SOCIOLOGY EXPERIMENTS

ARTIFICIAL / LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS

NATURAL / FIELD EXPERIMENTS

POSITIVISTS

INTERPRETIVISTS

  • Value - free (objective)
  • Reliable
  • Structured
  • Quantitative methods & data
  • Value - laden (subjective)
  • Valid
  • Unstructured
  • Qualitative methods & data

Testing for hypothesis by looking at causal relationships between variables - uncover formulaic predictable laws of human behaviour

HYPOTHETICO-DEDUCTIVE METHOD ⭐

1. A phenomena is observed
2. A hypothesis is formulated
3. Experiment set up to test for hypothesis
4. Effects of variable changes are observed and noted
5. Data is collected, organised and quantified
6. Conclusions are drawn (objective)
7. Hypothesis is accepted pr rejected
8. A theory is formulated
9. Other researchers scrutinise the theory

ASPECTS OF THE EXPERIMENT ⭐

Control group: No changes made to it (used to compare any changes that occur within the experimental group) Usually demonstrate "normal behaviour"

Experimental group : Key variable are manipulated one at a time to see if any of them make a difference to the group's behaviour

VARIABLES

Controlled variables

  • variables that the researcher has control over

Extraneous variables

  • variables that the researcher has no control over & could affect the outcome of the experiment

Subject variables

  • variable related to an individual in the research

Experimental variables

  • variables that are being studied

Independent Variable

  • Variables that are changed

Dependent Variable

  • the outcome occurs when IV is changed

ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

'scientific method'

  • prestige and funding

cannot control all the variables when dealing with society and individuals

value free

quantifiable data

high in reliability (method & data)

allows correlations in the data to be easily made

uncovers formulaic laws of human behaviour

volunteer bias

invalidity

cost / time

consent

Experimenter bias

Small scale (unrepresentative)

artificial setting

Are people passive?

EXAMPLES

👤 Stanley Milgram

👤 Philip Zimbardo

👤 Elton Mayo

The Stanford Prison experiment - Wanted to see how people would conform to roles given to them. In his 'prison experiment' things got out when participants would begin to psychologically abuse each other. The experiment was stopped after 6 days.

The Hawthorne effect - researched whether light or temperature conditions would affect the productivity of the workers. He found out that the subjects would change their behaviour simply because they were being watched

Obedience experiment - He wanted to find out if people were willing to follow orders from authority figures even when the orders were morally wrong. The experiments deceived teh participants by suggesting there would be no long term adverse psychological events

generally follow the same principles as artificial experiments but they do not attempt to control all of the IVs - instead they let behaviour and situations take their 'natural course'

subjects do not normally know they are being studied and hence they should act more naturally

EXAMPLES

👤 Rosenthal & Jacobson

👤 Colin Brown & Pat Gay

👤 J.W Sissons

Teacher expectations and effects of labelling - investigating the effects of labelling by telling teachers that one group of students is high "spurters" and the other group were 'less able'. Teachers interacted with the students according to their labels and the "spurters" achieved higher than the others.

The Paddington Train Station Experiment - wanted to explore people's perceptions of social class by dressing up an actor as a 'businessman' and then as a 'labourer' and asked him to ask passengers for directions. He found out that more people stopped and gave directions to the 'businessman'

Racial discrimination experiment - To test the extent of racial discrimination in employment, they sent a white actor and a black actor to the same job interviews to see who was more likely to be offered a job. They also sent out the same job applications but changed the name and ethnicity of the application. They found out that the white applicant was more likely to be offered a job in most cases.

ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

'natural environment' creates high validity

lessens the hawthorne effect

small- scale means that fewer subjects are needed

acknowledges differences between individuals

removes volunteer bias

cannot control all variables

unreliable

ethics (deceit / consent / harm)

cannot be sure which independent variable created which dependent variable

small scale (unrepresentative)

qualitative data is difficult to quantify

THE COMPARATIVE METHOD

in response to the criticisms of artificial experiments, positivists came up with the comparative method to remove the 'human element' out of the research yet still retain the principles of scientific experiments

Study of two / multiple "data sets" that are similar except one or two IVs

could involve two groups of people like an artificial experiment

the two data sets are compared to see if the different IVs make any difference

EXAMPLES

👤 Durkheim

Suicide - He hypothesised that low levels of social integration was causally linked to suicide rates (Protestants less integrated than Catholics)
After scrutinising official suicide statistics he found that the key variable was indeed levels of social integration rather than age, sex, ethnicity etc.

ADVANTAGES / DISADVANTAGES

STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

Avoids artificiality

Historical references / comparisons

lessens ethical problems with suh research

eliminates the hawthorne effect

value free

reliable

cannot control teh variables

invalidity

difficult to pinpoint causal variables

statistics still need to be 'interpreted'