social psychology experiments that follow the scientific method

Social Psychology Experiments: 10 Of The Most Famous Studies

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things. 

Ten of the most influential social psychology experiments explain why we sometimes do dumb or irrational things.

“I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?” –Philip Zimbardo

Like famous social psychologist Professor Philip Zimbardo (author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil ), I’m also obsessed with why we do dumb or irrational things.

The answer quite often is because of other people — something social psychologists have comprehensively shown.

Each of the 10 brilliant social psychology experiments below tells a unique, insightful story relevant to all our lives, every day.

Click the link in each social psychology experiment to get the full description and explanation of each phenomenon.

1. Social Psychology Experiments: The Halo Effect

The halo effect is a finding from a famous social psychology experiment.

It is the idea that global evaluations about a person (e.g. she is likeable) bleed over into judgements about their specific traits (e.g. she is intelligent).

It is sometimes called the “what is beautiful is good” principle, or the “physical attractiveness stereotype”.

It is called the halo effect because a halo was often used in religious art to show that a person is good.

2. Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort people feel when trying to hold two conflicting beliefs in their mind.

People resolve this discomfort by changing their thoughts to align with one of conflicting beliefs and rejecting the other.

The study provides a central insight into the stories we tell ourselves about why we think and behave the way we do.

3. Robbers Cave Experiment: How Group Conflicts Develop

The Robbers Cave experiment was a famous social psychology experiment on how prejudice and conflict emerged between two group of boys.

It shows how groups naturally develop their own cultures, status structures and boundaries — and then come into conflict with each other.

For example, each country has its own culture, its government, legal system and it draws boundaries to differentiate itself from neighbouring countries.

One of the reasons the became so famous is that it appeared to show how groups could be reconciled, how peace could flourish.

The key was the focus on superordinate goals, those stretching beyond the boundaries of the group itself.

4. Social Psychology Experiments: The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was run to find out how people would react to being made a prisoner or prison guard.

The psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who led the Stanford prison experiment, thought ordinary, healthy people would come to behave cruelly, like prison guards, if they were put in that situation, even if it was against their personality.

It has since become a classic social psychology experiment, studied by generations of students and recently coming under a lot of criticism.

5. The Milgram Social Psychology Experiment

The Milgram experiment , led by the well-known psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s, aimed to test people’s obedience to authority.

The results of Milgram’s social psychology experiment, sometimes known as the Milgram obedience study, continue to be both thought-provoking and controversial.

The Milgram experiment discovered people are much more obedient than you might imagine.

Fully 63 percent of the participants continued administering what appeared like electric shocks to another person while they screamed in agony, begged to stop and eventually fell silent — just because they were told to.

6. The False Consensus Effect

The false consensus effect is a famous social psychological finding that people tend to assume that others agree with them.

It could apply to opinions, values, beliefs or behaviours, but people assume others think and act in the same way as they do.

It is hard for many people to believe the false consensus effect exists because they quite naturally believe they are good ‘intuitive psychologists’, thinking it is relatively easy to predict other people’s attitudes and behaviours.

In reality, people show a number of predictable biases, such as the false consensus effect, when estimating other people’s behaviour and its causes.

7. Social Psychology Experiments: Social Identity Theory

Social identity theory helps to explain why people’s behaviour in groups is fascinating and sometimes disturbing.

People gain part of their self from the groups they belong to and that is at the heart of social identity theory.

The famous theory explains why as soon as humans are bunched together in groups we start to do odd things: copy other members of our group, favour members of own group over others, look for a leader to worship and fight other groups.

8. Negotiation: 2 Psychological Strategies That Matter Most

Negotiation is one of those activities we often engage in without quite realising it.

Negotiation doesn’t just happen in the boardroom, or when we ask our boss for a raise or down at the market, it happens every time we want to reach an agreement with someone.

In a classic, award-winning series of social psychology experiments, Morgan Deutsch and Robert Krauss investigated two central factors in negotiation: how we communicate with each other and how we use threats.

9. Bystander Effect And The Diffusion Of Responsibility

The bystander effect in social psychology is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency.

The bystander effect social psychology experiments are mentioned in every psychology textbook and often dubbed ‘seminal’.

This famous social psychology experiment on the bystander effect was inspired by the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964.

It found that in some circumstances, the presence of others inhibits people’s helping behaviours — partly because of a phenomenon called diffusion of responsibility.

10. Asch Conformity Experiment: The Power Of Social Pressure

The Asch conformity experiments — some of the most famous every done — were a series of social psychology experiments carried out by noted psychologist Solomon Asch.

The Asch conformity experiment reveals how strongly a person’s opinions are affected by people around them.

In fact, the Asch conformity experiment shows that many of us will deny our own senses just to conform with others.

Author: Dr Jeremy Dean

Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology. He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. View all posts by Dr Jeremy Dean

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Module 2: Research Methods in Social Psychology

Module Overview

In Module 2 we will address the fact that psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. We will do this by examining the steps of the scientific method and describing the five major designs used in psychological research. We will also differentiate between reliability and validity and their importance for measurement. Psychology has very clear ethical standards and procedures for scientific research. We will discuss these but also why they are needed. Finally, psychology as a field, but especially social psychology as a subfield, is faced with a replication crisis and issues with the generalizability of its findings. These will be explained to close out the module.

Module Outline

2.1. The Scientific Method

2.2. research designs used by social psychologists, 2.3. reliability and validity, 2.4. research ethics, 2.5. issues in social psychology.

Module Learning Outcomes

• Clarify what it means for psychology to be scientific by examining the steps of the scientific method and the three cardinal features of science.
• Outline the five main research methods used in psychology and clarify how they are utilized in social psychology.
• Differentiate and explain the concepts of reliability and validity.
• Describe key features of research ethics.
• Clarify the nature of the replication crisis in psychology and the importance of generalizability.

Section Learning Objectives

• Define scientific method.
• Outline and describe the steps of the scientific method, defining all key terms.
• Identify and clarify the importance of the three cardinal features of science.

In Module 1, we learned that psychology was the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. We will spend quite a lot of time on the behavior and mental processes part, but before we proceed, it is prudent to elaborate more on what makes psychology scientific. In fact, it is safe to say that most people not within our discipline or a sister science, would be surprised to learn that psychology utilizes the scientific method at all.

So what is the scientific method? Simply, the scientific method is a systematic method for gathering knowledge about the world around us. The key word here is that it is systematic meaning there is a set way to use it. What is that way? Well, depending on what source you look at it can include a varying number of steps. For our purposes, the following will be used:

Table 2.1: The Steps of the Scientific Method

Science has at its root three cardinal features that we will see play out time and time again throughout this book, and as mentioned in Module 1. They are:

• Observation – In order to know about the world around us we must be able to see it firsthand. In relation to social psychology, we know our friend and his parents pretty well, and so in our time with them have observed the influence they exert on his life.
• Experimentation – To be able to make causal or cause and effect statements, we must be able to isolate variables. We have to manipulate one variable and see the effect of doing so on another variable. Experimentation is the primary method social psychology uses to test its hypotheses.
• Measurement – How do we know whether or not our friend is truly securely attached to his parents? Well, simply we measure attachment. In order to do that, we could give our friend a short questionnaire asking about his attachment pattern to his parents. For this questionnaire, let’s say we use a 5-point scale for all questions (with 1 meaning the question does not apply to 5 meaning it definitely is true or matters). If there were 10 questions, then our friend would have a score between 10 and 50. The 10 would come from him answering every question with a 1 and the 50 from answering every question with a 5. If you are not aware, there are four main styles of attachment (secure, anxious-ambivalent, avoidant, and disorganized-disoriented). We would have 2-3 questions assessing each of the 4 styles meaning that if we had 2 questions for that style, the score would range from 2 to 10. If 3 questions, the range would be 3 to 15. The higher the score, the more likely the person exhibits that style to the parent and our friend should only have a high score on one of the four styles if our scale correctly assesses attachment. We will discuss reliability and validity in Section 2.3.
• List the five main research methods used in psychology.
• Describe observational research, listing its advantages and disadvantages.
• Describe case study research, listing its advantages and disadvantages.
• Describe survey research, listing its advantages and disadvantages.
• Describe correlational research, listing its advantages and disadvantages.
• Describe experimental research, listing its advantages and disadvantages.
• State the utility and need for multimethod research.

Step 3 called on the scientist to test their hypothesis. Psychology as a discipline uses five main research designs. These include observational research, case studies, surveys, correlational designs, and experiments.

2.2.1. Observational Research

In terms of naturalistic observation , the scientist studies human or animal behavior in its natural environment which could include the home, school, or a forest. The researcher counts, measures, and rates behavior in a systematic way and at times uses multiple judges to ensure accuracy in how the behavior is being measured. This is called inter-rater reliability as you will see in Section 2.3. The advantage of this method is that you witness behavior as it occurs and it is not tainted by the experimenter. The disadvantage is that it could take a long time for the behavior to occur and if the researcher is detected then this may influence the behavior of those being observed. In the case of the latter, the behavior of the observed becomes artificial .

Laboratory observation involves observing people or animals in a laboratory setting. The researcher might want to know more about parent-child interactions and so brings a mother and her child into the lab to engage in preplanned tasks such as playing with toys, eating a meal, or the mother leaving the room for a short period of time. The advantage of this method over the naturalistic method is that the experimenter can use sophisticated equipment and videotape the session to examine it at a later time. The problem is that since the subjects know the experimenter is watching them, their behavior could become artificial from the start.

2.2.1.1. Example of an observational social psychology study. Griffiths (1991) studied the gambling behavior of adolescents by observing the clientele of 33 arcades in the UK. He used participant (when the researcher becomes an active participant in the group they are studying) and non-participant observation methodologies and found that adolescent gambling depended on the time of day and the time of year, and regular players had stereotypical behaviors and conformed to specific rules of etiquette. They played for fun, to win, to socialize, for excitement, and/or to escape.

2.2.2. Case Studies

Psychology can also utilize a detailed description of one person or a small group based on careful observation. This was the approach the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, took to develop his theories. The advantage of this method is that you arrive at a rich description of the behavior being investigated but the disadvantage is that what you are learning may be unrepresentative of the larger population and so lacks generalizability . Again, bear in mind that you are studying one person or a very small group. Can you possibly make conclusions about all people from just one or even five or ten? The other issue is that the case study is subject to the bias of the researcher in terms of what is included in the final write up and what is left out. Despite these limitations, case studies can lead us to novel ideas about the cause of behavior and help us to study unusual conditions that occur too infrequently to study with large sample sizes and in a systematic way. Though our field does make use of the case study methodology, social psychology does not frequently use the design.

2.2.2.1. Example of a case study from clinical psychology. In 1895, the book, Studies on Hysteria , was published by Josef Breuer (1842-1925) and Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), and marked the birth of psychoanalysis, though Freud did not use this actual term until a year later. The book published several case studies, including that of Anna O., born February 27, 1859 in Vienna to Jewish parents Siegmund and Recha Pappenheim, strict Orthodox adherents and considered millionaires at the time. Bertha, known in published case studies as Anna O., was expected to complete the formal education of a girl in the upper middle class which included foreign language, religion, horseback riding, needlepoint, and piano. She felt confined and suffocated in this life and took to a fantasy world she called her “private theater.” Anna also developed hysteria to include symptoms such as memory loss, paralysis, disturbed eye movements, reduced speech, nausea, and mental deterioration. Her symptoms appeared as she cared for her dying father and her mother called on Breuer to diagnose her condition (note that Freud never actually treated her). Hypnosis was used at first and relieved her symptoms. Breuer made daily visits and allowed her to share stories from her private theater which he came to call “talking cure” or “chimney sweeping.” Many of the stories she shared were actually thoughts or events she found troubling and reliving them helped to relieve or eliminate the symptoms. Breuer’s wife, Mathilde, became jealous of her husband’s relationship with the young girl, leading Breuer to terminate treatment in the June of 1882 before Anna had fully recovered. She relapsed and was admitted to Bellevue Sanatorium on July 1, eventually being released in October of the same year. With time, Anna O. did recover from her hysteria and went on to become a prominent member of the Jewish Community, involving herself in social work, volunteering at soup kitchens, and becoming ‘House Mother’ at an orphanage for Jewish girls in 1895. Bertha (Anna O.) became involved in the German Feminist movement, and in 1904 founded the League of Jewish Women. She published many short stories; a play called Women’s Rights , in which she criticized the economic and sexual exploitation of women, and wrote a book in 1900 called The Jewish Problem in Galicia , in which she blamed the poverty of the Jews of Eastern Europe on their lack of education. In 1935 she was diagnosed with a tumor and was summoned by the Gestapo in 1936 to explain anti-Hitler statements she had allegedly made. She died shortly after this interrogation on May 28, 1936. Freud considered the talking cure of Anna O. to be the origin of psychoanalytic therapy and what would come to be called the cathartic method.

To learn more about observational and case study designs, please take a look at our Research Methods in Psychology textbook by visiting:

https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/observational-research/

For more on Anna O., please see:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freuds-patients-serial/201201/bertha-pappenheim-1859-1936

2.2.3. Surveys/Self-Report Data

A survey is a questionnaire consisting of at least one scale with some number of questions which assess a psychological construct of interest such as parenting style, depression, locus of control, attitudes, or sensation seeking behavior. It may be administered by paper and pencil or computer. Surveys allow for the collection of large amounts of data quickly but the actual survey could be tedious for the participant and social desirability , when a participant answers questions dishonestly so that he/she is seen in a more favorable light, could be an issue. For instance, if you are asking high school students about their sexual activity they may not give genuine answers for fear that their parents will find out. Or if you wanted to know about prejudicial attitudes of a group of people, you could use the survey method. You could alternatively gather this information via an interview in a structured or unstructured fashion. Important to survey research is that you have random sampling or when everyone in the population has an equal chance of being included in the sample. This helps the survey to be representative of the population and in terms of key demographic variables such as gender, age, ethnicity, race, education level, and religious orientation.

