Experiments Case Studies Flashcards
Broken Windows [Zimbardo]
A car without a license plate was parked on a street in a notoriously ‘run down’ area in NY and another one was placed on a street in California. NY car was attacked in 10 mins and within 24 hrs, random destruction begun. The Californian car was untouched after two weeks- Zimbardo smashed a window and within a few hours the car was destroyed.
Hawthorne Factory [Mayo]
The owners of a company wanted to ensure that their work enviroment was the most efficient so they could have the highest levels of productivity. Mayo controlled the conditions under which his experiment took place and then introduced specific changes- he manipulated the conditions (heating, lighting, length of breaks)- every time he changed something he measured changes in worker productivity. He found that worker productivity kept increasing- this was because of the presence of an observer. Mayo had overlooked this significant extraneous variable.
Sane in Insane Places [Rosenhan]
8 researchers went to 12 Californinan mental hospitals claiming to hear voices and they were all admitted, diagnosed as schizophrenic.
when they were there, they stopped complaining of hearing noises and acted normally but hospital staff still treated them like they were ill. it was not the patients’ behaviours that led them to being treated like this but actually the label itself.
Suicide Study [Durkheim]
Durkheim’s hypothesis was that low levels of integration of individuals into social groups cause higher rates of suicide. He said different religions produced different levels of integration. He predicted that Protestants would have a higher suicide rate than Catholics. He tested this prediction by comparing the suicide rates in Catholics and Protestants who were similar in all other respects- his prediction was supported by official statistics on suicide- Durkheim used this to claim his hypothesis was correct.
Pygmalion in the Classroom [Rosenthal and Jacobsen]
used field experiments to study teacher expectations and the effect they have on learner’s progress. researched a Californian primary school- they wanted to plant a particular set of expectations in the teacher’s minds to see if this had an effect on pupil performance. the dependent variable was the ‘intellectual behaviour’ of the children. because the bloomers were selected at random, there was no reason why their performance would be any different however when they went back, the bloomer has 12 extra IQ points
