v9j3oij23klmivjoa93ojai3nijfaiwj93japiwnv9ajw3ijapngaiw3jga9wpj3ganeae

Scientific Method

Observation/Question -> Research Topic area -> Hypothesis -> Test with experiment -> Analyze data -> report conclusion

What is behaviorism?

"all that life of the mind is impossible to get" so observe observable behavior. What you cannot observe, you cannot study. What you can observe and record is people's behavior as they are conditioned. Given rats things and see how they react, that is behaviorism.

Who created the first American Psychology Laboratory

1883 First American Psychology Laboratory was created by G. Stanley Hall, a student of Wilhelm Wundt. G. Stanley Hall founds the American Pyschological Associate (APA)

Who created humanistic psychology?

Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers

Behavior genetics

Behavior genetics perspective. basically studies how heredity and experience Influence our individual differences in temperament. it's never the case that there is such thing as genetic determinism, there's always an interaction between genes and the environment and the behavior genetics perspective studies that interaction. It is undeniably that there is certain genetic predispositions because it's nature and nurture but they dont necessarily manifest themselves. So the behavior of genetics perspectives, again, basically its focus is on our genes and our environment influence our individual differences. It will be important when we talk about personality. Because they're the topic of individual differences is central.

Behavior perspective

Behavior perspective: In terms of anger what could behavior aggressive punches. Like someone throwing a punch and tries to infer why the person threw the punch. So if observe a response what is the stimulus that caused it.

Five pillars of psychology

Biological Biopsychology/Neurosicence it studies sensation how the bright ares light up in relation to other functions Cognitive Psychology. Problems of perception, thinking, intelligence, and memory. Less structural more functions. Developmental. How people learn and how people develop through the lifespan Most neurons as a kid Social and Personality: Social, personality, emotion, motivation. Personality discover the different personalities, social psychology studies how social affects people. Mental and Physical Health: Studies psychologies disorders. Studies depression all the other therapeutic experiments. These pillars can be mixed and not everything in the world is divided by these five pillars

What's the proper approach to study Psychology?

Biopsychosocial approach. Aka a biological perspective, a psychological perspective, and sociocultural perspective. So the bio psychosocial approach really studies behavior and mental processes at the intersection of this free circles. And so the basic argument is that everything that we are going to study and this is the also the approach that informs the textbook is going to be a product,

Cognitive perspective

Cognitive perspective: Which studies how our interpretation of a situation tends to affect anger and how anger affects our thinking. So again, cognitive is really focused on cognitive processes. Memory, perception, thinking as a whole.And so the cognitive perspective really is interested, first of all, an interpretation of events, how do we come to interpret an event? How do we come to construe an event? How do we come to think of an event? And then in terms of anger, for instance, which again, in line with our example, how the interpretation of a specific situation may affect our anger, but any other thing and how anger in turn tends to affect our thinking process. Say mean things to a person you love and it is clear than anger took over. How anger affected our thinking process. So I focus here is of cognitive psychology is how we uncovered process, store and retrieve information.

Fourth social-cultural influence

Compelling models. Tiktok models, just models in general. All these models telling you should behave in a certain, you're cool if you act in a certain way. You know, this is often the meta message that is advertising campaigns give. And therefore, they are extremely influential as a sociocultural influence on psychology.

Convenience Samples

Convenience samples, you just talk to people that you know and this can be biased because these people can be your friend. To remove bias you need a random sample

Correlational methods

Correlation: helps us figure out how closely two things vary together, and thus how well either one predicts the other. A correlation is positive if two sets of scores tend to rise or fall together. A correlation is negative if two sets of scores relate inversely, one set goes up and the other goes down. For both a relationship exists. R = +1 perfect positive correlation, 0 no correlation, -1 perfect negative correlation. Pearson .5 .6 is considered a very strong relationship. Correlation that does mean causation, an dit is because there could be a third variable. Correlation is just a mathematical measure that allows us to understand if there's a relationship between two variables. Correlation never establish causation.

Descriptive Methods

Describe behaviors, often through case studies, surveys, or naturalist observations. Descriptive can also be called qualitative. Naturalistic observations and case studies are descriptive methods. You look at a loot of case studies to see what happened in particular. You observe just one student how one student performs under his life. Case studies are basically the observation of a single thing. You observe a single instance of that behavior. Descriptive can also be naturalist observations, which is studying chimps. It can also be surveys.