To learn more about the survey research design, please take a look at our Research Methods in Psychology textbook by visiting:

https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/7-1-overview-of-survey-research/

2.2.4. Correlational Research

This research method examines the relationship between two variables or two groups of variables. A numerical measure of the strength of this relationship is derived, called the correlation coefficient , and can range from -1.00, a perfect inverse relationship meaning that as one variable goes up the other goes down, to 0 or no relationship at all, to +1.00 or a perfect relationship in which as one variable goes up or down so does the other. In terms of a negative correlation we might say that as a parent becomes more rigid, controlling, and cold, the attachment of the child to the parent goes down. In contrast, as a parent becomes warmer, more loving, and provides structure, the child becomes more attached. The advantage of correlational research is that you can correlate anything. The disadvantage is that you can correlate anything. Variables that really do not have any relationship to one another could be viewed as related. Yes. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. For instance, we might correlate instances of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with someone we are attracted to sitting near us at lunch. Are the two related? Not likely, unless you make a really good PB&J but then the person is probably only interested in you for food and not companionship. The main issue here is that correlation does not allow you to make a causal statement.

To learn more about the correlational research design, please take a look at our Research Methods in Psychology textbook by visiting:

https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/correlational-research/

2.2.5. Example of a Study Using Survey and Correlational Designs

Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, and Knafo (2002) examined the relationship of the big five personality traits and values by administering the Schwartz (1992) Values survey, NEO-PI, a positive affect scale, and a single item assessing religiosity to introductory to psychology students at an Israeli university. For Extraversion, it was found that values that define activity, challenge, excitement, and pleasure as desirable goals in life (i.e. stimulation, hedonism, and achievement) were important while valuing self-denial or self-abnegation, expressed in traditional values, was antithetical.

For Openness, values that emphasize intellectual and emotional autonomy, acceptance and cultivation of diversity, and pursuit of novelty and change (i.e. universalism, self-direction, and stimulation) were important while conformity, security, and tradition values were incompatible. Benevolence, tradition, and to a lesser degree conformity, were important for Agreeableness while power and achievement correlated negatively. In terms of Conscientiousness (C), there was a positive correlation with security values as both share the goal of maintaining smooth interpersonal relations and avoiding disruption of social order and there was a negative correlation with stimulation, indicating an avoidance of risk as a motivator of C.

Finally, there was little association of values with the domain of Neuroticism but a closer inspection of the pattern of correlations with the facets of N suggests two components. First, the angry hostility and impulsiveness facets could be called extrapunitive since the negative emotion is directed outward and tends to correlate positively with hedonism and stimulation values and negatively with benevolence, tradition, conformity, and C values. Second, the anxiety, depression, self-consciousness, and vulnerability facets could be called intrapunitive since the negative emotion is directed inward. This component tends to correlate positively with tradition values and negatively with achievement and stimulation values.

2.2.6. Experiments

An experiment is a controlled test of a hypothesis in which a researcher manipulates one variable and measures its effect on another variable. The variable that is manipulated is called the independent variable (IV) and the one that is measured is called the dependent variable (DV) . A common feature of experiments is to have a control group that does not receive the treatment or is not manipulated and an experimental group that does receive the treatment or manipulation. If the experiment includes random assignment participants have an equal chance of being placed in the control or experimental group. The control group allows the researcher to make a comparison to the experimental group, making a causal statement possible, and stronger.

2.2.6.1. Example of an experiment.    Allison and Messick (1990) led subjects to believe they were the first of six group members to take points from a common resource pool and that they could take as many points as desired which could later be exchanged for cash. Three variables were experimentally manipulated. First, subjects in the low payoff condition were led to believe the pool was only 18 or 21 points in size whereas those in the high payoff condition were told the pool consisted of either 24 or 27 points. Second, the pools were divisible (18 and 24) or nondivisible (21 or 27). Third, half of the subjects were placed in the fate control condition and told that if the requests from the six group members exceeded the pool size, then no one could keep any points, while the other half were in the no fate control condition and told there would be no penalties for overconsumption of the pool.  Finally, data for a fourth variable, social values, was collected via questionnaire four weeks prior to participation. In all, the study employed a 2 (fate control) x 2 (payoff size) x 2 (divisibility) x 2 (social values) between-subjects factorial design.

Results showed that subjects took the least number of points from the resource pool when the resource was divisible, the payoffs were low, and there was no fate control. On the other hand, subjects took the most points when the resource was nondivisible, the payoffs were high, and subjects were noncooperative. To further demonstrate this point, Allison and Messick (1990) counted the number of inducements to which participants were exposed. This number ranged from 0 to 4 inducements. Subjects took between one-fifth and one-fourth when there were one or two inducements, took about one-third when there were three inducements, and about half of the pool when all four were present. They state that an equal division rule was used when there were no temptations to violate equality but as the number of temptations increased, subjects became progressively more likely to overconsume the pool. The authors conclude that the presence of competing cues/factors tends to invite the use of self-serving rules to include “First-come, first-served” and “People who get to go first take more.”

To learn more about the experimental research design, please take a look at our Research Methods in Psychology textbook by visiting:

https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/experiment-basics/

2.2.7. Multi-Method Research

As you have seen above, no single method alone is perfect. All have their strengths and limitations. As such, for the psychologist to provide the clearest picture of what is affecting behavior or mental processes, several of these approaches are typically employed at different stages of the research process. This is called multi-method research.

2.2.8. Archival Research

Another technique used by psychologists is called archival research or when the researcher analyzes data that has already been collected and for another purpose. For instance, a researcher may request data from high schools about a student’s GPA and their SAT and/or ACT score(s) and then obtain their four-year GPA from the university they attended. This can be used to make a prediction about success in college and which measure – GPA or standardized test score – is the better predictor.

2.2.9. Meta-Analysis

Meta-analysis is a statistical procedure that allows a researcher to combine data from more than one study. For example, Shariff et al. (2015) published an article on religious priming and prosociality in Personality and Social Psychology Review . The authors used effect-size analyses, p- curve analyses, and adjustments for publication bias (no worries, you don’t have to understand any of that), to evaluate the robustness of four types of religious priming, how religion affects prosocial behavior, and whether religious-priming effects generalize to those who are loosely or not religious at all. Results were presented across 93 studies and 11,653 participants and showed that religious priming has robust effects in relation to a variety of outcome measures, prosocial behavior included. It did not affect non-religious people though.

2.2.10. Communicating Results

In scientific research, it is common practice to communicate the findings of our investigation. By reporting what we found in our study other researchers can critique our methodology and address our limitations. Publishing allows psychology to grow its knowledge base about human behavior. We can also see where gaps still exist. We move it into the public domain so others can read and comment on it. Scientists can also replicate what we did and possibly extend our work if it is published.

There are several ways to communicate our findings. We can do so at conferences in the form of posters or oral presentations, through newsletters from APA itself or one of its many divisions or other organizations, or through research journals and specifically scientific research articles. Published journal articles represent a form of communication between scientists and in them, the researchers describe how their work relates to previous research, how it replicates and/or extends this work, and what their work might mean theoretically.

Research articles begin with an abstract or a 150-250 word summary of the entire article. The purpose is to describe the experiment and allows the reader to make a decision about whether he or she wants to read it further. The abstract provides a statement of purpose, overview of the methods, main results, and a brief statement of the conclusion. Keywords are also given that allow for students and other researchers alike to find the article when doing a search.

The abstract is followed by four major sections as described:

• Introduction – The first section is designed to provide a summary of the current literature as it relates to your topic. It helps the reader to see how you arrived at your hypothesis and the design of your study. Essentially, it gives the logic behind the decisions you made. You also state the purpose and share your predictions or hypothesis.
• Method – Since replication is a required element of science, we must have a way to share information on our design and sample with readers. This is the essence of the method section and covers three major aspects of your study – your participants, materials or apparatus, and procedure. The reader needs to know who was in your study so that limitations related to generalizability of your findings can be identified and investigated in the future. You will also state your operational definition, describe any groups you used, random sampling or assignment procedures, information about how a scale was scored, etc. Think of the Method section as a cookbook. The participants are your ingredients, the materials or apparatus are whatever tools you will need, and the procedure is the instructions for how to bake the cake.
• Results – In this section you state the outcome of your experiment and whether they were statistically significant or not. You can also present tables and figures.
• Discussion – In this section you start by restating the main findings and hypothesis of the study. Next, you offer an interpretation of the findings and what their significance might be. Finally, you state strengths and limitations of the study which will allow you to propose future directions.

Whether you are writing a research paper for a class or preparing an article for publication, or reading a research article, the structure and function of a research article is the same. Understanding this will help you when reading social psychological articles.

• Clarify why reliability and validity are important.
• Define reliability and list and describe forms it takes.
• Define validity and list and describe forms it takes.

Recall that measurement involves the assignment of scores to an individual which are used to represent aspects of the individual such as how conscientious they are or their level of depression. Whether or not the scores actually represent the individual is what is in question. Cuttler (2017) says in her book Research Methods in Psychology, “Psychologists do not simply  assume  that their measures work. Instead, they collect data to demonstrate  that they work. If their research does not demonstrate that a measure works, they stop using it.” So how do they demonstrate that a measure works? This is where reliability and validity come in.

2.3.1. Reliability

First, reliability describes how consistent a measure is. It can be measured in terms of test-retest reliability , or how reliable the measure is across time, internal consistency , or the “consistency of people’s responses across the items on multiple-item measures,” (Cuttler, 2017), and finally inter-rater reliability , or how consistent different observers are when making judgments. In terms of inter-rater reliability, Cuttler (2017) writes, “Inter-rater reliability would also have been measured in Bandura’s Bobo doll study. In this case, the observers’ ratings of how many acts of aggression a particular child committed while playing with the Bobo doll should have been highly positively correlated.”

2.3.2. Validity

A measure is considered to be valid if its scores represent the variable it is said to measure. For instance, if a scale says it measures depression, and it does, then we can say it is valid. Validity can take many forms. First, face validity is “the extent to which a measurement method appears “on its face” to measure the construct of interest” (Cuttler, 2017). A scale purported to measure values should have questions about values such as benevolence, conformity, and self-direction, and not questions about depression or attitudes toward toilet paper.

Content validity is to what degree a measure covers the construct of interest. Cuttler (2017) says, “… consider that attitudes are usually defined as involving thoughts, feelings, and actions toward something. By this conceptual definition, a person has a positive attitude toward exercise to the extent that he or she thinks positive thoughts about exercising, feels good about exercising, and actually exercises.”

Oftentimes, we expect a person’s scores on one measure to be correlated with scores on another measure that we expect it to be related to, called criterion validity . For instance, consider parenting style and attachment. We would expect that if a person indicates on one scale that their father was authoritarian (or dictatorial) then attachment would be low or insecure. In contrast, if the mother was authoritative (or democratic) we would expect the child to show a secure attachment style.

As researchers we expect that our results will generalize from our sample to the larger population. This was the issue with case studies as the sample is too small to make conclusions about everyone. If our results do generalize from the circumstances under which our study was conducted to similar situations, then we can say our study has external validity . External validity is also affected by how real the research is. Two types of realism are possible. First, mundane realism occurs when the research setting closely resembles the real world setting. Experimental realism is the degree to which the experimental procedures that are used feel real to the participant. It does not matter if they really mirror real life but that they only appear real to the participant. If so, his or her behavior will be more natural and less artificial.

In contrast, a study is said to have good internal validity when we can confidently say that the effect on the dependent variable (the one that is measured) was due solely to our manipulation or the independent variable. A confound occurs when a factor other than the independent variable leads to changes in the dependent variable.

To learn more about reliability and validity, please visit: https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/reliability-and-validity-of-measurement/

• Exemplify instances of ethical misconduct in research.
• List and describe principles of research ethics.

Throughout this module so far, we have seen that it is important for researchers to understand the methods they are using. Equally important, they must understand and appreciate ethical standards in research. The American Psychological Association identifies high standards of ethics and conduct as one of its four main guiding principles or missions. To read about the other three, please visit https://www.apa.org/about/index.aspx . So why are ethical standards needed and what do they look like?

2.4.1. Milgram’s Study on Learning…or Not

Possibly, the one social psychologist students know about the most is Stanley Milgram, if not by name, then by his study on obedience using shock (Milgram, 1974). Essentially, two individuals came to each experimental session but only one of these two individuals was a participant. The other was what is called a confederate and is part of the study without the participant knowing. The confederate was asked to pick heads or tails and then a coin was flipped. As you might expect, the confederate always won and chose to be the learner . The “experimenter,” who was also a confederate, took him into one room where he was hooked up to wires and electrodes. This was done while the “teacher,” the actual participant, watched and added to the realism of what was being done. The teacher was then taken into an adjacent room where he was seated in front of a shock generator. The teacher was told it was his task to read a series of word pairs to the learner. Upon completion of reading the list, he would ask the learner one of the two words and it was the learner’s task to state what the other word in the pair was. If the learner incorrectly paired any of the words, he would be shocked. The shock generator started at 30 volts and increased in 15-volt increments up to 450 volts. The switches were labeled with terms such as “Slight shock,” “Moderate shock,” “Danger: Severe Shock,” and the final two switches were ominously labeled “XXX.”

As the experiment progressed, the teacher would hear the learner scream, holler, plead to be released, complain about a heart condition, or say nothing at all. When the learner stopped replying, the teacher would turn to the experimenter and ask what to do, to which the experimenter indicated for him to treat nonresponses as incorrect and shock the learner. Most participants asked the experimenter whether they should continue at various points in the experiment. The experimenter issued a series of commands to include, “Please continue,” “It is absolutely essential that you continue,” and “You have no other choice, you must go on.”

Any guesses as to what happened? What percent of the participants would you hypothesize actually shocked the learner to death? Milgram found that 65 percent of participants/teachers shocked the learner to the XXX switches which would have killed him. Why? They were told to do so. How do you think the participant felt when they realized that they could kill someone simply because they were told to do so?

Source: Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

2.4.2. GO TO JAIL:  Go Directly to Jail. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200

Early in the morning on Sunday, August 14, 1971, a Palo Alto, CA police car began arresting college students for committing armed robbery and burglary. Each suspect was arrested at his home, charged, read his Miranda rights, searched, handcuffed, and placed in the back of the police car as neighbors watched. At the station, the suspect was booked, read his rights again, and identified. He was then placed in a cell. How were these individuals chosen? Of course, they did not really commit the crimes they were charged with. The suspects had answered a newspaper ad requesting volunteers for a study of the psychological effects of prison life.

