Laboratory Experiments Flashcards
What were laboratory experiments
Comparing two groups in order to discover a cause and effect relationship while manipulating the variables in which the researcher is interested in, in order to discover what effect they have.
Reliability of Laboratory experiments
Once the experiment is conducted, it can be replicated to every detail allowing it to be highly reliable while producing the same results.
Why are the results the same?
(Reliability)
The original experimenter can specify precisely what the steps were followed int he original experiment so it can be repeated.
The researcher can alter the variables the records the results and the personal feelings have no effect on the outcome.
Advantages of laboratory experiments
(Reliability)
This method can be used to identify the cause and effect relationship in natural sciences.
Practical problems with laboratory experiments
Society is very complex and it would be impossible to identify and control all of the variables that may exert influence during experiments.
It is also impossible to alter variables when the experiment is acting from the past.
The experiment can only be done in small samples so it would be hard to investigate large sample size like voting patterns and religions.
Ethical problems
Ethical objections to conducting the experiments on human beings. This problems include the lack of consent, deception and harm to participants.
Lack of informed consent
The researcher can find it difficult to to get consent from groups like children or people with disabilities who may be unable to understand the nature and purpose of the experiment.
Deception
Considered wrong to mislead people as to the nature of the experiment. An example of this is Stanley Milgram in 1974
Stanley milgram 1974
Lied to the participants into the purpose of the experiment, telling them that they were assisting an experiment where as they are also being shocked when the learner fails to answer the question correctly.
Purpose of the Stanley milgram experiment.
No electrical shocks were actually given to milgram research participants. The purpose of the experiment was to test peoples willingness to obey orders to inflict pain found that 65% of them were prepared to administer shocks of 450 Volts.
Harm to participants in the Stanley milgram experiment
The experiment observed that the participants experience, sweat stutters and uncontrollable seizures. however, supportive of Milgram argue that his experiments can be justified because they alert us to the dangers of blindly, obeying authority figures.
What caused the Hawthorne effect to be investigated.
During experiments, if people do not behave in true to life ways, the experiment will not produce valid results, because if people know they are being study, they may behave differently, ruining the experiment.
Hawthorne effect experiment by elton mayo.
Began researching the factors effecting workers productivity. He worked with 5 female volunteers who knew they were being studied and mayo altered variables like the lighting heating and rest breaks in the workplace.
Results of the Hawthorne effect
The workers output went up when he improved the working conditions, and also continue to rise when conditions were worsened. the workers were not responding to the changes. He was making but simply to the fact that they wished to please the experimenter.
Free will
Interpretivist sociologists argue that humans are not the same as plants rocks and other phenomena studied by natural scientists. We have a free wheel, consciousness and choice. Meaning of behaviour cannot be explained in terms of causing effect.