What are the research methods in Psychology?

Descriptive, Correlation, Experimental Methods

Natural selection and mating behaviors

Despite predictable between group differences, there are also large within-group differences. Not all males are alike and not all females are alike. A group tendency does not mean that all members of the group exhibit the same tendency. But the fact that there's a lot of originated within its group does not mean that all members within that group behave the same way. Evolutionary psychology is not talking about you, it's talking about this abstract level. when we look at a lot of different observations, we abstract patterns of behavior and we talk about these abstract averages. "Typical" males or females don't exist. Everyone has a lot of variation Societal and institutional structures exaggerate small evolutionary differences.

Evolution vs socialization

Despite shared universals, cultures differ dramatically Men prefer younger woman in all countries. But this difference is much smaller in egalitarian countries In countries where woman have higher income, less importance is put on males' ability to provide Society has the potential to exaggerate-or dampen-small evolutionary differences Socialization teaches males and females their gender roles-the sets of "accepted" behaviors for men and women. Males in suits and woman with children. How we came to be need not to dictate how we ought to be.

Differential parental investment

During pregnancy males can do whatever they want, however, females have to be protective other their baby. Females can have a limited number of offspring, narrow time window/a lot of investment during birth. Males can have a potentially unlimited number of offspring. Giving birth involves high physical risk. Males do not give birth - no physical risk. Females have the physical organs to nurture the baby. Males do not. Result: female end high investment in each child Male low investment in each specific child.

Who introduced structuralism?

Edward Titchener

Evolutionary Problems

Evolution has presented males and females with different evolutionary problems: Differential parental investment, detecting fertility or reproductive value, paternal uncertainty

Evolutionary Perspective

Evolutionary perspective. How anger helped out ancestors survive. Trying to find a way to explain why this psychological phenonment has facitlated to the surivavl of our ancestors. HOw might have anger helped our ancestors survive, adrenaline rush. Makes you ready to fight. The evolutionary focus is our the natural selection of traits as promoted the survival of genes. What could be an explanation of why certain psychological functions have evolved and are still with us today?

Experimental research method

Experimental research, enables researches to establish whether a causal link exists between two or more variables. Requires an independent variable and a depended variable Independed variable is the factor that you changing and the dependent variable is the variable that you want to measure Cause is undefended variable effect is depended variable The factor that is changed is known as the independent (or manipulated) variable, and it is always determined by the researched. If you want to see if it really causes each other you have to use experimental methods Manipulate factors to discover their effect. What this means is that experiments allow us to test whether that relationship that we were able to observe with correlations actually exist or not. If its really the cause that one variable causes the other, it solves what correlation can not solve.

Detecting fertility/reproductive value. Why do males and females focus at different ages?

Females: age is an indirect cue for reproductive ability Younger females are more likely to conceive Younger females are more likely to survive full-term pregnancy Younger females are more likely to survive childbirth Younger females are more likely to have enough milk for offspring Males: age is an indirect cue for resources Older males have had more time to gain status and resources Older males (but not too old) have more physical power So you see how evolutionary psychology builds and hypothesis and our sort of just like then there are studies that are used to test the report. This is a lower class will also see what what the limits of evolutionary psychologist is from a methodological perspective. And there are several, but also the findings are pretty persuasive and a lot of ways.

First social-cultural influence

First Social-Cultural is the presence of others. The most famous is the bystander affect. People will not help others when there are other people example is a woman murdered and 37 bystanders were there, but no one called the police. Why didn't you help? Thought someone else would help. But also the fact that really the presence of others, affect the we behave.

mesmerizing

First popular soul healing Franz Mesmer thought that you could pull out of people and objects animal magnetism, this fluid in living and non-living things, and with that you can heal people

First psychological influence

First psychological influence is learned fears and expectations. Territory of behaviourism. A rat gets shocked everytime a sound plays and a rat getting stressed every time he hears a sound that means that he's going to get zaped. This is fears and learning expectations.

How do we study psychology. First type of research.

First type of research is basic research. It is to build the knowledge base. Biological psychologist, for instance, study the link between body and mind. Developmental psychologist. Study are changing abilities over time. Cognitive psychologists studying how we think, how we solve problems. Personality psychology, studying personality traits. Social psychologists studying how we view and affect one another, all these are examples of basic research. Basic research is research that appears in academic departments. Is research that tries to study its psychological phenomena. For the sake of studying psychological phenomena. For the sake of scientific research. psychologists being studied for itself.

