AQA A level psychology- Difference between extraneous and confounding variables?

Hey guys,

Can anyone help me out with this (question above) and possibly give me some examples please?

Thanks in advance :smile:

Reply 1

username4500092

Extraneous variable is caused by environmental condition (light, noise,heat etc) the charactistics of the participant (emotional state, sex ,age etc), or the charactistics of the task (the instructions, the way stimulus materials are presented eg). Which the researcher could be hold the variable constant or be randomised across the conditions of the research.

Confounding variable is a varible that has an unintentional effect on the dependent variable (the one the reseacher is measuring). So when carrying out experiments researcher attempt to control extraneous variable, however there is a possibility that one of these variables is not controlled and if this effects the dependent variable in a systematic way or it only effects one aspect of the experiment, we call it the confounding variable