Experiments

• What are experiments?

  A positivistic/scientific approach to research that allows researchers to explore and observe cause and effect under different variables to identify correlations
• Where do laboratory experiments take place?

  In a lab under controlled conditions
• What is a control group?

  A group of participants in an experiment who don’t receive any experimental treatment and serve as a comparison group
• What is an experimental group?

  The group of participants who are exposed to the variables of the experiment and receive the treatment of interest
• What is the independent variable?

  The variable that the researcher introduces, changes, or varies
• What is the dependent variable?

  What the researcher measures to see the outcome of the changes
• Why do positivists favour experiments?

  • They are scientific
  • They explore cause and effect relationships to see patterns in behaviour
  • They generate measurable quantitative data
  • They can test to the social forces that shape people - macro sociologists
  • They are objective and unbiased
  • They are replicable
• What are the practical strengths of lab experiments?

  • All variables can be controlled
  • Easy to attract funding
• What are the practical weaknesses of lab experiments?

  • It depends on research opportunity to attract participants
  • Needs specific personal skills and characteristics to carry out the experiment
• What are the ethical strengths of lab experiments?

  • identity of research participants kept anonymous
  • Informed consent can be gained
• What are the ethical weaknesses of lab experiments?

  • sometimes deception is needed to deceive subjects of the true nature of the experiment to avoid the Hawthorne effect
  • Harm to research participants
• What happened in Milgrams study (1961)?

  Milgram had acting “teachers” tell the participants that if they failed to answer a question, they would have to administer electric shocks would to another person, going up to a fatal level.
• Why did Milgram do the ”Milgram experiment”?

  To see how people respond to authority and how far they would go to do what a person in authority had instructed of them
• What are the advantages of the Milgram study?

  • Replicable
  • All variables controlled in the lab
  • No Hawthorne effect
  • Created situationism
• What is situationism?

  The idea that different situations drive different, complex behaviours
• What are the disadvantages of the Milgram experiment?

  • Ethical concerns on fake electric shocks
  • Mental harm to participants
  • Participants were supposedly coerced and bullied into completing the study
  • Small sample
  • All participants were male - not representative
• What are field experiments?

  Experiments that take places in real life conditions and follow behaviour in natural settings
• What did Rosenthal and Jacobsen do?

  Design and conduct the semi-overt non participant Pygmalion Effect Study in 1968 to observe how positive expectation from an authority impacts the performance of who they lead
• What happened in the Pygmalion Effect Study?

  Rosenthal and Jacobsen had the children of the school take a test and picked out random children to be designated as “late bloomers” who would thrive intellectually later in the year. Teachers slowly began to treat the “late bloomers” differently with positive expectations which led to them performing better than everyone else later in the year.
• What were the four factors that Rosenthal and Jacobsen said teachers displayed towards the favoured children?

  • Climate - a more caring environment
  • Input - teaching more material
  • Response opportunity - more chance to respond and answer called questions
  • Feedback - more praise and detailed feedback
• What were the disadvantages of the Pygmalion Effect Study?

  • couldn’t avoid outside variables
  • Unjust to the other children
  • Took time to evaluate student’s progress
• What are the advantages of field experiments?

  • Cheaper than getting a lab
  • Better validity in natural setting
  • Large scale and representative
  • Easy to go overt
  • Access to vulnerable groups
• What are the weaknesses of field experiments?

  • Can’t control variables closely
  • Places may reject access
  • Lack of informed consent sometimes
  • Can’t be replicated exactly
  • Bias - they pick the profile of the study
• What was the Tuskegee Alabama Syphilis Project (1932-1972)?

  An experiment that studied the damage untreated syphilis does to the human body through post mortem, involving nearly 400 economically deprived black males with syphilis and 201 without, who were not informed of the nature of the experiment
• What was the outcome of the Tuskegee Alabama Syphilis project?

  More than 100 victims died after going untreated. 1/3rd received no treatment, 1/3rd were treated with arsenic mercury and 1/3rd were free of the disease
• What were the issues of the Tuskegee Alabama Syphilis experiment?

  • No informed consent
  • Targeted a specific racial group (Unrepresentative, immoral)
  • People died for science and were dehumanised