After screening individuals who applied to partake in the study, a final group of 24 were selected. These individuals did not have any psychological problems, criminal record, history of drug use, or mental disorder. They were paid $15 for their participation. The participants were divided into two groups through a flip of a coin. One half became the prison guards and the other half the prisoners. The prison was constructed by boarding up each end of a corridor in the basement of Stanford University’s Psychology building. This space was called “The Yard” and was the only place where the prisoners were permitted to walk, exercise, and eat. Prison cells were created by removing doors from some of the labs and replacing them with specially made doors with steel bars and cell numbers. A small closet was used for solitary confinement and was called “The Hole.” There were no clocks or windows in the prison and an intercom was used to make announcements to all prisoners. The suspects who were arrested were transported to “Stanford County Jail” to be processed. It was there they were greeted by the warden and told what the seriousness of their crime was. They were stripped searched and deloused, and the process was made to be intentionally degrading and humiliating. They were given uniforms with a prison ID number on it. This number became the only way they were referred to during their time. A heavy chain was placed on each prisoner’s right ankle which served the purpose of reminding them of how oppressive their environment was.

The guards were given no training and could do what they felt was necessary to maintain order and command the respect of the prisoners. They made their own set of rules and were supervised by the warden, who was played by another student at Stanford. Guards were dressed in identical uniforms, carried a whistle, held a billy club, and wore special mirror sun-glasses so no one could see their eyes or read their emotions. Three guards were assigned to each of the three hour shifts and supervised the nine prisoners. At 2:30 am they would wake the prisoners to take counts. This provided an opportunity to exert control and to get a feel for their role. Similarly, prisoners had to figure out how they were to act and at first, tried to maintain their independence. As you might expect, this led to confrontations between the prisoners and the guards resulting in the guards physically punishing the prisoners with push-ups.

The first day was relatively quiet, but on the second day, a rebellion broke out in which prisoners removed their caps, ripped off their numbers, and put their beds against their cell doors creating a barricade. The guards responded by obtaining a fire extinguisher and shooting a stream of the cold carbon dioxide solution at the prisoners. The cells were then broken into, the prisoners stripped, beds removed, ringleaders put into solitary confinement, and a program of harassment and intimidation of the remaining inmates began. Since 9 guards could not be on duty at all times to maintain order, a special “privilege cell” was established and the three prisoners least involved in the rebellion were allowed to stay in it. They were given their beds and uniforms back, could brush their teeth and take a bath, and were allowed to eat special food in the presence of the other six prisoners. This broke the solidarity among the prisoners.

Less than 36 hours after the study began a prisoner began showing signs of uncontrollable crying, acute emotional disturbance, rage, and disorganized thinking. Though his emotional problems were initially seen as an attempt to gain release which resulted in his being returned to the prison and used as an informant, the symptoms worsened and he had to be released from the study. Then there was the rumor of a mass escape by the prisoners which the guards worked to foil. When it was revealed that the prisoners were never actually going to attempt the prison break, the guards became very frustrated and made the prisoners engage in menial work, pushups, jumping jacks, and anything else humiliating that they could think of.

A Catholic priest was invited to evaluate how realistic the prison was. Each prisoner was interviewed individually and most introduced himself to the priest by his prison number and not his name. He offered to help them obtain a lawyer and some accepted. One prisoner was feeling ill (#819) and did not meet with the priest right away. When he did, he broke down and began to cry. He was quickly taken to another room and all prison garments taken off. While this occurred, the guards lined up the other prisoners and broke them out into a chant of “Prisoner #819 is a bad prisoner. Because of what Prisoner #819 did, my cell is a mess. Mr. Correctional Officer.” This further upset the prisoner and he was encouraged to leave, though he refused each time. He finally did agree to leave after the researcher (i.e. Zimbardo) told him what he was undergoing was just a research study and not really prison. The next day parole hearings were held and prisoners who felt they deserved to be paroled were interviewed one at a time. Most, when asked if they would give up the money they were making for their participation so they could leave, said yes.

In all, the study lasted just six days. Zimbardo noted that three types of guards emerged—tough but fair who followed the prison rules; “good guys” who never punished the prisoners and did them little favors; and finally those who were hostile, inventive in their employment of punishment, and who truly enjoyed the power they had. As for the prisoners, they coped with the events in the prison in different ways. Some fought back, others broke down emotionally, one developed a rash over his entire body, and some tried to be good prisoners and do all that the guards asked of them. No matter what strategy they used early on, by the end of the study they all were disintegrated as a group, and as individuals. The guards commanded blind obedience from all of the prisoners.

When asked later why he ended the study, Zimbardo cited two reasons. First, it became apparent that the guards were escalating their abuse of the prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no one was watching. Second, Christina Maslach, a recent Stanford Ph.D. was asked to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners and saw the prisoners being marched to the toilet with bags on their heads and legs chained together. She was outraged and questioned the study’s morality.

Source: http://www.prisonexp.org/

If you would like to learn more about the moral foundations of ethical research, please visit: https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/moral-foundations-of-ethical-research/

2.4.3. Ethical Guidelines

Due to these studies, and others, the American Psychological Association (APA) established guiding principles for conducting psychological research. The principles can be broken down in terms of when they should occur during the process of a person participating in the study.

2.4.3.1. Before participating. First, researchers must obtain informed consent or when the person agrees to participate because they are told what will happen to them. They are given information about any risks they face, or potential harm that could come to them, whether physical or psychological. They are also told about confidentiality or the person’s right not to be identified. Since most research is conducted with students taking introductory psychology courses, they have to be given the right to do something other than a research study to likely earn required credits for the class. This is called an alternative activity and could take the form of reading and summarizing a research article. The amount of time taken to do this should not exceed the amount of time the student would be expected to participate in a study.

2.4.3.2. While participating. Participants are afforded the ability to withdraw or the person’s right to exit the study if any discomfort is experienced.

2.4.3.3. After participating . Once their participation is over, participants should be debriefed or when the true purpose of the study is revealed and they are told where to go if they need assistance and how to reach the researcher if they have questions. So can researchers deceive participants, or intentionally withhold the true purpose of the study from them? According to the APA, a minimal amount of deception is allowed.

Human research must be approved by an Institutional Review Board or IRB. It is the IRB that will determine whether the researcher is providing enough information for the participant to give consent that is truly informed, if debriefing is adequate, and if any deception is allowed or not.

If you would like to learn more about how to use ethics in your research, please read: https://opentext.wsu.edu/carriecuttler/chapter/putting-ethics-into-practice/

• Describe the replication crisis in psychology.
• Describe the issue with generalizability faced by social psychologists.

2.5.1. The Replication Crisis in Social Psychology

Today, the field of psychology faces what is called a replication crisis. Simply, published findings in psychology are not replicable, one of the hallmarks of science. Swiatkowski and Dompnier (2017) addressed this issue but with a focus on social psychology. They note that the field faces a confidence crisis due to events such as Diederick Staple intentionally fabricating data over a dozen years which lead to the retraction of over 50 published papers. They cite a study by John et al. (2012) in which 56% of 2,155 respondents admitted to collecting more data after discovering that the initial statistical test was not significant and 46% selectively reported studies that “worked” in a paper to be published. They also note that Nuijten et al. (2015) collected a sample of over 30,000 articles from the top 8 psychology journals and found that 1 in 8 possibly had an inconsistent p value that could have affected the conclusion the researchers drew.

So, how extensive is the issue? The Psychology Reproducibility Project was started to determine to what degree psychological effects from the literature could be replicated. One hundred published studies were attempted to be replicated by independent research teams and from different subfields in psychology. Only 39% of the findings were considered to be successfully replicated. For social psychology the results were worse. Only 25% were replicated.

Why might a study not replicate? Swiatkowski and Dompnier (2017) cite a few reasons. First, they believe that statistical power, or making the decision to not reject the null hypothesis (H0 – hypothesis stating that there is no effect or your hypothesis was not correct) when it is actually false, is an issue in social psychology. Many studies are underpowered as shown by small effect sizes observed in the field, which inflates the rate of false-positive findings and leads to unreplicable findings.

Second, they say that some researchers use “unjustifiable flexibility in data analysis, such as working with several undisclosed dependent variables, collecting more observations after initial hypothesis testing, stopping data collection earlier than planned because of a statistically significant predicted finding, controlling for gender effects a posterior, dropping experimental conditions, and so on” (pg. 114). Some also do undisclosed multiple testing without making adjustments, called p-hacking, or dropping observations to achieve a significance level, called cherry picking . Such practices could explain the high prevalence of false positives in social psychological research.

Third, some current publication standards may promote bad research practices in a few ways. Statistical significance has been set at p = 0.05 as the sine qua non condition for publication. According to Swiattkowski and Dompnier (2017) this leads to dichotomous thinking in terms of the “strict existence and non-existence of an effect” (pg. 115). Also, positive, statistically significant results are more likely to be published than negative, statistically, non-significant results which can be hard to interpret. This bias leads to a structural incentive to seek out positive results. Finally, the authors point out that current editorial standards show a preference for novelty or accepting studies which report new and original psychological effects. This reduces the importance of replications which lack prestige and inspire little interest among researchers. It should also be pointed out that there is a mentality of ‘Publish or perish’ at universities for full time faculty. Those who are prolific and publish often are rewarded with promotions, pay raises, tenure, or prestigious professorships. Also, studies that present highly novel and cool findings are showcased by the media.

The authors state, “In the long run, the lack of a viable falsification procedure seriously undermines the quality of scientific knowledge psychology produces. Without a way to build a cumulative net of well-tested theories and to abandon those that are false, social psychology risks ending up with a confused mixture of both instead”(pg. 117).

For more on this issue, check out the following articles

• 2016 Article in the Atlantic – https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/03/psychologys-replication-crisis-cant-be-wished-away/472272/
• 2018 Article in The Atlantic – https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/psychologys-replication-crisis-real/576223/
• 2018 Article in the Washington Post – https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/08/27/researchers-replicate-just-13-of-21-social-science-experiments-published-in-top-journals/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2a05aff2d7de
• 2018 Article from Science News – https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-public/replication-crisis-psychology-science-studies-statistics

2.5.2. Generalizability

Earlier we discussed how researchers want to generalize their findings from the sample to the population, or from a small, representative group to everyone. The problem that plagues social psychology is who makes up our samples. Many social psychological studies are conducted with college students working for course credit (Sears, 1986). They represent what is called a convenience sample . Can we generalize from college students to the larger group?

Module Recap

In Module 1 we stated that psychology studied behavior and mental processes using the strict standards of science. In Module 2 we showed you how that is done via adoption of the scientific method and use of the research designs of observation, case study, surveys, correlation, and experiments. To make sure our measurement of a variable is sound, we need to have measures that are reliable and valid. And to give our research legitimacy we have to use clear ethical standards for research to include gaining informed consent from participants, telling them of the risks, giving them the right to withdraw, debriefing them, and using nothing more than minimal deception. Despite all this, psychology faces a crisis in which many studies are not replicating and findings from some social psychological research are not generalizable to the population.

This concludes Part I of the book. In Part II we will discuss how we think about ourselves and others. First, we will tackle the self and then move to the perception of others. Part II will conclude with a discussion of attitudes.

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2.1 Psychologists Use the Scientific Method to Guide Their Research

Learning objectives.

• Describe the principles of the scientific method and explain its importance in conducting and interpreting research.
• Differentiate laws from theories and explain how research hypotheses are developed and tested.
• Discuss the procedures that researchers use to ensure that their research with humans and with animals is ethical.

Psychologists aren’t the only people who seek to understand human behavior and solve social problems. Philosophers, religious leaders, and politicians, among others, also strive to provide explanations for human behavior. But psychologists believe that research is the best tool for understanding human beings and their relationships with others. Rather than accepting the claim of a philosopher that people do (or do not) have free will, a psychologist would collect data to empirically test whether or not people are able to actively control their own behavior. Rather than accepting a politician’s contention that creating (or abandoning) a new center for mental health will improve the lives of individuals in the inner city, a psychologist would empirically assess the effects of receiving mental health treatment on the quality of life of the recipients. The statements made by psychologists are empirical , which means they are based on systematic collection and analysis of data .

The Scientific Method

All scientists (whether they are physicists, chemists, biologists, sociologists, or psychologists) are engaged in the basic processes of collecting data and drawing conclusions about those data. The methods used by scientists have developed over many years and provide a common framework for developing, organizing, and sharing information. The scientific method is the set of assumptions, rules, and procedures scientists use to conduct research .

In addition to requiring that science be empirical, the scientific method demands that the procedures used be objective , or free from the personal bias or emotions of the scientist . The scientific method proscribes how scientists collect and analyze data, how they draw conclusions from data, and how they share data with others. These rules increase objectivity by placing data under the scrutiny of other scientists and even the public at large. Because data are reported objectively, other scientists know exactly how the scientist collected and analyzed the data. This means that they do not have to rely only on the scientist’s own interpretation of the data; they may draw their own, potentially different, conclusions.

Most new research is designed to replicate —that is, to repeat, add to, or modify—previous research findings. The scientific method therefore results in an accumulation of scientific knowledge through the reporting of research and the addition to and modifications of these reported findings by other scientists.

Laws and Theories as Organizing Principles

One goal of research is to organize information into meaningful statements that can be applied in many situations. Principles that are so general as to apply to all situations in a given domain of inquiry are known as laws . There are well-known laws in the physical sciences, such as the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics, and there are some universally accepted laws in psychology, such as the law of effect and Weber’s law. But because laws are very general principles and their validity has already been well established, they are themselves rarely directly subjected to scientific test.

The next step down from laws in the hierarchy of organizing principles is theory. A theory is an integrated set of principles that explains and predicts many, but not all, observed relationships within a given domain of inquiry . One example of an important theory in psychology is the stage theory of cognitive development proposed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. The theory states that children pass through a series of cognitive stages as they grow, each of which must be mastered in succession before movement to the next cognitive stage can occur. This is an extremely useful theory in human development because it can be applied to many different content areas and can be tested in many different ways.

