a series of measures of relationship satisfaction, as well as measures of their immediate, automatic attitudes toward their partner (See original article here).

Each spouse individually viewed a brief stream of images once every 3 days for 6 weeks. Embedded in this stream were pictures of their partner. Those in the experimental group always saw the partner’s face paired with positive stimuli (e.g., an image of a puppy or the word “wonderful”) while those in the control condition saw their partner’s face matched to neutral stimuli (e.g., an image of a button).

The results? Participants who viewed positive images paired with their partner’s face showed more positive automatic reactions to their partner over the course of the intervention compared with those who saw neutral pairings. More importantly, the intervention was associated with overall marriage quality: As in other research, more positive automatic reactions to the partner predicted greater improvements in marital satisfaction over the course of the study.

a) What are the 2 main variables in this study?

b) What kind of study did the researchers do—a correlational study or an experimental study? How do you know?

c) Can this study support the causal claim that "pairing puppy and bunny photos with photos of romantic partners can cause people to feel more positively towards their partners?"  Name and then apply each of the three causal criteria to this situation.