You are curious as to whether exposing people to violent video games causes them to be more aggressive. You assign half of your participants to play a violent video game for 5 minutes and the other half to play the same video game for 25 minutes. Afterward, you have them play a board game and have a well-trained research assistant determine whether their playing style is very aggressive, barely aggressive, or not at all aggressive. You find that a vast majority of your participants, regardless of group assignment, are rated as very aggressive. This outcome would be known as a(n) .