Topic 3 - Experiments Flashcards
(25 cards)
What would happen with a control group in a study of plants ?
-in the control group we could keep the quantity of nutrients constant , also measuring and recording any changes in the size of the plants
What would happen with an experimental group in a study of plants ?
-in the experimental group , we may vary the quantity of nutrients that they received , measuring and recording any changes in the plants’ size that we observe
What is meant by reliability ?
-reliability , has another word for it replica which means that once a scientist has conducted a study other scientists can replicate it
What are the 2 reasons that laboratory experiments are highly reliable , producing the same results each time ?
-the original experimenter can specify precisely what steps were followed in the original experiment so other researchers can repeat these in the future
-its a very detached method - the researcher merely manipulates the variables and records the results , the scientists personal feelings and opinions have no effect on the conduct or outcome of the experiment
What is a major advantage of lab experiments ?
-the laboratory experiments has a major advantage as the method can be used to identify cause and effect relationships in the natural sciences
What are some practical problems of laboratory experiments ?
-society is a very complex phenomenon . In practice , it would be impossible to identify , let alone control , all the possible variables that might exert an influence on ,say, a child’s educational achievement
-another practical problem is that the laboratory experiments cannot be used to study the past , since by definition its impossible to control variables that were acting in the past rather than in the present
-In addition , laboratory experiments usually only study small samples , this makes it very difficult to investigate large scale social phenomenon such as religion or voting patterns . The small scale nature of laboratory experiments also reduces their representativeness
What are the 3 general ethical problems of laboratory experiments ?
-lack of informed consent
-deception
-harm
Ethical problems of lab experiments - lack of informed consent ?
-lack of informed consent - as a general principle , the researcher needs the informed consent of the research participants , however , this may be difficult to obtain from groups such as children or people with learning difficulties who may be unable to understand the nature and the purpose of the experiment
Ethical problems of lab experiments - deception ?
-deception - it’s generally wrong to mislead people as to the nature of the experiment , but many sociologists do
Ethical problems of lab experiments - deception - what was Milgrams study and what did it show ?
-Milgram conducted a study on obedience to authority
-Milgram lied to his research participants about the purpose of the research , telling them that they were assisting in an experiment on learning , in which they were ordered by the researcher to administer electric shocks when the learner failed to answer questions correctly
-In reality ,however , the purpose of the experiment was to test people’s willingness to obey orders to inflict pain . Unbeknown to Milgram’s research participants , no electric shocks were actually used
-Milgram found that 65% of them were prepared to administer shocks of 450 volts
Ethical problems of lab experiments - harm - what harm did participants experience in milgrams study ?
-Harm-the experiment also harms the participants
-In milgram’s experiment , many research participants were observed to sweat , stutter , tremble , groan , bite their lips and dig their nails into their flesh , full blow uncontrollable seizures were observed for 3 of the subjects
What do supporters of milgrams study argue ?
-supporters of milgrams study argue that this experiment can be justified ethically because they alert us to the dangers of blindly obeying authority figures
-also , a great majority of his participants , 74% said afterwards that they had learned something of lasting value
What is meant by the Hawthorne effect ?
-the Hawthorne effect is where if people know they are being studied ,then they are likely to behave differently such as how they think the researcher wants them to act
Why is a laboratory experiment likely to lead to the Hawthorne effect ?
-a lab experiment us not a Normal or natural environment , it is thus likely that any behaviour in these conditions is also unnatural and artificial (Hawthorne effect ) and if people don’t behave in true it life ways ,the experiment will not produce valid results
What is an example of a study by Mayo which showed the Hawthorne effect at work ?
-Mayo began reserach into factors effecting worker’s productivity at an electric company’s Hawthorne plant
-working with 5 female volunteer workers who know he was conducting an experiment , mayo altered different variables such as lighting , heating , rest breaks and so on to see what effects they had on the volunteers’ output
-surprisingly , not only did the output go up when he improved their working conditions , but it continued to rise even when their conditions were worsened
-Mayo concluded that the workers weren’t responding to the changes he was making such as the lighting but simply to the fact that they were being studied and wished to please the examiner
Why do interpretivist argue that our behaviour cannot be explained in terms of cause and effect such as the data produced from laboratory experiments ?
-interpretivists argue humans are different from plants and rocks as we have free will , consciousness and choice
-this means that our behaviour cannot be explained in terms of cause and effect but can only be understood in terms of the choices we freely make so in their opinion lab experiments aren’t suitable for studying human behaviours
What are the 2 alternative methods that interpetivists give instead of laboratory experiments ?
-field experiments
-comparative methods
What are the 2 features of a field experiment that distinguishes them from laboratory experiments ?
-field experiments take place in the subjects natural surroundings rather than in an artificial laboratory experiment
-those involved are generally unaware that they are the subjects of the experiment , in which case there is no Hawthorne effect
What was the field experiment conducted by Rosenhan and what did it show ?
-Rosenhan conducted a “pseudo patient” experiment , researchers presented themselves at 12 Californian mental hospitals , saying they had been hearing voices , each was admitted and diagnosed as schizophrenic
-once in hospital , they ceased to complain of hearing voices and acted normally
-never less , the hospital staff treated them as though they were still mentally ill
-this suggests that its not the patients behaviour that led them to be treated as sick , but the label of schizophrenic itself that led staff to treat them this way
Evaluation of Rosenhans “Pseudopatient” field experiment ?
-Rosenhans study shows the value of field experiments , they are more natural , valid and realistic and they avoid the artificiality of laboratory experiments
-however , the more realistic we make a situation , the less control we have over the variables that might be operating . If so, we cannot be certain that the causes we have identified are the correct ones
-some critics also argue that field experiments are unethical because they involve carrying out an experiment on their subjects without their knowledge or consent
What is meant by a comparative method ?
-unlike other experiments , the comparative method is carried out only in the mind of the sociologist , it is a thought experiment and doesn’t involve the researcher actually experimenting on real people at all , it is designed to discover cause and effect relationships
What are the 2 steps of a comparative method ?
-Step 1 - identify 2 groups of people that are alike in all major respects except from the one variable that we are interested in
-Step 2 - Then compare the 2 groups to see if this one difference between them has any effect
Explain the comparative method used in Durkheims study ?
-An example of the comparative method is Durkheims study of suicide
-Durkheims hypothesis was that low levels of integration of individuals into social groups caused high levels of suicide
-he argues that Catholicism produced higher levels of integration compared to Protestantism
-from this , he predicted that Protestants would have a higher suicide rate compared to catholics
-his prediction was supported by official statistics , which showed catholics to have lower suicide rates