What is functionalism

Functionalism is a similar method but didn't fail of the numerous biases. Going beyond inward feelings by considering evolved functions. The ability to think has evolved because it is adaptive, helped our ancestors survive and reproduce. And so the idea is if thinking is an ability of psyche, then psyche has evolved because it is adaptive. Same is true for consciousness, emotions, memory, habits, etc. Cared more about the functions and not the structure. Both consider psychology as the "science of mental life" Somehow you could use evolutionary theory to explain psychological phenomenon. Functions in the mind has also been evolved. Our psyche evolved for some reason like the ability to think is important, the frontol cortex is needed for evolution.

What is humanistic Psychology?

Humanistic Psychology Rogers and Maslow. Found behaviorism and Freudian psychology too limited. Frueidan states that there is this unconscious psyche and childhood experiences cause traumas and traumas hunt us. A Freudian Analyst would try to retrace things back to your childhood and your relationship with your parents. One of the importance concepts of Freud psychoanalysis is the diva's complex. If you're a man, you unconsciously want to kill your father and marry your Mather, and vice versa if you are a woman. And they trace that back to your childhood experiences. They thought in the 1960's this tracing back is way too limited and is just looking at something that happened in the past. They also started worrying that behaviorism was too limited. Humanist Psychology focused on the growth potential including what limits or fosters it and people's needs for love and acceptance. They stopped thinking about childhood traumas, traumas might influence these people. Humanistic psychology said that there was not point looking at the past and we need to look at the future/growth potential and what fulfills people in life and what creates a meaningful life.

Hypnosis

Hypnoses is a method to induce in a trance like state. Allow certain ideas to bring to mind, ideas and memories that wouldn't already be available

Hypothesis

Hypothesis is a prediction from a theory. A good theory produces testable predictions, called hypotheses. Such predictions would specify what results would support the theory and what results would disconfirm it. We have developed a theory that good sleep = good grades, a testable prediction would be: people who get bad sleep get bad grades.

Why did Psychology become a science

It became a science in December 1879 due to Wilhelm Wundt and he created the first laboratory of psychological research and he is the founder of modern psychology.

Studies for differential parental investment

Numerous studies were done universally that males would have more sex than woman and woman were more selective and men were not only in sex

Which domain is evolutionary psychology mostly applied.

It is mostly applied in studying mating behaviors.

Operational definitions

It standardizes a definition so that the experiment can be repeated, this is the main purpose of operation definitions. In research, it is important to report precise and measurable operational definitions of research procedures and concepts. This helps avoiding subjective biases. Ex. People have different definitions of sleep deprivations and inorder to go past these biases we use operation difnitnoin s we can replicate the original observations with different participants, materials, and circumstances.

Who is the famous hypnosis person?

Jean Martine Charcot

Examples of evolutionary different in different select choices.

Males care less about education than female. As female age goes up they also look for a guy whose age is going up. However, a man will still only look for girls in their 20s. Also back then males preferred younger woman too because they were most likely able to surivive

Which following would make you most upset. You suspect that bf/gf just had a one ngight stand with a w/m for when h/s did not feel any emotional attatchment. You suspect that bf/gf is beginning to fall in love with another w/m, but has not had any sexual contact with h/her

Man would be more upset sexual jealousy. Second question woman would be more upset because of emotional attachment. Non-biological fathers are more likely to abuse "their" children

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the idea that yes, OK, human beings are animals and they have psychological needs. And those needs should be fulfilled. There are needs for food, water, shelter, and warmth but there is also needs for psychological needs, common need for security. Self-actualization is the final form inner fulfillment. What brings people to their growth potential, different from behaviorism only study the behavior.

Neuroscience persepctive

Neuroscience perspective deals with brain circuits that activate themselves in response to certain emotions and psychological conditions. So for anger: neuroscience perspective on anger would study the brain circuits that would get us red and hot under the collar. MRI and brain functions ike a network and a certain area is not solely responsible. How the body and the brain enable emotions, memories and sensory experiences.

