Re: what is independent and dependent variable in psychology?

What you are being asked is to provide the basics of a psychology 
experiment.  I'll start by defining the basic terms.

DV: Dependent variable.  This is the variable that you, the experimenter, 
will measure in your subjects.  In the project you describe, it looks like 
what you want to measure is self-esteem.  Your challenge is to define what 
you mean by self esteem and find a way to measure it.  Usually this is 
accomplished by giving your subjects a written test of some sort.  You 
could design one yourself or better yet, do a search of published stuides 
in self esteem and find a test that someone else has designed.  The scores 
on the self-esteem test would be the dependent variable.  


IV: Independent variable.  This is the variable that you, the experimenter, 
manipulate in your subjects.  You choose your independent variables based 
on the hypothesis you wish to test. You might hypothesize, for instance, 
that exposure to pictures of excessively thin models lowers self-esteem. If 
you wanted to test the effects of viewing different types of advertisments 
on self-esteem, you would divide your subjects into different groups, 
assigning them randomly to different conditions, or levels, of the 
independent variable.  For instance, one group might look at an ad 
containing pictures of thin fashion models while another might look at an 
ad containing pictures of people of more realistic weight.  Your group who 
viewed the thin models would be the experimental group; the other group 
would be the control.  After they viewed the pictures, you would give them 
the self-esteem test, and compare the scores of the two groups to see if 
your hypothesis is correct.

I hope this helps.  I recommed you consult an introductory psychology 
textbook (Such as Weiten's Themes and Variations) for further information.

Louise Freeman