Good theories have four important characteristics. First, good theories are general , meaning they summarize many different outcomes. Second, they are parsimonious , meaning they provide the simplest possible account of those outcomes. The stage theory of cognitive development meets both of these requirements. It can account for developmental changes in behavior across a wide variety of domains, and yet it does so parsimoniously—by hypothesizing a simple set of cognitive stages. Third, good theories provide ideas for future research . The stage theory of cognitive development has been applied not only to learning about cognitive skills, but also to the study of children’s moral (Kohlberg, 1966) and gender (Ruble & Martin, 1998) development.

Finally, good theories are falsifiable (Popper, 1959), which means the variables of interest can be adequately measured and the relationships between the variables that are predicted by the theory can be shown through research to be incorrect . The stage theory of cognitive development is falsifiable because the stages of cognitive reasoning can be measured and because if research discovers, for instance, that children learn new tasks before they have reached the cognitive stage hypothesized to be required for that task, then the theory will be shown to be incorrect.

No single theory is able to account for all behavior in all cases. Rather, theories are each limited in that they make accurate predictions in some situations or for some people but not in other situations or for other people. As a result, there is a constant exchange between theory and data: Existing theories are modified on the basis of collected data, and the new modified theories then make new predictions that are tested by new data, and so forth. When a better theory is found, it will replace the old one. This is part of the accumulation of scientific knowledge.

The Research Hypothesis

Theories are usually framed too broadly to be tested in a single experiment. Therefore, scientists use a more precise statement of the presumed relationship among specific parts of a theory—a research hypothesis—as the basis for their research. A research hypothesis is a specific and falsifiable prediction about the relationship between or among two or more variables , where a variable is any attribute that can assume different values among different people or across different times or places . The research hypothesis states the existence of a relationship between the variables of interest and the specific direction of that relationship. For instance, the research hypothesis “Using marijuana will reduce learning” predicts that there is a relationship between a variable “using marijuana” and another variable called “learning.” Similarly, in the research hypothesis “Participating in psychotherapy will reduce anxiety,” the variables that are expected to be related are “participating in psychotherapy” and “level of anxiety.”

When stated in an abstract manner, the ideas that form the basis of a research hypothesis are known as conceptual variables. Conceptual variables are abstract ideas that form the basis of research hypotheses . Sometimes the conceptual variables are rather simple—for instance, “age,” “gender,” or “weight.” In other cases the conceptual variables represent more complex ideas, such as “anxiety,” “cognitive development,” “learning,” self-esteem,” or “sexism.”

The first step in testing a research hypothesis involves turning the conceptual variables into measured variables , which are variables consisting of numbers that represent the conceptual variables . For instance, the conceptual variable “participating in psychotherapy” could be represented as the measured variable “number of psychotherapy hours the patient has accrued” and the conceptual variable “using marijuana” could be assessed by having the research participants rate, on a scale from 1 to 10, how often they use marijuana or by administering a blood test that measures the presence of the chemicals in marijuana.

Psychologists use the term operational definition to refer to a precise statement of how a conceptual variable is turned into a measured variable . The relationship between conceptual and measured variables in a research hypothesis is diagrammed in Figure 2.1 “Diagram of a Research Hypothesis” . The conceptual variables are represented within circles at the top of the figure, and the measured variables are represented within squares at the bottom. The two vertical arrows, which lead from the conceptual variables to the measured variables, represent the operational definitions of the two variables. The arrows indicate the expectation that changes in the conceptual variables (psychotherapy and anxiety in this example) will cause changes in the corresponding measured variables. The measured variables are then used to draw inferences about the conceptual variables.

Figure 2.1 Diagram of a Research Hypothesis

In this research hypothesis, the conceptual variable of attending psychotherapy is operationalized using the number of hours of psychotherapy the client has completed, and the conceptual variable of anxiety is operationalized using self-reported levels of anxiety. The research hypothesis is that more psychotherapy will be related to less reported anxiety.

Table 2.1 “Examples of the Operational Definitions of Conceptual Variables That Have Been Used in Psychological Research” lists some potential operational definitions of conceptual variables that have been used in psychological research. As you read through this list, note that in contrast to the abstract conceptual variables, the measured variables are very specific. This specificity is important for two reasons. First, more specific definitions mean that there is less danger that the collected data will be misunderstood by others. Second, specific definitions will enable future researchers to replicate the research.

Table 2.1 Examples of the Operational Definitions of Conceptual Variables That Have Been Used in Psychological Research

Conducting Ethical Research

One of the questions that all scientists must address concerns the ethics of their research. Physicists are concerned about the potentially harmful outcomes of their experiments with nuclear materials. Biologists worry about the potential outcomes of creating genetically engineered human babies. Medical researchers agonize over the ethics of withholding potentially beneficial drugs from control groups in clinical trials. Likewise, psychologists are continually considering the ethics of their research.

Research in psychology may cause some stress, harm, or inconvenience for the people who participate in that research. For instance, researchers may require introductory psychology students to participate in research projects and then deceive these students, at least temporarily, about the nature of the research. Psychologists may induce stress, anxiety, or negative moods in their participants, expose them to weak electrical shocks, or convince them to behave in ways that violate their moral standards. And researchers may sometimes use animals in their research, potentially harming them in the process.

Decisions about whether research is ethical are made using established ethical codes developed by scientific organizations, such as the American Psychological Association, and federal governments. In the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services provides the guidelines for ethical standards in research. Some research, such as the research conducted by the Nazis on prisoners during World War II, is perceived as immoral by almost everyone. Other procedures, such as the use of animals in research testing the effectiveness of drugs, are more controversial.

Scientific research has provided information that has improved the lives of many people. Therefore, it is unreasonable to argue that because scientific research has costs, no research should be conducted. This argument fails to consider the fact that there are significant costs to not doing research and that these costs may be greater than the potential costs of conducting the research (Rosenthal, 1994). In each case, before beginning to conduct the research, scientists have attempted to determine the potential risks and benefits of the research and have come to the conclusion that the potential benefits of conducting the research outweigh the potential costs to the research participants.

Characteristics of an Ethical Research Project Using Human Participants

• Trust and positive rapport are created between the researcher and the participant.
• The rights of both the experimenter and participant are considered, and the relationship between them is mutually beneficial.
• The experimenter treats the participant with concern and respect and attempts to make the research experience a pleasant and informative one.
• Before the research begins, the participant is given all information relevant to his or her decision to participate, including any possibilities of physical danger or psychological stress.
• The participant is given a chance to have questions about the procedure answered, thus guaranteeing his or her free choice about participating.
• After the experiment is over, any deception that has been used is made public, and the necessity for it is explained.
• The experimenter carefully debriefs the participant, explaining the underlying research hypothesis and the purpose of the experimental procedure in detail and answering any questions.
• The experimenter provides information about how he or she can be contacted and offers to provide information about the results of the research if the participant is interested in receiving it. (Stangor, 2011)

This list presents some of the most important factors that psychologists take into consideration when designing their research. The most direct ethical concern of the scientist is to prevent harm to the research participants. One example is the well-known research of Stanley Milgram (1974) investigating obedience to authority. In these studies, participants were induced by an experimenter to administer electric shocks to another person so that Milgram could study the extent to which they would obey the demands of an authority figure. Most participants evidenced high levels of stress resulting from the psychological conflict they experienced between engaging in aggressive and dangerous behavior and following the instructions of the experimenter. Studies such as those by Milgram are no longer conducted because the scientific community is now much more sensitized to the potential of such procedures to create emotional discomfort or harm.

Another goal of ethical research is to guarantee that participants have free choice regarding whether they wish to participate in research. Students in psychology classes may be allowed, or even required, to participate in research, but they are also always given an option to choose a different study to be in, or to perform other activities instead. And once an experiment begins, the research participant is always free to leave the experiment if he or she wishes to. Concerns with free choice also occur in institutional settings, such as in schools, hospitals, corporations, and prisons, when individuals are required by the institutions to take certain tests, or when employees are told or asked to participate in research.

Researchers must also protect the privacy of the research participants. In some cases data can be kept anonymous by not having the respondents put any identifying information on their questionnaires. In other cases the data cannot be anonymous because the researcher needs to keep track of which respondent contributed the data. In this case one technique is to have each participant use a unique code number to identify his or her data, such as the last four digits of the student ID number. In this way the researcher can keep track of which person completed which questionnaire, but no one will be able to connect the data with the individual who contributed them.

Perhaps the most widespread ethical concern to the participants in behavioral research is the extent to which researchers employ deception. Deception occurs whenever research participants are not completely and fully informed about the nature of the research project before participating in it . Deception may occur in an active way, such as when the researcher tells the participants that he or she is studying learning when in fact the experiment really concerns obedience to authority. In other cases the deception is more passive, such as when participants are not told about the hypothesis being studied or the potential use of the data being collected.

Some researchers have argued that no deception should ever be used in any research (Baumrind, 1985). They argue that participants should always be told the complete truth about the nature of the research they are in, and that when participants are deceived there will be negative consequences, such as the possibility that participants may arrive at other studies already expecting to be deceived. Other psychologists defend the use of deception on the grounds that it is needed to get participants to act naturally and to enable the study of psychological phenomena that might not otherwise get investigated. They argue that it would be impossible to study topics such as altruism, aggression, obedience, and stereotyping without using deception because if participants were informed ahead of time what the study involved, this knowledge would certainly change their behavior. The codes of ethics of the American Psychological Association and other organizations allow researchers to use deception, but these codes also require them to explicitly consider how their research might be conducted without the use of deception.

Ensuring That Research Is Ethical

Making decisions about the ethics of research involves weighing the costs and benefits of conducting versus not conducting a given research project. The costs involve potential harm to the research participants and to the field, whereas the benefits include the potential for advancing knowledge about human behavior and offering various advantages, some educational, to the individual participants. Most generally, the ethics of a given research project are determined through a cost-benefit analysis , in which the costs are compared to the benefits. If the potential costs of the research appear to outweigh any potential benefits that might come from it, then the research should not proceed.

Arriving at a cost-benefit ratio is not simple. For one thing, there is no way to know ahead of time what the effects of a given procedure will be on every person or animal who participates or what benefit to society the research is likely to produce. In addition, what is ethical is defined by the current state of thinking within society, and thus perceived costs and benefits change over time. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regulations require that all universities receiving funds from the department set up an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to determine whether proposed research meets department regulations. The Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a committee of at least five members whose goal it is to determine the cost-benefit ratio of research conducted within an institution . The IRB approves the procedures of all the research conducted at the institution before the research can begin. The board may suggest modifications to the procedures, or (in rare cases) it may inform the scientist that the research violates Department of Health and Human Services guidelines and thus cannot be conducted at all.

One important tool for ensuring that research is ethical is the use of informed consent . A sample informed consent form is shown in Figure 2.2 “Sample Consent Form” . Informed consent , conducted before a participant begins a research session, is designed to explain the research procedures and inform the participant of his or her rights during the investigation . The informed consent explains as much as possible about the true nature of the study, particularly everything that might be expected to influence willingness to participate, but it may in some cases withhold some information that allows the study to work.

Figure 2.2 Sample Consent Form

The informed consent form explains the research procedures and informs the participant of his or her rights during the investigation.

Adapted from Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Cengage.

Because participating in research has the potential for producing long-term changes in the research participants, all participants should be fully debriefed immediately after their participation. The debriefing is a procedure designed to fully explain the purposes and procedures of the research and remove any harmful aftereffects of participation .

Research With Animals

Because animals make up an important part of the natural world, and because some research cannot be conducted using humans, animals are also participants in psychological research. Most psychological research using animals is now conducted with rats, mice, and birds, and the use of other animals in research is declining (Thomas & Blackman, 1992). As with ethical decisions involving human participants, a set of basic principles has been developed that helps researchers make informed decisions about such research; a summary is shown below.

APA Guidelines on Humane Care and Use of Animals in Research

The following are some of the most important ethical principles from the American Psychological Association’s guidelines on research with animals.

• Psychologists acquire, care for, use, and dispose of animals in compliance with current federal, state, and local laws and regulations, and with professional standards.
• Psychologists trained in research methods and experienced in the care of laboratory animals supervise all procedures involving animals and are responsible for ensuring appropriate consideration of their comfort, health, and humane treatment.
• Psychologists ensure that all individuals under their supervision who are using animals have received instruction in research methods and in the care, maintenance, and handling of the species being used, to the extent appropriate to their role.
• Psychologists make reasonable efforts to minimize the discomfort, infection, illness, and pain of animal subjects.
• Psychologists use a procedure subjecting animals to pain, stress, or privation only when an alternative procedure is unavailable and the goal is justified by its prospective scientific, educational, or applied value.
• Psychologists perform surgical procedures under appropriate anesthesia and follow techniques to avoid infection and minimize pain during and after surgery.
• When it is appropriate that an animal’s life be terminated, psychologists proceed rapidly, with an effort to minimize pain and in accordance with accepted procedures. (American Psychological Association, 2002)

Psychologists may use animals in their research, but they make reasonable efforts to minimize the discomfort the animals experience.

Because the use of animals in research involves a personal value, people naturally disagree about this practice. Although many people accept the value of such research (Plous, 1996), a minority of people, including animal-rights activists, believes that it is ethically wrong to conduct research on animals. This argument is based on the assumption that because animals are living creatures just as humans are, no harm should ever be done to them.

Most scientists, however, reject this view. They argue that such beliefs ignore the potential benefits that have and continue to come from research with animals. For instance, drugs that can reduce the incidence of cancer or AIDS may first be tested on animals, and surgery that can save human lives may first be practiced on animals. Research on animals has also led to a better understanding of the physiological causes of depression, phobias, and stress, among other illnesses. In contrast to animal-rights activists, then, scientists believe that because there are many benefits that accrue from animal research, such research can and should continue as long as the humane treatment of the animals used in the research is guaranteed.

Key Takeaways

• Psychologists use the scientific method to generate, accumulate, and report scientific knowledge.
• Basic research, which answers questions about behavior, and applied research, which finds solutions to everyday problems, inform each other and work together to advance science.
• Research reports describing scientific studies are published in scientific journals so that other scientists and laypersons may review the empirical findings.
• Organizing principles, including laws, theories and research hypotheses, give structure and uniformity to scientific methods.
• Concerns for conducting ethical research are paramount. Researchers assure that participants are given free choice to participate and that their privacy is protected. Informed consent and debriefing help provide humane treatment of participants.
• A cost-benefit analysis is used to determine what research should and should not be allowed to proceed.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

• Give an example from personal experience of how you or someone you know have benefited from the results of scientific research.
• Find and discuss a research project that in your opinion has ethical concerns. Explain why you find these concerns to be troubling.
• Indicate your personal feelings about the use of animals in research. When should and should not animals be used? What principles have you used to come to these conclusions?

