A psychotherapist studied whether his clients self-disclosed more while sitting in an easy chair or lying down on a couch. All clients had previously agreed to allow the sessions to be videotaped for research purposes. The therapist randomly assigned 10 clients to each condition. The third session for each client was videotaped and an independent observer counted the clients’ disclosures. The therapist reported that “clients made more disclosures when sitting in easy chairs (M = 18.20) than when lying down on a couch (M = 14.31), t(18) = 2.84, p < .05, two-tailed.” Explain these results to a person who understands the t test for a single sample but knows nothing about the t test for independent means.
