Experiments

Question 0

What are the pro’s and con’s of field experiments?

What are some examples?

Answer 0

Pro’s:

• high eco v
• avoid d.c.
• learn a lot about behaviour under different conditions

Con’s:

• confounding v
• cannot control or manipulate
• not easy to replicate results
• ethical issues= PPs no informed consent

Examples:

• Piliavin et al
• Reicher & Haslam

Question 1

What are the pro’s and con’s of laboratory experiments?

What are some examples?

Answer 1

Pro's:
-high control of extraneous variables
-DV is precisely measured
-High repeatability
-Can reliably find cause+effect
Con's:
-Demand characteristics+social d
-Experimenter bias
-Low eco v
-Ethically questionable as deception

Examples:

• Milgram
• Loftus&Palmer

Question 2

What are the pros and cons of natural (quasi) experiments?

What are some examples?

Answer 2

Pro’s:

• more ethical
• high eco v
• allows research were IV can’t be changed for practical/ethical issues

Con’s:

• many extraneous v
• cannot draw conclusions on cause + effect
• cannot change conditions

Examples:
-Milgram

Question 3

What is the difference between internal and external reliability?

Answer 3

Internal= how consistently a method measures within itself

External= how consistently results are in another situation outside the experiment
Test, re-test method

Question 4

What are the different experiment designs?

What are the pros and cons?

Answer 4

INDEPENDENT
Pro's= no order effect 
           Less d.c
Con's= PP variables
            Expensive 

REPEATED
Pro’s= smaller sample so cheaper
No PP variables

Con’s= d.c
Order effects

MATCHED PAIRS
Pro's= no order effects 
           Lower individual differences 
Con's= PP variables 
            Time consuming

Question 5

What are situational variables and how can they be controlled?

Answer 5

Situational v= outside influences on experiment such as time of day and weather

• Standardisation: all method identical for every PP
• Counter balancing: changing order of tasks for each PP (ABBA method)
• Randomisation: layout decided by toss of a coin or other other random method

Question 6

What are PP variables and how can they be reduced?

Answer 6

=individual differences between PPs e.g levels of intelligence, age, etc

• Repeated measures: eradicates all PP v
• Matched pairs: minimises PP v

Question 7

What are experimenter variables and how can they be controlled?

Answer 7

=design or expectations for experiment could influence results

• Double blind
• inter rater reliability

Question 8

What are the pros and cons of qualitative and quantitative date?

Answer 8

QUANTITATIVE=
Pro's: -easy to compare and analyse
          - more reliable 
Cons:- can't understand reasons for         behaviour 
         -less valid

Question 9

What are order effects? (Boredom and practice)

Answer 9

=effect that orders of tasks have on exp

BOREDOM= deterioration of PPs across task

PRACTICE= improvement across tasks

Question 10

What are the different descriptive statistics?

Answer 10

1. Mean= the average of all the results
2. Mode= the most frequently occurring result
3. Median= the middle result when all the results are in ascending order
4. Range= the difference between the highest and lowest results