American Psychological Association. (2002). Ethical principles of psychologists. American Psychologist, 57 , 1060–1073.

Baumrind, D. (1985). Research using intentional deception: Ethical issues revisited. American Psychologist, 40 , 165–174.

Kohlberg, L. (1966). A cognitive-developmental analysis of children’s sex-role concepts and attitudes. In E. E. Maccoby (Ed.), The development of sex differences . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view . New York, NY: Harper and Row.

Plous, S. (1996). Attitudes toward the use of animals in psychological research and education. Psychological Science, 7 , 352–358.

Popper, K. R. (1959). The logic of scientific discovery . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Rosenthal, R. (1994). Science and ethics in conducting, analyzing, and reporting psychological research. Psychological Science, 5 , 127–134.

Ruble, D., & Martin, C. (1998). Gender development. In W. Damon (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (5th ed., pp. 933–1016). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Stangor, C. (2011). Research methods for the behavioral sciences (4th ed.). Mountain View, CA: Cengage.

Thomas, G., & Blackman, D. (1992). The future of animal studies in psychology. American Psychologist, 47 , 1678.

Introduction to Psychology Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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IResearchNet

Social Psychology Experiments

Social psychology experiments have played a pivotal role in unraveling the intricate tapestry of human behavior, cognition, and emotions within the social context. These experiments represent more than just scientific inquiries; they serve as windows into the fundamental aspects of human nature and the ways in which we interact with others. This article delves into a selection of famous experiments in social psychology, each a milestone in understanding the complexities of human social behavior.

Thesis Statement: The significance of these famous experiments extends far beyond the realm of academia, shaping our understanding of conformity, obedience, group dynamics, morality, and the subconscious biases that influence our decisions and actions. Through these groundbreaking studies, we gain valuable insights into the human condition, prompting us to question, explore, and reflect upon the intricate web of social interactions that define our lives.

Famous Experiments in Social Psychology

The Bennington College study was conducted by sociologist Theodore Newcomb from 1935 until 1939. The study examined the attitudes of students attending the then all-female Bennington College early in the college’s history; indeed, the study began during the first year that the college had a senior class.

Solomon Asch’s Conformity experiments in the 1950s starkly demonstrated the power of conformity on people’s estimation of the length of lines. On over a third of the trials, participants conformed to the majority, even though the majority judgment was clearly wrong. Seventy-five percent of the participants conformed at least once during the experiment.

In Muzafer Sherif ’s Robbers Cave experiment (1954) boys were divided into two competing groups to explore how much hostility and aggression would emerge. It is also known as realistic group conflict theory, because the intergroup conflict was induced through competition over resources.

Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance experiment subjects were asked to perform a boring task. They were divided into two groups and given two different pay scales. At the end of the study, participants who were paid $1 to say that they enjoyed the task and another group of participants were paid $20 to say the same lie. The first group ($1) would later believe that they like the task better than the second group ($20). People justified the lie by changing their previously unfavorable attitudes about the task (Festinger and Carlsmith 1959).

Stanley Milgram’s Obedience to Authority experiment has shown how far people would go to obey an authority figure. Following the events of the Holocaust in World War II Stanley Milgram’s experiments of the 1960s/1970s showed that normal American citizens were capable of following orders to the point of causing extreme suffering in an innocent human being.

Albert Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment has demonstrated how aggression is learned by imitation (Bandura et al. 1961). Bandura’s experimental work was one of the first studies in a long line of research showing how exposure to media violence leads to aggressive behavior in the observers.

In Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment a simulated exercise between student prisoners and guards showed how far people would follow an adopted role. This was an important demonstration of the power of the immediate social situation, and its capacity to overwhelm normal personality traits (Haney et al. 1973).

The Milgram Experiment

Background and Context

The Milgram Experiment, conducted by psychologist Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s, arose in a climate of post-World War II questions about obedience, authority, and moral responsibility. Inspired by the Nuremberg Trials and the revelation of the atrocities committed by Nazi personnel who claimed to be “just following orders,” Milgram sought to explore the extent to which individuals would obey authority figures, even when it conflicted with their own moral beliefs.

Experiment Setup and Procedure

The experiment involved three key roles: the experimenter (authority figure), the teacher (participant), and the learner (an actor). Participants believed they were assisting in a study examining the effects of punishment on learning. The teacher was instructed to administer increasingly severe electric shocks to the learner for incorrect responses in a word-pair memory test. Unbeknownst to the teacher, the learner did not actually receive shocks, but their responses were scripted to simulate distress and pain.

Ethical Concerns and Criticisms

The Milgram Experiment has been widely criticized for its ethical implications. Participants were exposed to significant psychological stress and believed they were causing harm to another person, potentially leading to long-lasting emotional trauma. Critics argue that the experiment lacked proper informed consent, and the debriefing process may not have been sufficient to alleviate the distress experienced by participants.

Major Findings and Their Impact

The Milgram Experiment revealed astonishing results. Contrary to expectations, a significant proportion of participants, under the pressure of the authority figure’s commands, continued to administer shocks up to potentially lethal levels, even when they were aware of the learner’s distress. This demonstrated the profound influence of authority figures on individual behavior.

The study shed light on the psychology of obedience and the potential for ordinary people to engage in harmful actions under the guise of following orders. Milgram’s findings raised ethical and moral questions about blind obedience and individual responsibility in the face of authority.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971, stands as one of the most notorious and influential studies in social psychology. Emerging during a tumultuous period in American history marked by social unrest and the questioning of authority, the experiment sought to investigate the psychological dynamics of power, authority, and the consequences of perceived roles within a simulated prison environment.

Description of the Experiment

The experiment involved the transformation of the basement of Stanford University’s psychology department into a mock prison. Volunteers were randomly assigned to play the roles of either guards or prisoners in a simulated prison environment. The participants quickly adapted to their roles, with guards displaying authoritarian behaviors, and prisoners experiencing psychological distress and rebellion. The study was originally intended to last two weeks but was terminated after only six days due to the alarming and unethical behaviors exhibited by both guards and prisoners.

Ethical Controversies

The Stanford Prison Experiment has been mired in ethical controversies. Critics argue that the psychological harm inflicted upon participants was severe, and the lack of proper oversight allowed the study to veer into dangerous territory. Questions have also been raised regarding the informed consent process, as participants were not fully aware of the potential psychological consequences of their involvement.

Key Findings and Implications

Despite its ethical shortcomings, the Stanford Prison Experiment yielded valuable insights into the malleability of human behavior in response to situational factors. It demonstrated how ordinary individuals could quickly adopt abusive and authoritarian roles when placed in positions of power. The study underscored the importance of ethical considerations in psychological research and prompted discussions about the responsibility of researchers to ensure the well-being of participants.

The implications of the study extend beyond academia, offering a cautionary tale about the potential for abuses of power and authority. It has influenced discussions on ethics in research, the psychology of group dynamics, and the understanding of how situational factors can shape behavior.

The Asch Conformity Experiment

Introduction and Historical Context

The Asch Conformity Experiment, conducted by Solomon Asch in the 1950s, remains a seminal study in the field of social psychology. Emerging in the post-World War II era, this experiment aimed to investigate the extent to which individuals conform to group norms and the impact of social pressure on individual decision-making.

Experiment Design and Methodology

In the Asch Conformity Experiment, participants were placed in a group of individuals, with the participant being the only true subject. The group was presented with a simple perceptual task: comparing the length of lines. Participants were asked to state which of several lines was of equal length to a reference line. Unknown to the participant, the other group members were confederates who had been instructed to give incorrect answers in some trials.

During the critical trials, the confederates deliberately provided incorrect answers that contradicted the obvious correct response. The participant, seated at the end of the row, faced the dilemma of whether to conform to the group’s incorrect consensus or assert their own judgment.

Conformity Results and Interpretations

The results of the Asch Conformity Experiment were striking. Despite the obvious correctness of their own judgments, participants frequently succumbed to group pressure and provided incorrect responses to match the consensus of the group. On average, about one-third of participants conformed to the group’s incorrect answers in the face of social pressure.

Asch’s findings underscored the potent influence of social conformity and the willingness of individuals to abandon their own perceptions and judgment in favor of group consensus. He also identified several factors that influenced the likelihood of conformity, such as the size of the majority and the unanimity of the group.

Influence on Social Psychology and Beyond

The Asch Conformity Experiment significantly impacted social psychology by highlighting the powerful role of social influence on human behavior. It prompted further research into group dynamics, conformity, and the psychology of social norms. Asch’s work laid the foundation for studies on topics such as groupthink, normative influence, and the conditions under which individuals are more likely to resist social pressure.

Beyond social psychology, the experiment has practical implications for understanding how conformity operates in everyday life, from peer pressure among adolescents to decision-making in organizations. The study has also been instrumental in discussions about individual autonomy and the tension between conforming to societal expectations and asserting one’s independent judgment.

The Asch Conformity Experiment remains a timeless exploration of the human propensity to conform and the psychological mechanisms at play when individuals navigate the tension between individuality and social cohesion.

The Robbers Cave Experiment

Background and Purpose of the Study

The Robbers Cave Experiment, conducted by psychologist Muzafer Sherif and his colleagues in 1954, was designed to investigate intergroup conflict and cooperation among children. The study emerged during a time when Cold War tensions and conflicts between nations were a prominent backdrop, prompting Sherif to explore the dynamics of group conflict on a smaller scale.

The central purpose of the study was to understand how group identities, competition, and cooperation could influence the attitudes and behaviors of individuals within groups and across groups. It sought to shed light on the origins of intergroup hostility and the potential for reconciliation.

Experimental Design and Procedures

The study took place at Robbers Cave State Park in Oklahoma and involved two phases.

• Group Formation : In the first phase, a group of 22 boys was divided into two groups, the Rattlers and the Eagles, with no prior knowledge of each other. The boys formed strong group identities through team-building activities and bonding experiences.
• Intergroup Competition : In the second phase, the two groups were introduced to each other and engaged in competitive activities, such as sports and contests, where rivalries quickly developed. The competition intensified intergroup conflicts, leading to name-calling, vandalism, and hostility.
• Intervention and Cooperation : To address the escalating conflict, the researchers initiated activities that required the groups to collaborate, such as solving common problems and working together towards common goals. These cooperative experiences aimed to reduce intergroup tensions.

Notable Findings and Insights on Intergroup Conflict

The Robbers Cave Experiment yielded several important findings:

• Intergroup conflict emerged swiftly when groups were formed and exposed to competition, even among previously unacquainted individuals.
• The competition exacerbated stereotypes and prejudices between the groups.
• Cooperation between groups, when introduced strategically, had the potential to reduce hostilities and foster intergroup harmony.
• The study illustrated the role of superordinate goals (common objectives that transcended group boundaries) in promoting cooperation and reducing conflict.

Practical Applications and Contributions

The Robbers Cave Experiment has had lasting implications in the fields of social psychology and conflict resolution. It provided valuable insights into the dynamics of intergroup conflict and cooperation, shedding light on the processes by which hostility between groups can be both fueled and mitigated.

The concept of superordinate goals, derived from the study, has been widely applied in conflict resolution efforts. By identifying shared objectives that require collaboration across group lines, individuals and societies have been able to bridge divides and work together toward common aims. The study’s lessons have informed strategies for reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations, and fostering peace in various contexts, including education, organizational management, and international diplomacy.

The Robbers Cave Experiment remains a classic illustration of how group identities and competition can lead to conflict, while also highlighting the potential for cooperation and reconciliation when shared goals and positive intergroup interactions are promoted.

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment

Overview of the Experiment

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971, is a widely recognized and controversial study in the realm of social psychology. The experiment was designed to investigate the psychological effects of perceived power and authority within a simulated prison environment.

In this study, participants were randomly assigned to play the roles of either guards or prisoners in a mock prison set up in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology department. The experiment aimed to explore how individuals, when placed in positions of power or vulnerability, would react and adapt to their roles.

Ethical Considerations and Criticisms

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment has been marred by significant ethical concerns and criticisms. The study generated intense psychological distress among participants, with the guards exhibiting abusive and authoritarian behaviors, and the prisoners experiencing emotional and psychological harm. The experiment’s duration, initially planned for two weeks, was terminated after only six days due to the extreme and unethical behaviors displayed by participants.

Critics argue that the study lacked proper informed consent, as participants were not fully aware of the potential psychological consequences of their involvement. The absence of proper oversight and safeguards to protect the well-being of participants has been a focal point of ethical critique.

Psychological Effects on Participants

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment had profound psychological effects on its participants. Guards, assigned to positions of power, quickly adopted authoritarian roles, displaying abusive behaviors toward the prisoners. Prisoners, on the other hand, experienced distress, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness.

The psychological effects on participants were so severe that the study was terminated prematurely to prevent further harm. Post-experiment interviews revealed that some participants struggled to differentiate between their roles and their true identities, emphasizing the significant impact of situational factors on individual behavior.

Enduring Influence on Social Psychology

Despite its ethical controversies, the Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment had a lasting influence on the field of social psychology. It highlighted the malleability of human behavior in response to situational factors and the potential for ordinary individuals to engage in abusive actions when placed in positions of authority.

The study contributed to discussions on ethics in research and the responsibility of researchers to prioritize the well-being of participants. It also prompted further investigations into the psychology of power, authority, and obedience, leading to a deeper understanding of the complexities of human behavior within social contexts.

The Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment remains a cautionary tale in the annals of psychology, reminding researchers of the ethical imperative to protect participants and the enduring influence of situational factors on human behavior.

The Little Albert Experiment

Introduction to the Study

The Little Albert Experiment is a classic and ethically controversial study conducted by behaviorist John B. Watson and his graduate student Rosalie Rayner in 1920. The experiment aimed to investigate the process of classical conditioning, particularly the acquisition of phobias and emotional responses in humans.

