Question 1 

Researchers use experimental designs to make causal inferences. However, the validity of those causal inferences depends on how well the researchers managed to rule out alternative explanations. Analyze the journal article “Young Children Show the Bystander Effect in Helping Situations” by Plötner et al. (2015) to examine, in-depth, how one group of \researchers designed their study to rule out alternative explanations.

Reference: Plötner, M., Over, H., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2015). Young children show the bystander effect in helping situations. Psychological Science, 26(4), 499-506. DOI:
10.1177/0956797615569579
To help you in your analysis, answer the following questions about the article.

a. Identify the aims of this study. (2 marks)

b. Explain why the researchers felt they needed to conduct this study by describing the two problems with previous research that the article mentioned. (4 marks)

c. Identify the predictor variable. State the number of levels/conditions and identify what the levels/conditions are. Identify the outcome variable. (4 marks)

d. Identify the scale of measurement of the predictor variable and explain why. (2 marks)

e. Identify the scale of measurement of the outcome variable and explain why. (2 marks)

f. Identify if this is an experimental or observational study. Explain why in the context of this study to support your answer. (2 marks)

g. Identify if this is a between-subjects or within-subjects design. Explain why in the context of this study to support your answer. (2 marks)

h. Identify the five possible explanations for the bystander effect that the authors mentioned in this article. Discuss how the researchers tried to rule the explanations out. Specifically, for each explanation, describe the logic and whether the finding supported the logic. Here’s a generic example: “If X was the explanation for the bystander effect, then we should see Ybecause Z. However, Y did not happen in the study. Instead, W happened. Therefore, we can rule out X as the reason for the bystander effect.” (20 marks)

i. Identify three other aspects the researchers controlled for in their study and explain why it was important for them to control those aspects. (6 marks)

j. Identify three possible ethical concerns in this study and discuss why they were concerns. Describe how the researchers dealt with them. (9 marks)