Laboratory

• Conducted in a highly controlled environment
• All extraneous measures can be controlled so that any changes in the DV can be said to be sue to changes in the IV
• Researcher decides where and when and with which participants
• Strength- experimenter controls all variables and isolates the IV. This high degree of control means they can be confident it is this variable that has caused the results and not extraneous variables- so cause and effect can be established
• strength- high degree of control gives the experiment good internal validity- and makes it the most scientific of methods
• Strength- high degree of control and standardised procedures means that lab experiments can be repeated and the same results found again and again- so the reliability of the results Can be established
• Weakness- artificial environment may cause social desirability
• Weakness- risk of demand characteristics and investigator effects
• Weakness-usually a small sample size therefore produces low /external ecological validity
• Weakness- low mundane realism- task may not represent every day life