The study is named after its subject, a 9-month-old boy known as “Little Albert.” It remains a notable case study in the field of psychology due to its ethical concerns and contributions to the understanding of learned behaviors.

Experiment Details and Ethical Concerns

In the Little Albert Experiment, Little Albert was exposed to a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, and other stimuli. Initially, he displayed no fear or aversion to these objects. However, Watson and Rayner sought to condition an emotional response in Little Albert by pairing the presentation of these stimuli with a loud, frightening noise (produced by striking a suspended steel bar with a hammer). As a result of this pairing, Little Albert began to exhibit fear and distress in response to the previously neutral stimuli, particularly the white rat.

The ethical concerns surrounding this experiment are significant. Little Albert was not provided with informed consent, and his emotional well-being was disregarded. The study also lacked proper debriefing, and the long-term consequences of Little Albert’s conditioning were not addressed. The ethical standards of today would prohibit such a study from being conducted.

Conditioning Process and Long-Term Implications

The Little Albert Experiment demonstrated the principles of classical conditioning in humans. It illustrated how conditioned emotional responses, such as fear and anxiety, could be acquired through association with previously neutral stimuli. In this case, Little Albert learned to fear the white rat because it had been consistently paired with a loud, frightening noise.

The long-term implications of the study are less clear due to a lack of follow-up research on Little Albert. It remains unknown whether his conditioned fears persisted or how they may have impacted his later development. The study’s ethical shortcomings prevent a comprehensive assessment of its long-term effects.

Contemporary Perspectives on the Study

The Little Albert Experiment is viewed with skepticism and ethical concern from contemporary perspectives. It serves as a reminder of the importance of informed consent, debriefing, and the ethical treatment of research participants in psychological research. Ethical standards in research have evolved significantly since the time of the experiment, emphasizing the need to prioritize the well-being and rights of participants.

While the Little Albert Experiment contributed to the understanding of classical conditioning, it also serves as a cautionary tale about the ethical boundaries of research and the potential consequences of disregarding the psychological well-being of participants. Modern research ethics prioritize the protection and respect of individuals involved in psychological studies, ensuring that similar experiments would not be conducted today.

The Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise

Historical Context and Significance

The Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise is a landmark social experiment conducted by educator and activist Jane Elliott in the late 1960s. The experiment was born out of the civil rights movement in the United States and sought to address issues of racism, discrimination, and prejudice. Against the backdrop of racial tensions and the struggle for civil rights, Elliott designed the exercise to provide a firsthand experience of the effects of discrimination.

Experiment Design and Outcomes

In the Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise, Elliott divided her third-grade students into two groups based on eye color, designating one group as “superior” (those with blue eyes) and the other as “inferior” (those with brown eyes). Over the course of the exercise, Elliott systematically treated the two groups differently, providing privileges to the superior group while subjecting the inferior group to discrimination and negative stereotypes.

The results of the experiment were profound. Children in the inferior group quickly internalized their assigned role and began to exhibit lower self-esteem, diminished academic performance, and a range of negative emotional responses. On the other hand, those in the superior group displayed increased arrogance and a sense of entitlement.

Elliott conducted the exercise over multiple days, reversing the roles on the second day to provide a taste of both sides of discrimination. The exercise aimed to create empathy and understanding among participants by allowing them to personally experience the emotional and psychological impact of discrimination.

Broader Societal Impact and Implications

The Blue-Eyes/Brown-Eyes Exercise had a significant societal impact. It garnered attention in the media and brought issues of racism and discrimination to the forefront of public consciousness. Elliott’s work challenged prevailing beliefs about the nature of prejudice and discrimination, highlighting the role of societal conditioning in perpetuating such attitudes.

The exercise also emphasized the importance of empathy and perspective-taking in combatting racism and prejudice. By allowing participants to experience discrimination firsthand, Elliott aimed to foster greater empathy and understanding among individuals of different racial backgrounds.

Experimentation in Social Psychology

Experimentation definition.

Experimentation, in its simplest form, is a research method used to investigate the presence or absence of a causal relationship between two variables. This method involves systematically manipulating one variable, known as the independent variable, and then assessing the impact or effect of this manipulation on another variable, referred to as the dependent variable. Through experimentation, researchers aim to discern whether changes in the independent variable cause changes in the dependent variable, providing insights into causal relationships within a given phenomenon or context. This systematic and controlled approach allows for rigorous testing of hypotheses and the establishment of cause-and-effect relationships in scientific inquiry.

Importance and Consequences of Experiments

The importance and consequences of experiments in research are closely tied to their unique ability to establish causal relationships. Here are key features of experiments that facilitate the ability to draw causal conclusions and their implications:

• Establishing Causality: Experiments are highly valuable because they allow researchers to make statements about causality. By systematically manipulating the independent variable and assessing its impact on the dependent variable, researchers can infer that changes in the independent variable cause changes in the dependent variable. This cause-and-effect relationship is central to scientific inquiry and helps uncover the mechanisms underlying various phenomena.
• Directionality of Relationship: Experiments provide a clear temporal sequence where changes in the independent variable precede the assessment of the dependent variable. This temporal order is crucial for determining the directionality of the relationship between variables. In causal relationships, the cause must precede the effect. Experiments ensure that this criterion is met, enabling researchers to infer the causal direction.
• Random Assignment: In experiments, participants are randomly assigned to different experimental groups. Random assignment ensures that each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any experimental condition, creating equivalent groups at the outset. This eliminates the possibility that pre-existing differences between participants could account for observed differences in the dependent variable. Random assignment strengthens the validity of causal claims by minimizing confounding variables.
• Isolation of Effects: Experiments enable researchers to isolate the effects of the independent variable by controlling all other aspects of the environment. This control ensures that all participants have a similar experience, except for the experimental manipulation. By eliminating extraneous variables, researchers can attribute any observed differences in the dependent variable solely to the independent variable. This isolation of effects enhances the internal validity of the study.

In summary, experiments are a powerful research method that allows for the establishment of causal relationships in scientific inquiry. Their ability to establish causality, ensure temporal precedence, employ random assignment, and isolate the effects of the independent variable makes experiments a cornerstone of empirical research. Researchers must adhere to these principles to draw valid and reliable conclusions about the causal relationships between variables, advancing our understanding of various phenomena in social psychology and other fields.

Some scholars have questioned the utility of experimentation, noting that the experiments which researchers design sometimes do not resemble the circumstances that people encounter in their everyday lives. However, experimentation is the only research method that allows one to definitively establish the existence of a causal relationship between two or more variables.

References:

• Goodwin, C. J. (2003). Research methods in psychology: Methods and design. New York: Wiley.
• Pelham, B. W. (1999). Conducting research in psychology: Measuring the weight of smoke. Pacific Grove,CA: Brooks/Cole.

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2 Research Methods in Social Psychology

Social psychologists are interested in the ways that other people affect thought, emotion, and behavior. To explore these concepts requires scientific research methods. Following a brief overview of traditional research designs, this module introduces how complex experimental designs, field experiments, naturalistic observation, experience sampling techniques, survey research, subtle and nonconscious techniques such as priming, and archival research and the use of big data may each be adapted to address social psychological questions. This module also discusses the importance of obtaining a representative sample along with some ethical considerations that social psychologists face.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the key features of basic and complex experimental designs.
• Describe the key features of field experiments, naturalistic observation, and experience sampling techniques.
• Describe survey research and explain the importance of obtaining a representative sample.
• Describe the implicit association test and the use of priming.
• Describe use of archival research techniques.
• Explain five principles of ethical research that most concern social psychologists.

Introduction

Are you passionate about cycling? Norman Triplett certainly was. At the turn of last century, he studied the lap times of cycling races and noticed a striking fact: riding in competitive races appeared to improve riders’ times by about 20-30 seconds every mile compared to when they rode the same courses alone. Triplett suspected that the riders’ enhanced performance could not be explained simply by the slipstream caused by other cyclists blocking the wind. To test his hunch, he designed what is widely described as the first experimental study in social psychology (published in 1898!)—in this case, having children reel in a length of fishing line as fast as they could. The children were tested alone, then again when paired with another child. The results? The children who performed the task in the presence of others out-reeled those that did so alone.

Although Triplett’s research fell short of contemporary standards of scientific rigor (e.g., he eyeballed the data instead of measuring performance precisely; Stroebe, 2012), we now know that this effect, referred to as “ social facilitation ,” is reliable—performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks tends to be enhanced when we are in the presence of others (even when we are not competing against them). To put it another way, the next time you think about showing off your pool-playing skills on a date, the odds are you’ll play better than when you practice by yourself. (If you haven’t practiced, maybe you should watch a movie instead!)

Research Methods in Social Psychology

One of the things Triplett’s early experiment illustrated is scientists’ reliance on systematic observation over opinion, or anecdotal evidence . The scientific method usually begins with observing the world around us (e.g., results of cycling competitions) and thinking of an interesting question (e.g., Why do cyclists perform better in groups?). The next step involves generating a specific testable prediction, or hypothesis (e.g., performance on simple tasks is enhanced in the presence of others). Next, scientists must operationalize the variables they are studying. This means they must figure out a way to define and measure abstract concepts. For example, the phrase “perform better” could mean different things in different situations; in Triplett’s experiment it referred to the amount of time (measured with a stopwatch) it took to wind a fishing reel. Similarly, “in the presence of others” in this case was operationalized as another child winding a fishing reel at the same time in the same room. Creating specific operational definitions like this allows scientists to precisely manipulate the independent variable , or “cause” (the presence of others), and to measure the dependent variable , or “effect” (performance)—in other words, to collect data. Clearly described operational definitions also help reveal possible limitations to studies (e.g., Triplett’s study did not investigate the impact of another child in the room who was not also winding a fishing reel) and help later researchers replicate them precisely.

Laboratory Research

As you can see, social psychologists have always relied on carefully designed laboratory environments to run experiments where they can closely control situations and manipulate variables (see  the NOBA module on Research Designs  for an overview of traditional methods). However, in the decades since Triplett discovered social facilitation, a wide range of methods and techniques have been devised, uniquely suited to demystifying the mechanics of how we relate to and influence one another. This module provides an introduction to the use of complex laboratory experiments, field experiments, naturalistic observation, survey research, nonconscious techniques, and archival research, as well as more recent methods that harness the power of technology and large data sets, to study the broad range of topics that fall within the domain of social psychology. At the end of this module, we will also consider some of the key ethical principles that govern research in this diverse field.

There are several key features to experiments including the manipulation of independent variables and the use of random assignment. Researchers can infer causality from experimental studies because experiments involve randomly assigning participants to one or more conditions of the experiment. This process prevents individual differences amongst the participants to alter the results. Imagine that a researcher was interested in examining whether academic failure reduced creativity. The independent variable in this study was academic failure because they believed this variable would exert an influence on creativity. To operationalize these variables, the researchers administered an achievement test to participants and randomly assigned participants to receive a failing grade, a passing grade, or no feedback (which served as the control). Following the achievement test and feedback, all participants were asked to list as many creative uses as they could for a brick (commonly referred to as the Guilford alternative uses task. Thus, the dependent variable for this study was creativity, operationalized as the participant’s ability to come up with high numbers of alternative uses for a brick. Unlike correlational studies, experiments can determine causality and thus, are often preferred by social psychologists. A correlational study examining the same hypothesis could examine the link between failing academic grades and individual performances on the Guildford alternative uses task, but because participants were not random assigned a failing grade, any relationship found between grades and creativity has a reverse causality problem. Getting more “F”s could make people less creative or being less creative could have led to more “F”s. An experiment rules out the reverse-causality issue.

Some experiments have more complex designs. The use of complex experimental designs , with multiple independent and/or dependent variables, has grown increasingly popular because they permit researchers to study both the individual and joint effects of several factors on a range of related situations. Moreover, thanks to technological advancements and the growth of social neuroscience , an increasing number of researchers now integrate biological markers (e.g., hormones) or use neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRI) in their research designs to better understand the biological mechanisms that underlie social processes.

We can dissect the fascinating research of Dov Cohen and his colleagues ( 1996 ) on “culture of honor” to provide insights into complex lab studies. A culture of honor is one that emphasizes personal or family reputation. In a series of lab studies, the Cohen research team invited dozens of university students into the lab to see how they responded to aggression. Half were from the Southern United States (a culture of honor) and half were from the Northern United States (not a culture of honor; this type of setup constitutes a participant variable of two levels). Region of origin was independent variable #1. Participants also provided a saliva sample immediately upon arriving at the lab; (they were given a cover story about how their blood sugar levels would be monitored over a series of tasks).

The participants completed a brief questionnaire and were then sent down a narrow corridor to drop it off on a table. En route, they encountered a confederate at an open file cabinet who pushed the drawer in to let them pass. When the participant returned a few seconds later, the confederate, who had re-opened the file drawer, slammed it shut and bumped into the participant with his shoulder, muttering “asshole” before walking away. In a manipulation of an independent variable—in this case, the insult—some of the participants were insulted publicly (in view of two other confederates pretending to be doing homework) while others were insulted privately (no one else was around). In a third condition—the control group—participants experienced a modified procedure in which they were not insulted at all.

Although this is a fairly elaborate procedure on its face, what is particularly impressive is the number of dependent variables the researchers were able to measure. First, in the public insult condition, the two additional confederates (who observed the interaction, pretending to do homework) rated the participants’ emotional reaction (e.g., anger, amusement, etc.) to being bumped into and insulted. Second, upon returning to the lab, participants in all three conditions were told they would later undergo electric shocks as part of a stress test, and were asked how much of a shock they would be willing to receive (between 10 volts and 250 volts). This decision was made in front of two confederates who had already chosen shock levels of 75 and 25 volts, presumably providing an opportunity for participants to publicly demonstrate their toughness. Third, across all conditions, the participants rated the likelihood of a variety of ambiguously provocative scenarios (e.g., one driver cutting another driver off) escalating into a fight or verbal argument. And fourth, in one of the studies, participants provided saliva samples, one right after returning to the lab, and a final one after completing the questionnaire with the ambiguous scenarios. Later, all three saliva samples were tested for levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) and testosterone (a hormone associated with aggression).

