Two Psychiatrists Conducted an Experiment to Test the Effectiveness of a New

question 16

Multiple Choice

Two psychiatrists conducted an experiment to test the effectiveness of a new drug expected to help people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) . The researchers tested 60 clients with OCD, randomly assigning 30 to a group that received the drug and 30 to a placebo control group that received a pill without the drug. The use of a placebo control group and random assignment are most closely related to which criterion for showing causation?

• A) Eliminating plausible alternative explanations for why the drug might be effective
• B) Covariation, or showing that the drug and OCD symptoms are associated
• C) Time-order, or showing that the drug was administered before its effectiveness was tested
• D) They are equally related to all three criteria for showing causation.

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