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SOCIOLOGY EXPERIMENTS (ARTIFICIAL / LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS (ASPECTS OF…

- - - - 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
  - - - 'scientific method'
        
        prestige and funding
      - value free
      - quantifiable data
      - high in reliability (method & data)
      - allows correlations in the data to be easily made
      - uncovers formulaic laws of human behaviour
    - - cannot control all the variables when dealing with society and individuals
      - volunteer bias
      - invalidity
      - cost / time
      - consent
      - Experimenter bias
      - Small scale (unrepresentative)
      - artificial setting
      - Are people passive?
  - - - 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
    - - 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
- - - - 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.
    - - 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.
    - - 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'
  - - - '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
- - - - 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.
  - - - 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'