The results showed that people from the Northern United States were far more likely to laugh off the incident (only 35% having anger ratings as high as or higher than amusement ratings), whereas the opposite was true for people from the South (85% of whom had anger ratings as high as or higher than amusement ratings). Also, only those from the South experienced significant increases in cortisol and testosterone following the insult (with no difference between the public and private insult conditions). Finally, no regional differences emerged in the interpretation of the ambiguous scenarios; however, the participants from the South were more likely to choose to receive a greater shock in the presence of the two confederates.

Field Research

Because social psychology is primarily focused on the social context—groups, families, cultures—researchers commonly leave the laboratory to collect data on life as it is actually lived. To do so, they use a variation of the laboratory experiment, called a field experiment . A field experiment is similar to a lab experiment except it uses real-world situations, such as people shopping at a grocery store. One of the major differences between field experiments and laboratory experiments is that the people in field experiments do not know they are participating in research, so—in theory—they will act more naturally. In a classic example from 1972 , Alice Isen and Paula Levin wanted to explore the ways emotions affect helping behavior. To investigate this, they observed the behavior of people at pay phones (I know! Pay phones! ). Half of the unsuspecting participants (determined by random assignment ) found a dime planted by researchers (I know! A dime! ) in the coin slot, while the other half did not. Presumably, finding a dime felt surprising and lucky and gave people a small jolt of happiness. Immediately after the unsuspecting participant left the phone booth, a confederate walked by and dropped a stack of papers. Almost 100% of those who found a dime helped to pick up the papers. And what about those who didn’t find a dime? Only 1 out 25 of them bothered to help.

In cases where it’s not practical or ethical to randomly assign participants to different experimental conditions, we can use naturalistic observation —unobtrusively watching people as they go about their lives. Consider, for example, a classic demonstration of the “ basking in reflected glory ” phenomenon: Robert Cialdini and his colleagues used naturalistic observation at seven universities to confirm that students are significantly more likely to wear clothing bearing the school name or logo on days following wins (vs. draws or losses) by the school’s varsity football team ( Cialdini et al., 1976 ). In another study, by Jenny Radesky and her colleagues ( 2014 ), 40 out of 55 observations of caregivers eating at fast food restaurants with children involved a caregiver using a mobile device. The researchers also noted that caregivers who were most absorbed in their device tended to ignore the children’s behavior, followed by scolding, issuing repeated instructions, or using physical responses, such as kicking the children’s feet or pushing away their hands.

A group of techniques collectively referred to as experience sampling methods represent yet another way of conducting naturalistic observation, often by harnessing the power of technology. In some cases, participants are notified several times during the day by a pager, wristwatch, or a smartphone app to record data (e.g., by responding to a brief survey or scale on their smartphone, or in a diary). For example, in a study by Reed Larson and his colleagues ( 1994 ), mothers and fathers carried pagers for one week and reported their emotional states when beeped at random times during their daily activities at work or at home. The results showed that mothers reported experiencing more positive emotional states when away from home (including at work), whereas fathers showed the reverse pattern. A more recently developed technique, known as the electronically activated recorder , or EAR, does not even require participants to stop what they are doing to record their thoughts or feelings; instead, a small portable audio recorder or smartphone app is used to automatically record brief snippets of participants’ conversations throughout the day for later coding and analysis. For a more in-depth description of the EAR technique and other experience-sampling methods, see the NOBA module on  Conducting Psychology Research in the Real World .

Survey Research

In this diverse world, survey research offers itself as an invaluable tool for social psychologists to study individual and group differences in people’s feelings, attitudes, or behaviors. For example, the World Values Survey II was based on large representative samples of 19 countries and allowed researchers to determine that the relationship between income and subjective well-being was stronger in poorer countries ( Diener & Oishi, 2000 ). In other words, an increase in income has a much larger impact on your life satisfaction if you live in Nigeria than if you live in Canada. In another example, a nationally-representative survey in Germany with 16,000 respondents revealed that holding cynical beliefs is related to lower income (e.g., between 2003-2012 the income of the least cynical individuals increased by $300 per month, whereas the income of the most cynical individuals did not increase at all). Furthermore, survey data collected from 41 countries revealed that this negative correlation between cynicism and income is especially strong in countries where people in general engage in more altruistic behavior and tend not to be very cynical ( Stavrova & Ehlebracht, 2016 ).

Of course, obtaining large, cross-cultural, and representative samples has become far easier since the advent of the internet and the proliferation of web-based survey platforms—such as Qualtrics—and participant recruitment platforms—such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. And although some researchers harbor doubts about the representativeness of online samples, studies have shown that internet samples are in many ways more diverse and representative than samples recruited from human subject pools (e.g., with respect to gender; Gosling et al., 2004 ). Online samples also compare favorably with traditional samples on attentiveness while completing the survey, reliability of data, and proportion of non-respondents ( Paolacci et al., 2010 ).

Subtle/Nonconscious Research Methods

The methods we have considered thus far—field experiments, naturalistic observation, and surveys—work well when the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors being investigated are conscious and directly or indirectly observable. However, social psychologists often wish to measure or manipulate elements that are involuntary or nonconscious, such as when studying prejudicial attitudes people may be unaware of or embarrassed by. A good example of a technique that was developed to measure people’s nonconscious (and often ugly) attitudes is known as the implicit association test (IAT) ( Greenwald et al., 1998 ). This computer-based task requires participants to sort a series of stimuli (as rapidly and accurately as possible) into simple and combined categories while their reaction time is measured (in milliseconds). For example, an IAT might begin with participants sorting the names of relatives (such as “Niece” or “Grandfather”) into the categories “Male” and “Female,” followed by a round of sorting the names of disciplines (such as “Chemistry” or “English”) into the categories “Arts” and “Science.” A third round might combine the earlier two by requiring participants to sort stimuli into either “Male or Science” or “Female and Arts” before the fourth round switches the combinations to “Female or Science” and “Male and Arts.” If across all of the trials a person is quicker at accurately sorting incoming stimuli into the compound category “Male or Science” than into “Female or Science,” the authors of the IAT suggest that the participant likely has a stronger association between males and science than between females and science. Incredibly, this specific gender-science IAT has been completed by more than half a million participants across 34 countries, about 70% of whom show an implicit stereotype associating science with males more than with females ( Nosek et al., 2009 ). What’s more, when the data are grouped by country, national differences in implicit stereotypes predict national differences in the achievement gap between boys and girls in science and math. Our automatic associations, apparently, carry serious societal consequences.

Another nonconscious technique, known as priming , is often used to subtly manipulate behavior by activating or making more accessible certain concepts or beliefs. Consider the fascinating example of terror management theory (TMT) , whose authors believe that human beings are (unconsciously) terrified of their mortality (i.e., the fact that, some day, we will all die; Pyszczynski et al., 2003 ). According to TMT, in order to cope with this unpleasant reality (and the possibility that our lives are ultimately essentially meaningless), we cling firmly to systems of cultural and religious beliefs that give our lives meaning and purpose. If this hypothesis is correct, one straightforward prediction would be that people should cling even more firmly to their cultural beliefs when they are subtly reminded of their own mortality.

In one of the earliest tests of this hypothesis, actual municipal court judges in Arizona were asked to set a bond for an alleged prostitute immediately after completing a brief questionnaire. For half of the judges the questionnaire ended with questions about their thoughts and feelings regarding the prospect of their own death. Incredibly, judges in the experimental group that were primed with thoughts about their mortality set a significantly higher bond than those in the control group ($455 vs. $50!)—presumably because they were especially motivated to defend their belief system in the face of a violation of the law ( Rosenblatt et al., 1989 ). Although the judges consciously completed the survey, what makes this a study of priming is that the second task (sentencing) was unrelated, so any influence of the survey on their later judgments would have been nonconscious. Similar results have been found in TMT studies in which participants were primed to think about death even more subtly, such as by having them complete questionnaires just before or after they passed a funeral home ( Pyszczynski et al., 1996 ).

To verify that the subtle manipulation (e.g., questions about one’s death) has the intended effect (activating death-related thoughts), priming studies like these often include a manipulation check following the introduction of a prime. For example, right after being primed, participants in a TMT study might be given a word fragment task in which they have to complete words such as COFF_ _ or SK _ _ L. As you might imagine, participants in the mortality-primed experimental group typically complete these fragments as COFFIN and SKULL, whereas participants in the control group complete them as COFFEE and SKILL.

The use of priming to unwittingly influence behavior, known as social or behavioral priming ( Ferguson & Mann, 2014 ), has been at the center of the recent “replication crisis” in Psychology ( see the NOBA module on replication). Whereas earlier studies showed, for example, that priming people to think about old age makes them walk slower ( Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996 ), that priming them to think about a university professor boosts performance on a trivia game ( Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998 ), and that reminding them of mating motives (e.g., sex) makes them more willing to engage in risky behavior ( Greitemeyer, Kastenmüller, & Fischer, 2013 ), several recent efforts to replicate these findings have failed (e.g., Harris et al., 2013 ; Shanks et al., 2013 ). Such failures to replicate findings highlight the need to ensure that both the original studies and replications are carefully designed, have adequate sample sizes, and that researchers pre-register their hypotheses and openly share their results—whether these support the initial hypothesis or not.

Archival Research

Imagine that a researcher wants to investigate how the presence of passengers in a car affects drivers’ performance. She could ask research participants to respond to questions about their own driving habits. Alternately, she might be able to access police records of the number of speeding tickets issued by automatic camera devices, then count the number of solo drivers versus those with passengers. This would be an example of archival research . The examination of archives, statistics, and other records such as speeches, letters, or even tweets, provides yet another window into social psychology. Although this method is typically used as a type of correlational research design—due to the lack of control over the relevant variables—archival research shares the higher ecological validity of naturalistic observation. That is, the observations are conducted outside the laboratory and represent real world behaviors. Moreover, because the archives being examined can be collected at any time and from many sources, this technique is especially flexible and often involves less expenditure of time and other resources during data collection.

Social psychologists have used archival research to test a wide variety of hypotheses using real-world data. For example, analyses of major league baseball games played during the 1986, 1987, and 1988 seasons showed that baseball pitchers were more likely to hit batters with a pitch on hot days ( Reifman et al., 1991 ). Another study compared records of race-based lynching in the United States between 1882-1930 to the inflation-adjusted price of cotton during that time (a key indicator of the Deep South’s economic health), demonstrating a significant negative correlation between these variables. Simply put, there were significantly more lynchings when the price of cotton stayed flat, and fewer lynchings when the price of cotton rose ( Beck & Tolnay, 1990 ; Hovland & Sears, 1940 ). This suggests that race-based violence is associated with the health of the economy.

More recently, analyses of social media posts have provided social psychologists with extremely large sets of data (“ big data ”) to test creative hypotheses. In an example of research on attitudes about vaccinations, Mitra and her colleagues ( 2016 ) collected over 3 million tweets sent by more than 32 thousand users over four years. Interestingly, they found that those who held (and tweeted) anti-vaccination attitudes were also more likely to tweet about their mistrust of government and beliefs in government conspiracies. Similarly, Eichstaedt and his colleagues ( 2015 ) used the language of 826 million tweets to predict community-level mortality rates from heart disease. That’s right: more anger-related words and fewer positive-emotion words in tweets predicted higher rates of heart disease.

In a more controversial example, researchers at Facebook attempted to test whether emotional contagion—the transfer of emotional states from one person to another—would occur if Facebook manipulated the content that showed up in its users’ News Feed ( Kramer et al., 2014 ). And it did. When friends’ posts with positive expressions were concealed, users wrote slightly fewer positive posts (e.g., “Loving my new phone!”). Conversely, when posts with negative expressions were hidden, users wrote slightly fewer negative posts (e.g., “Got to go to work. Ugh.”). This suggests that people’s positivity or negativity can impact their social circles.

The controversial part of this study—which included 689,003 Facebook users and involved the analysis of over 3 million posts made over just one week—was the fact that Facebook did not explicitly request permission from users to participate. Instead, Facebook relied on the fine print in their data-use policy. And, although academic researchers who collaborated with Facebook on this study applied for ethical approval from their institutional review board (IRB), they apparently only did so after data collection was complete, raising further questions about the ethicality of the study and highlighting concerns about the ability of large, profit-driven corporations to subtly manipulate people’s social lives and choices.

Research Issues in Social Psychology

The question of representativeness.

Along with our counterparts in the other areas of psychology, social psychologists have been guilty of largely recruiting samples of convenience from the thin slice of humanity—students—found at universities and colleges ( Sears, 1986 ). This presents a problem when trying to assess the social mechanics of the public at large. Aside from being an overrepresentation of young, middle-class Caucasians, college students may also be more compliant and more susceptible to attitude change, have less stable personality traits and interpersonal relationships, and possess stronger cognitive skills than samples reflecting a wider range of age and experience ( Peterson & Merunka, 2014 ; Visser, Krosnick, & Lavrakas, 2000) . Put simply, these traditional samples (college students) may not be sufficiently representative of the broader population. Furthermore, considering that 96% of participants in psychology studies come from western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries (so-called WEIRD cultures ; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010 ), and that the majority of these are also psychology students , the question of non-representativeness becomes even more serious.

Of course, when studying a basic cognitive process (like working memory capacity) or an aspect of social behavior that appears to be fairly universal (e.g., even cockroaches exhibit social facilitation!), a non-representative sample may not be a big deal. However, over time research has repeatedly demonstrated the important role that individual differences (e.g., personality traits, cognitive abilities, etc.) and culture (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism) play in shaping social behavior. For instance, even if we only consider a tiny sample of research on aggression, we know that narcissists are more likely to respond to criticism with aggression ( Bushman & Baumeister, 1998 ); conservatives, who have a low tolerance for uncertainty, are more likely to prefer aggressive actions against those considered to be “outsiders” ( de Zavala et al., 2010 ); countries where men hold the bulk of power in society have higher rates of physical aggression directed against female partners ( Archer, 2006 ); and males from the southern part of the United States are more likely to react with aggression following an insult ( Cohen et al., 1996 ).