Third social-cultural influence

Penultimate in terms of socio-cultural influences are peer and other group influences. Famous peer-pressure many people dont start drinking out of their own initiative. People start drinking beers or smoking weed due to their peers and are ostracized if they dont, herd behavior. Especially in developmental and adolescent psychology. Peer influences are an important element of study. Beahviors are a product of our peers

Correlation Church Example

People who attend church have lower mortality rates than those who not. Does religion make people live longer. Identitfy variables, church attendance, mortality rates and get the r value. There is a negative correlation as the r is -41. How should I interpret this correlation? The more people attend church, the less is their mortality rate. But, it also means that the lower's people's mortality rate is, the more it is likely for home to attend chord. Does this mean that attending church causes one to live longer NO Correlation never establish causation Are there other factors that should be considered in the relationship between these two variables. If there was a place that was really dangerous to go to church than more people would die. It could be that healthier people engage in more social activities of all kinds, including going to church. If so, the direction of causation runs opposite of the one implied. Or it could be that good social adjustment -a third variable- causes people to both engage in more social activities and be healthier.

The last biological influence

The last biological influence that we are going to see that play an important role is how genes respond to the environment. No such things as absolute genetic determinism, but there's always an interplay of Genes and the environment. These twins are both born with genes that absorb fat twice as much as others. However, one of them is healthy because he eats healthily. While, the other is ****ed because he eats McD's everyday.

Marijuana Correlation Example

People who smoke marijuana are subsequently more likely to use cociane that people who do not smoke marijuana. Does marijuana use cause cociane use. Identify your variables: marijuana use, cocaine use R = .27 postiive correlation There is a positive relationship between marijuana use and cocaine use. The more people use marijuana, the more they are likely to use cocaine. The more people use cocaine, the more they are likely to use marijuana. Does using marijuana lead to cocaine use. No, correlation never establishes causation. Are there other facts that should be considered. It could be that people who take any kind of drug are more sensation seeking that other people and therefore engage in many kinds of stimulation behavior that are against the law. Smoking marijuana may not cause cocaine use, and cocaine use may not cause marijuana use. Rather, some third factor such as sensation seeking, may influence both.

Differential parental investment problem

Problem: given the differences in parental investment, how can males and females maximize their reproductive success? Females: higher selectivity in math choice - focus on quality, much more effortful Males: low selectivity in mate choice - focus on quantity. This is basic argument of evolutionary psychology.

Detecting fertility or reproductive value

Problem: given the differences in risk and resources involved in child rearing, what should males and females look for in the other sex? Females: focus on the ability to provide physical safety and required resources during and after pregnancy: Protect offspring and mother after birth. Provide for offspring throughout life. Males: focus on the ability to bear and nurture healthy offspring. Ability to survive a full-term pregnancy, ability to survive childbirth, ability to provide nurturance through childhood So males and females look for things in the other sex. Second argument in evolutionary psychology

Parental Uncertainty

Problem: given the physical constraints of child bearing and child birth, only females can be 100% certain that offsprings are theirs Males: motivations to know for certain that offspring is theirs Female: motivation to make male think offspring is theirs.

Psychodynamic perspective

Psychodynamic perspective: Frued foundern of modern pscyhodynamic. So the psychodynamic perspective always considers this background. Always considers this unconscious psyche and studies things as a product of this unconscious psyche of something that we are not necessarily aware of having. But is there in the background. What does psyche mean It means soul, exactly, and dynamic basically is a dynamic study of the soul, so it studies the soul as a as an energy center with different complexes, with different things But this is also an important term psychodynamic and the fact that you always have to remember that in relation to this unconscious that exists in people. So the psychodynamic perspective may study how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts.

Definition of Psychology Today

Psychology the science of behavior and mental processes Behavior is anything that an organism does- smiling, blinking, talking, tweeting, questionnaire marking etc, Mental processes are our internal, subjective experiences - sensations, perceptions, dreams, thoughts and beliefs Psychology has roots in man disciplines and many countries. There is many different forms of psychology depending on the culture. There are many psychologies

Random Population

Sample, Population is a group of people that you want to study. Random samples are likely to capture the proportions of given types of people in the population as whole. You need to give everyone an equal chance of being selected.

