Professor Okamoto is interested in the effects of prosocial TV on sharing behavior among preschool children. (Prosocialactions are meant to benefit others, not oneself.) She assembles a sample of 100 children, then assigns each child at random to either the prosocial TV group or the neutral TV group. The first group then views 30 minutes of TV with a prosocial theme, and the second group views 30 minutes of TV with a neutral theme. After the children finish their TV session, Professor Okamoto assigns them to “play groups” of 5 children from the same TV group. She observes the small groups at play, and rates each child on the tendency to share toys with other children.
What’s wrong with study 1? From the list of flaws below, select the major flaw in this study.
Select one:
a. no control group
b. biased or nonrepresentative sample
c. interpreting a correlation as indicating cause and effect
d. experimenter bias (experimenter’s expectations could influence the results)
e. participant bias (participants’ expectations could influence the results)