5.4 Ethical and methodological issues in studying social influence Flashcards
Name two issues when studying Ashes experiment with external validity.
- all participants were male students – this means the experiment is bias, unrepresentative, cannot be generalised.
- the study was carried out during the Cold War when it was sensible to conform – replicated in 1974 showing a lower rate of conformity.
What are the three validities when studying social influence?
- external validity.
- ecological validity.
- internal validity.
What is an ecological validity issue?
An artificial task is little relevance to everyday life.
What did Milgram believe about ecological validity?
He believed that psychological processes and obedience are the same in situations where the setting is artificial or not.
Why did Irish deliberately choose and an ambiguous task – lacking ecological validity?
Because he wanted to measure pure conformity.
What is the issue with internal validity when studying Ashes experiment?
The participants conformed as they did not want to spoil the experiment.
What do critics claim about mailgrams study in accordance to internal validity – what is evidence against the critics argue?
Critics argue that the participants may not be convinced by set up. However, this is unlikely as all participants were given a sample shock and many suffered varying levels of stress.
What are four ethical issues?
- informed consent
- deception
- protection from harm
- debriefing
What is meant by informed consent and how can this be obtained from another source (mailgrams experiment)?
Informed consent is where participants know the aim procedure and are fully informed. Presumptive consent is obtaining views from other people – Milgram obtained views about his acceptability of his experiment and students and psychiatrists.