Second psychological influence

Second psychological influence is emotional responses. Emotional responses of people responding to things. Everywhere in facebook and tiktok, reactions. Three levels of emotional reactions physiological level of emotions that is activated within the body like an increase in heartbeat. Skin galvonic response in response to certain stimuli. Neurological response, brain activity causes emotional response. One area of the brain that generally activates itself very often in relation to like, especially primary emotions is the amygdala. Emotion from cognitive perspective. How we explain emotion from a thinking perspective

Studying psychological phenomenon

Second question. What does it mean to study a psychological phenomenon from different perspectives? Take a case study and it is anger. If you were a psychologic how would you study anger?Numerous ways to study and it deals with perspective.

Second type of research

Second type is applied research. It does not study psychology for itself, instead, it tackles practical problems. Used in business Another example is so-called counseling psychology, which helps people cope with challenges and crisis. Suicide hotlines, for instance, right? That's applied research, you need to be there, you need to be in the field, you need to know how to respond to a call. Clinical psychology also is a form of applied research because it helps people with mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. And also, that's not a psychology that. Is focused on basic research, although there is a lot of basic research done in cognitive psychology as well, but if you have a patient in front of you who is having a psychotic episode. Community psychology that creates environments for us. Help corporations, help companies, help people

Psychoanalytic psychology

Sigmund Freud. Emphasized the ways our unconscious mind and childhood experiences affect our behavior. Cared about unconscious and consciousness and how life is driven by unconscious thoughts. He had the model of how the mind works. Three categories of the mind

Sociocultural perspective

Sociocultural perspective. how expressions of anger tend to vary across cultures. Is the expression of anger universal, does everybody express anger in the same way.sort of explores how expressions of anger tend to vary across cultural context. And so the focus really here is how behavior and thinking vary across situate situations and cultures.

What is structuralism?

Structuralism Titchener Attempt to classify and understand elements of the mind's structure Used introspection and reports of experiences. Today we would use an mri. Introspection is a look into one's own mind. Show picture of a rose and what is the immediate sensation when you look at this rose. To study the mind with their own experiences. However, the issue is that they are biased. There are too many responses and everybody's own response is unique. It didn't work because it didn't have the right methods Both consider psychology as the "science of mental life"

Biological perspective

Studies how biology influences our mind and behavior.

Cognitive Psychology

Study the mind as an information system. Think of the mind as an information processing system. Studies how the mind processes and retains information. More specifically how we perceive how it process and remember information and how thinking and emotion interact with depression, anxiety, and other resort. It's really about this perceiving information, processing information, remembering information. And it uses a lot of analogies with the computer. Very different than behaviorism, and is still alive. So have dysfunctions. Focus the life of the invisible mind but as a computer processing system. The assumption is that there's something behind them that we need to take a look at and study. Studies how the mind retains processes and retains information. it accepts the existence of internal mental states, but rejects introspection as a valid method of investigation. Very different from behaviorism.

Natural Selection

Survival of the fittest-individuals who are best for the environment at the time will survive and reproduce. Fitness does not mean always the biggest or strongest. A tiger in Antartica will not do shit. Natural selection does not preclude scoial, situtation, or cultural influence. Natural selection does not preclude social, situational, or cultural influence. Always nature and nurture. Natural selection does not require conscious awareness of fitness concerns. Importantly, though, natural selection does not require conscious awareness of fitness concerns. 8:14 So there can be a separation between sort of just like something that it's being enacted. 8:38 In order to fulfill the process of natural selection and then the process itself, which is the reason why like, 8:44 for instance, the desire for reproduction is not necessarily linked to the desire for children. 8:51 But two things can be separate, right? 8:58 The fact that there's an affinity for sugar that doesn't mean that our body necessarily needs energy at that moment. Natural selection is not a description of what ought to be. Natural selection has been used to justify social injustices. Evolution is not a justification for injustice

The first Biological influence

The first biological influence is genetic predispositions. We will see that diseases like major depressive disorders or schizophrenia have a major component that is related to irritability. And in general, when we talk about this element of genetic predispositions and genetically influenced traits, we are really talking about the basic biological idea that parents pass on heritable traits to their offspring. Essentially genetically passed down traits.

The second Biological influence

The second biological influence is random errors in gene replication. Ex. Two blue butterflies creates a red butterfly. Random or genetic mutation. Genetic mutations and how they manifest.

