Laboratory Experiments

• Lab Experiments

  Manipulating variables to discover laws of cause and effect. This is done through the comparison of a control and experimental group in an artificial environment where variables can be controlled, and conditions can be replicated. This method is then favoured by Positivists who believe that social facts can be studied scientifically, using empirical evidence to test a hypothesis.
• Ethical Problems

  Deception; Milgram misled participants in a study of obedience to authority- he lied about the research purpose.
• The Hawthorne Effect

  The presence of a researcher and an artificial environment can make participants behave differently to please the researcher- making data invalid. Mayo explained this through researching factors which affect workers' productivity, after altering variables, output was higher when the conditions were good and bad. Demonstrating that workers weren't responding to the variables, it was the fact that they were being studied.
• Free-Will

  Interpretivists argue humans differ form plants and rocks which are studied by the natural sciences, we have free-will, consciousness, and choice. Behaviour then cannot be explained using cause and effect relationships, as it is the result of individual choices and changing motives.
• Experiment in Context: Harvey and Slatin

  Used photographs of children from different social classes, and asked teachers to rate their performance. Teachers then looked for similarities to students that they had taught; meaning that working class children were rated as less favourable.
• Experiment in Context: Charkin et al 


  Sampled 48 university students to teach a lesson to a 10-year-old. 1/3 were told the boy was highly motivated and intelligent, another 1/3 were told he had a low expectancy, and the final 1/3 were given no information. Video footage showed that the high expectancy group made more eye contact and gave encouraging body language.
• Ethical Issues

  Harvey and Slatin didn't use real students in their study, only images- though this did mean that no children suffered the negative effects of teachers unfavourale expectations. Also, when using real students there is a greater risk of deception, lack of informed consent, and psychological harm.
• Narrow Focus 


  Experiments examine one specific variable- for example in Charkin's study, only positive and negative body language was measured, but they didn't then research how this impacts on performance.