M2: Introduction to Social Psychology (additional) Flashcards
the age of passionate measurement of social phenomena
19th century
_______ agreed that scientific experimentation with human beings is not feasible
19th-century experts
It was not before the _____ that the present-day definition of a scientific experiment as a comparative measurement of experimental and control groups.
1910s
It was not until the ______ that the ________ (RCT) became the ideal experiment in the social sciences (and medicine)
1950s ; randomized controlled trial
The term ________ has always referred to widely varying research procedures.
experiment
In _________ and ________ (as well as in medical research), a particular definition of the scientific experiment, a truly scientific
experiment entails comparing experimental groups that received a treatment with control groups that did not receive the treatment and, if a difference is found, calculating its statistical significance.
contemporary social science and psychology
The groups must be composed on the basis of chance. To eliminate the possible influence of expectations concerning the outcomes, preferably both the participants and the conductors of an experiment are kept unaware of the group to which each participant has been assigned.
Statistical soundness and comparability
A truly scientific experiment is a ________ and ideally it is a _______ RCT.
randomized controlled trial ; double-blind
RCT in medicine
randomized clinical trial
Since the _____, social science handbooks and publication manuals have presented the RCT as the methodological standard for investigating causal relations.
1950s
Much of the foundation of the modern approach to social experimentation can be traced back to the work of the famous statistician ________ in the ______.
Ronald Fisher ; 1920s
Fisher refined the notion of __________ and pointed out that no two groups could ever be identical.
random assignment
Fisher noted that allocation of subjects to treatment and control groups by _______ (by the flip of a coin or from a table of random numbers, for example) ensures that differences in the average behavior of the two groups can be safely attributed to the treatment.
pure chance
As a result, the direction of causality can be determined using ___________.
basic statistical calculations
Fisher also recognized that _________ provides a means of determining the statistical properties of differences in outcomes between the groups.
randomization
The random assignment of human subjects to two groups to examine the effects of social policies.
social experiment
One group, called the “__________” is offered or required to participate in a new program,
treatment group
A second group, the “_________” receives the existing program.
control group
The two groups are monitored over time to measure differences in their _______.
behavior
The behavioral differences are sometimes called the “________” of the program.
impacts
Commonly measured behavioral outcomes in social experiments include:
EERHEC
1. earnings
2. employment
3. receipt of transfer payments
4. health
5. educational attainment
6. child development
Sample sizes in social experiments have ranged from under _____ to well over _____.
under 100 – over 10,000
Limitations of SE
social experiments require that a control group be denied the policy change given to the treatment group.
Considered disadvantaged
Limitations of SE
Denial of program services may be viewed as constituting an ethical breach, thus limiting social experiments to places where resources prevent all eligible individuals from being served.
Unethical
Limitations of SE
Although well-designed experiments have a high degree of internal validity (inferences are valid for the tested sample), they may not have ________ (they are not generalizable to other settings).
external validity
Limitations of SE
One common criticism of experiments is that because of their _________, they do not generate the macroeconomic, “community,” effects that a fully operational program would generate
limited size
Limitations of SE
social experiments take time to _______ and ______, usually several years.
design and evaluate
Limitations of SE
________ may not want to wait the __________ to find out if a particular program works.
Policymakers ; required time
Limitations of SE
in practice, it has often proven difficult to implement ________.
random assignment
Limitations of SE
Individuals may not be willing to ________ in a research study, and in cases where collaboration between researchers and government agencies is required,
participate
Limitations of SE
The treatment and control groups that are tested may turn out to be _________ of the target population.
unrepresentative
TRUE or FALSE
Because of the various limitations of social experiments, other means of evaluating the effects of social policies have been developed.
TRUE
Other means of evaluating the effects of social policies. These are generally termed “_________” or “_________ methods.
non-experimental or quasi-experimental”
_________ methods monitor the behavior of persons subjected to a new policy (the treatment group) and select a “comparison group” to serve the role of a control group.
Non-experimental
In a non-experimental method, _________ is not used to select the two groups, it is never known for sure whether the comparison group is identical to the treatment group in ways other than receipt of the treatment.
randomization
Many researchers match treatment group members to persons in the _______ population to make the groups as similar as possible.
nonparticipating
The matches are usually done using ________ and ________ characteristics such as age, education, race, place of residence, employment and earnings history, and so on.
demographic and economic characteristics
One popular matching technique is ___________, which uses a weighted average of the observed economic and demographic characteristics of the nonparticipating population to create a comparison group.
propensity score matching
A particularly attractive nonexperimental method is the “________________.”
natural experiment
________ experiments often are used to test the effects of social policies already in place.
Natural experiments
The natural experiment takes advantage of the way a new policy has been implemented so that the comparison group is almost a ___________.
true control group
This example is what type of experiment?
During the Vietnam War, military conscription was a national lottery process that selected individuals based on their birth date. Researchers can test the effects of conscription on future behavior by comparing outcomes like educational attainment or earnings between conscripted and non-conscripted individuals. They can attribute the “impacts” to conscription by adjusting the impacts of conscription for differences in military service in the treatment and comparison groups. However, the validity of this procedure depends on the comparability of military service veterans in the two samples. The study’s validity relies on the comparability of military service veterans.
Natural experiment
Robbers Cave Experiment is a famous ______________.
social psychology experiment
