A psychologist conducted an experiment to test the hypothesis that individuals embedded in their ingroup culture would be less likely to help a stranger.

College students were recruited to respond to “a brief survey about their campus experience” near the entrance to the student activity center. The first testing session took place early in the semester.

To activate identification with their university (embeddedness), these participants were given a clipboard and asked to write down three things they like about their university. Twenty students were tested. The second testing session took place on two afternoons during the last week of classes at the same location. In this control condition (lowembedded situation), 20 new students were asked to write down three things they plan to do during break.

In each condition, immediately after each participant returned the clipboard to the psychologist, a student research assistant, wearing a sweatshirt with the name of a rival school, walked by the pair and “accidentally” dropped a fi le containing papers near the participant. The psychologist recorded whether the participant helped pick up the papers. Results indicated that, as predicted, participants in the embedded condition were less likely to help than participants in the control condition. The psychologist concluded that identification with an in-group (embeddedness)

causes people to offer less help to a stranger.

A. Identify the independent variable of interest to the psychologist (and its levels) and the dependent variable.

B. What potentially relevant independent variable is confounded with the psychologist’s independent variable? Explain clearly how the confounding occurred and describe the conclusions that can be made about the effects of embeddedness on helping.

C. Suggest ways in which the experiment could be done so the psychologist could make a clear conclusion about the effect of identification with an in-group (embeddedness) and helping a stranger.