Evolutionary Psychology

The study of the evolution of cognition, behavior, and emotion using principles of natural selection Just as nature selects for the most physically fit, it also selects for the most psychologically fit Explains psychological things that can be found cross-culturally universals. The conclusion is that the psychological universal. There's something about human beings that regardless of where they grow. They tend to structure their societies, always are on those principles. That's the idea of a psychological universal. In fact, regardless of culture. People are more likely to experience fear of snakes and spiders. But not a number of birds and butterflies. They're also more likely to trust members of their in-group.

Theory

Theory is find a general pattern between different observations so you can organize those observations. You want to study sleeping and getting good grades. 4 students have good sleep and good grades. You get a good sleep you get a good grade, sleep has a positive effect on memory. Explains behaviors or events by offering ideas that organize observations. By using deeper principles to organize isolated facts, a theory summarizes and simplifies.

Correlation Examples

There is a correlation with engineering doctorates eat mozzarella cheese are these two correlated, no. It just happens and goes well together. People who attend church have lower mortality rates than those who not. Does religion make people live longer. Identify variables, church attendance, mortality rates and get the r value. There is a negative correlation as the r is -41.

The three parts of Psychoanalytic Psychology

There is distinction between consciousness and unconsciousness. We have an ego our conscious self, torn between id basic things that we desire: our sexual desires, power desires. The superego is the arbiter that says we should do this or we should not do this. And id is unconciousness and the study is to bring the id to conciousness

History of psychology

There is no single history of psychology, but there are many histories. For most of its histories, psychology was not a science. As there are many histories, there are also many pschologies.

The third biological influence

Third biological influence is natural selection. Natural selection of adaptive traits and behavior. Some traits are biologically inherited. Variation generates competition, we live in the same world and we compete with each other. It simply happens that random variations happen and these random variations make some features more likely to survive in a certain environment.

Third psychological influence

Third psychological influence is cognitive processing and perceptual interpretations. Cognitive psychology. How do you know what the color red looks like for other people. We do not know and this is a psychological problem as well. Perceptual issues reveal themselves in numerous ways and Cognitive psychologists study how perception work and perception influences on reality. Another example is a picture that both can look like a duck and witch.

How to test hypothesis?

To test hypotheses we use experiments. You take a sample of people and you test how well did you sleep last night? 1-Not at all well; 7-Very well, and then you find the relationship between how much they slept and their grades. We test predictions through experiments

What do you need to test in a lab.

To test in lab you need to have a sample size, control group, and an experiment group. Experimental group you have an independent variable. Give placebo to control group and actual new medication to experimental group

Four steps of natural selection

Variation: There is genetic variation within a population which can be inherited Competition: Overproduction of offsprings leads to competition for survival Adaptations: Individuals with beneficial adaptations are more likely to survive to pass on their genes. Selection: Over many generations, there is a change in allele frequency (evolution)

Who created behaviorism?

Watson and Skinner

Second social-cultural influence

We are then expected cultural, societal, and family expectations. Each of us is a product of a certain culture of a certain family and a certain society. We can differentiate these three levels. This is freud's model of the, your family telling you should get straight A's and your dad telling you get an A on the test. And there is just too much pressure. So all this level of expectations also have a profound effect on psychological processes.

Who created functionalism?

William James

Logos

Word, reason or the study of in Greek

Psychology is science

Yes, but recently as science itself is recent. Some forms of psychology were already used in cultures and many of them are similar to modern psychology. Such as how the church had it's own healing techniques, exorcism and tried to touch the soul.

Experimental Research Example

You want to test drug A and drug B and hypothesis which two drugs is more effective in reducing a headache. You would have two experimental conditions, Drug A and Drug B. Then you have a control condition No drug or a placebo effect. You randomly assign participants to one of the three conditions, how would you describe the intensity of the headache 1-7. Dependent variable is the scale of the headache 1-7. Independent variable is the drugs. A control condition. A condition compared to the experimental condition in every way except that it lacks the one ingredient hypothesized to produce the expected effect on the dependent variable.

Independent and dependent variable

You're trying to study the perfect amount of water to give to plants. The independent variable would be the variable you are changing. In this case, the amount of water you need to have to test hypothesis and observing how much your plants grows. It could be number of leaves if it is alive, or if it grows. So in this example the plant growth is the factor that is observed and measured, dependent variable. The amount of water is the variable that you are manipulating

Psyche

breath, life, soul, mind