2) 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.