Ethics in Social Psychological Research

For better or worse (but probably for worse), when we think about the most unethical studies in psychology, we think about social psychology. Imagine, for example, encouraging people to deliver what they believe to be a dangerous electric shock to a stranger (with bloodcurdling screams for added effect!). This is considered a “classic” study in social psychology. Or, how about having students play the role of prison guards, deliberately and sadistically abusing other students in the role of prison inmates. Yep, social psychology too. Of course, both Stanley Milgram’s ( 1963 ) experiments on obedience to authority and the Stanford prison study ( Haney et al., 1973 ) would be considered unethical by today’s standards, which have progressed with our understanding of the field. Today, we follow a series of guidelines and receive prior approval from our institutional research boards before beginning such experiments. Among the most important principles are the following:

• Informed consent: In general, people should know when they are involved in research, and understand what will happen to them during the study (at least in general terms that do not give away the hypothesis). They are then given the choice to participate, along with the freedom to withdraw from the study at any time. This is precisely why the Facebook emotional contagion study discussed earlier is considered ethically questionable. Still, it’s important to note that certain kinds of methods—such as naturalistic observation in public spaces, or archival research based on public records—do not require obtaining informed consent.
• Privacy: Although it is permissible to observe people’s actions in public—even without them knowing—researchers cannot violate their privacy by observing them in restrooms or other private spaces without their knowledge and consent. Researchers also may not identify individual participants in their research reports (we typically report only group means and other statistics). With online data collection becoming increasingly popular, researchers also have to be mindful that they follow local data privacy laws, collect only the data that they really need (e.g., avoiding including unnecessary questions in surveys), strictly restrict access to the raw data, and have a plan in place to securely destroy the data after it is no longer needed.
• Risks and Benefits: People who participate in psychological studies should be exposed to risk only if they fully understand the risks and only if the likely benefits clearly outweigh those risks. The Stanford prison study is a notorious example of a failure to meet this obligation. It was planned to run for two weeks but had to be shut down after only six days because of the abuse suffered by the “prison inmates.” But even less extreme cases, such as researchers wishing to investigate implicit prejudice using the IAT, need to be considerate of the consequences of providing feedback to participants about their nonconscious biases. Similarly, any manipulations that could potentially provoke serious emotional reactions (e.g., the culture of honor study described above) or relatively permanent changes in people’s beliefs or behaviors (e.g., attitudes towards recycling) need to be carefully reviewed by the IRB.
• Deception: Social psychologists sometimes need to deceive participants (e.g., using a cover story) to avoid demand characteristics by hiding the true nature of the study. This is typically done to prevent participants from modifying their behavior in unnatural ways, especially in laboratory or field experiments. For example, when Milgram recruited participants for his experiments on obedience to authority, he described it as being a study of the effects of punishment on memory! Deception is typically only permitted (a) when the benefits of the study outweigh the risks, (b) participants are not reasonably expected to be harmed, (c) the research question cannot be answered without the use of deception, and (d) participants are informed about the deception as soon as possible, usually through debriefing.
• Debriefing: This is the process of informing research participants as soon as possible of the purpose of the study, revealing any deceptions, and correcting any misconceptions they might have as a result of participating. Debriefing also involves minimizing harm that might have occurred. For example, an experiment examining the effects of sad moods on charitable behavior might involve inducing a sad mood in participants by having them think sad thoughts, watch a sad video, or listen to sad music. Debriefing would therefore be the time to return participants’ moods to normal by having them think happy thoughts, watch a happy video, or listen to happy music.

As an immensely social species, we affect and influence each other in many ways, particularly through our interactions and cultural expectations, both conscious and nonconscious. The study of social psychology examines much of the business of our everyday lives, including our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors we are unaware or ashamed of. The desire to carefully and precisely study these topics, together with advances in technology, has led to the development of many creative techniques that allow researchers to explore the mechanics of how we relate to one another. Consider this your invitation to join the investigation.

Text Attribution

Media attributions.

• Figure 2.1: Asch experiment
• Mobile phone
• Depósito del Archivo de la Fundación Sierra-Pambley
• Conant Graduation
• SPE1971-guards with blindfolded prisoner

When performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks is enhanced when we are in the presence of others.

An argument that is based on personal experience and not considered reliable or representative.

A method of investigation that includes systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

A possible explanation that can be tested through research.

How researchers specifically measure a concept.

The variable the researcher manipulates and controls in an experiment.

The variable the researcher measures but does not manipulate in an experiment.

A setting in which the researcher can carefully control situations and manipulate variables.

An experiment with two or more independent variables.

An interdisciplinary field concerned with identifying the neural processes underlying social behavior and cognition.

The individual characteristics of research subjects - age, personality, health, intelligence, etc.

A fake description of the purpose and/or procedure of a study, used when deception is necessary in order to answer a research question.

An actor working with the researcher. Most often, this individual is used to deceive unsuspecting research participants. Also known as a “stooge.”

An experiment that occurs outside of the lab and in a real world situation.

Assigning participants to receive different conditions of an experiment by chance.

Unobtrusively watching people as they go about the business of living their lives.

The tendency for people to associate themselves with successful people or groups.

Systematic ways of having participants provide samples of their ongoing behavior. Participants' reports are dependent (contingent) upon either a signal, pre-established intervals, or the occurrence of some event.

A methodology where participants wear a small, portable audio recorder that intermittently records snippets of ambient sounds around them.

A method of research that involves administering a questionnaire to respondents in person, by telephone, through the mail, or over the internet.

A computer-based categorization task that measures the strength of association between specific concepts over several trials.

The process by which exposing people to one stimulus makes certain thoughts, feelings or behaviors more salient.

A theory that proposes that humans manage the anxiety that stems from the inevitability of death by embracing frameworks of meaning such as cultural values and beliefs.

A measure used to determine whether or not the manipulation of the independent variable has had its intended effect on the participants.

A field of research that investigates how the activation of one social concept in memory can elicit changes in behavior, physiology, or self-reports of a related social concept without conscious awareness.

A type of research in which the researcher analyses records or archives instead of collecting data from live human participants.

A type of descriptive research that involves measuring the association between two variables, or how they go together.

The degree to which a study finding has been obtained under conditions that are typical for what happens in everyday life.

The analysis of large data sets.

Participants that have been recruited in a manner that prioritizes convenience over representativeness.

Cultures that are western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.

Subtle cues that make participants aware of what the experimenter expects to find or how participants are expected to behave.

An Introduction to Social Psychology Copyright © 2022 by Thomas Edison State University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Social Psychology Experiments

Social psychology experiments can explain how thoughts, feelings and behaviors are influenced by the presence of others.

This article is a part of the guide:

• Milgram Experiment
• Bobo Doll Experiment
• Stanford Prison Experiment
• Asch Experiment
• Milgram Experiment Ethics

Browse Full Outline

• 1 Social Psychology Experiments
• 2.1 Asch Figure
• 3 Bobo Doll Experiment
• 4 Good Samaritan Experiment
• 5 Stanford Prison Experiment
• 6.1 Milgram Experiment Ethics
• 7 Bystander Apathy
• 8 Sherif’s Robbers Cave
• 9 Social Judgment Experiment
• 10 Halo Effect
• 11 Thought-Rebound
• 12 Ross’ False Consensus Effect
• 13 Interpersonal Bargaining
• 14 Understanding and Belief
• 15 Hawthorne Effect
• 16 Self-Deception
• 17 Confirmation Bias
• 18 Overjustification Effect
• 19 Choice Blindness
• 20.1 Cognitive Dissonance
• 21.1 Social Group Prejudice
• 21.2 Intergroup Discrimination
• 21.3 Selective Group Perception

Typically social psychology studies investigate how someone's behavior influences a groups behavior or internal states, such as attitude or self-concept.

Obedience to Authority

"I was only following orders" Legal defence by a Nazi leader at the Nuremberg trial following World War II

The aftermath of World War 2 made scientists investigate what to made people "follow orders" even though the orders were horrible. The Stanley Milgram Experiment showed that also non-nazi populations would follow orders to harm other persons. It was not a German phenomenon as many thought.

Milgram's Lost Letter Experiment

Classic social psychology experiments are widely used to expose the key elements of aggressive behavior, prejudice and stereotyping. Social group prejudice is manifested in people's unfavorable attitudes towards a particular social group. Stanley Milgram's Lost Letter Experiment further explains this.

Obedience to a Role - Dehumanization

The Abu Ghraib prison-episode was yet another example on the power of predefined roles. The Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo, demonstrated the powerful effect our perception of expectations in roles have.

Solomon Asch wanted to test how much people are influenced by others opinions in the Asch Conformity Experiment .

Observational Role Learning

Behaviorists ruled psychology for a long time. They focused on how individuals learn by trying and failing. Albert Bandura thought that humans are much more than "learning machines". He thought that we learn from role models, initiating the (bandura) social cognitive theory. It all started with the Bobo Doll Experiment .

Helping Behavior - Good Samaritan

Knowing the story of the Good Samaritan makes you wonder what made the Samaritan help the stranger, and why did he not get help from the priest or the Levite? The Good Samaritan Experiment explores causes of not showing helping behavior or altruism.

Cognitive Dissonance Experiment

The Cognitive Dissonance Experiment by Leon Festinger assumes that people hold many different cognitions about their world and tests what happens when the cognitions do not fit. See also the more in depth article about the Cognitive Dissonance Experiment .

Bystander Effect

The Bystander Apathy Experiment was inspirated and motivation to conduct this experiment from the highly publicised murder of Kitty Genovese in the same year.

Groups and Influence On Opinion

Sherif's classic social psychology experiment named Robbers Cave Experiment dealt with in-group relations, out-group relations and intergroup relations.

The Social Judgment Experiment was designed to explore the internal processes of an individual's judgment and intergroup discrimination , how little it takes for people to form into groups, and the degree to which people within a group tend to favour the in-group and discriminate the out-group.

Halo Effect

The Halo Effect was demonstrated by Nisbett and Wilson's experiment. It fits the situation of Hollywood celebrities where people readily assume that since these people are physically attractive, it also follows that they are intelligent, friendly, and display good judgment as well. This also greatly applies to other well-known people such as politicians.

Wegner's Dream Rebound Experiment

According to studies, thoughts suppressed may resurface or manifest themselves in the future in the form of dreams. Psychologist Daniel M. Wegner proves this in his experiment on effects of thought suppression .

False Consensus

Everyone's got their own biases in each and every occasion, even when estimating other people behaviors and the respective causes. One of these is called the false consensus bias. Psychologist Professor Lee Ross conducted studies on setting out to show how false consensus effect operates.

Interpersonal Bargaining

Bargaining is one of the many activities we usually engage in without even realizing it. The Moran Deutsch and Robert Krauss Experiment investigated two central factors in bargaining, namely how we communicate with each other and the use of threats.

Understand and Belief

Daniel Gilbert together with his colleagues put to test both Rene Descartes' and Baruch Spinoza's beliefs on whether belief is automatic or is a separate process that follows understanding. This argument has long been standing for at least 400 years before it was finally settled.

Self-Deception

People lie all the time even to themselves and surprisingly, it does work! This is the finding of the Quattrone and Tversky Experiment that was published in the Journal of Personality and Psychology.

Overjustification Effect

The overjustification effect happens when an external incentive like a reward, decreases a person's intrinsic motivation to perform a particular task. Lepper, Greene and Nisbett confirmed this in their field experiment in a nursery school.

Chameleon Effect

Also called unintentional mirroring, the chameleon effect usually applies to people who are getting along so well, each tend to mimic each other's body posture, hand gestures, speaking accents, among others. This was confirmed by the Chartrand and Bargh experiments.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is also known as selective collection of evidence. It is considered as an effect of information processing where people behaves to as to make their expectations come true. People tend to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses independently of the information's truthness or falsity.

Choice Blindness

Choice blindness refers to ways in which people are blind to their own choices and preferences. Lars Hall and Peter Johansson further explain this phenomenon in their study.

Stereotypes

The Clark Doll Test illustrates the ill effects of stereotyping and racial segregation in America. It illustrated the damage caused by systematic segregation and racism on children's self-perception at the young age of five.

Selective Group Perception

In selective group perception, people tend to actively filter information they think is irrelevant. This effect is demonstrated in Hastorf and Cantril's Case Study: They Saw a Game .

Changing Behaviour When Being Studied

The Hawthorne Effect is the process where human subjects of an experiment change their behavior, simply because they are being studied. This is one of the hardest inbuilt biases to eliminate or factor into the design.

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Oskar Blakstad (Oct 10, 2008). Social Psychology Experiments. Retrieved Aug 14, 2024 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/social-psychology-experiments

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Chapter 2: Research Methods

2.1 – Research Methods

Research methods in social psychology.

Social psychologists are interested in the ways that other people affect thought, emotion, and behavior. To explore these concepts requires special research methods. Following a brief overview of traditional research designs, this module introduces how complex experimental designs, field experiments, naturalistic observation, experience sampling techniques, survey research, subtle and nonconscious techniques such as priming, and archival research and the use of big data may each be adapted to address social psychological questions. This module also discusses the importance of obtaining a representative sample along with some ethical considerations that social psychologists face.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the key features of basic and complex experimental designs.
• Describe the key features of field experiments, naturalistic observation, and experience sampling techniques.
• Describe survey research and explain the importance of obtaining a representative sample.
• Describe the implicit association test and the use of priming.
• Describe use of archival research techniques.
• Explain five principles of ethical research that most concern social psychologists.

Introduction

Although Triplett’s research fell short of contemporary standards of scientific rigor (e.g., he eyeballed the data instead of measuring performance precisely; Stroebe, 2012 ), we now know that this effect, referred to as “ social facilitation ,” is reliable—performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks tends to be enhanced when we are in the presence of others (even when we are not competing against them). To put it another way, the next time you think about showing off your pool-playing skills on a date, the odds are you’ll play better than when you practice by yourself. (If you haven’t practiced, maybe you should watch a movie instead!)

One of the things Triplett’s early experiment illustrated is scientists’ reliance on systematic observation over opinion, or anecdotal evidence . The scientific method usually begins with observing the world around us (e.g., results of cycling competitions) and thinking of an interesting question (e.g., Why do cyclists perform better in groups?). The next step involves generating a specific testable prediction, or hypothesis (e.g., performance on simple tasks is enhanced in the presence of others). Next, scientists must operationalize the variables they are studying. This means they must figure out a way to define and measure abstract concepts. For example, the phrase “perform better” could mean different things in different situations; in Triplett’s experiment it referred to the amount of time (measured with a stopwatch) it took to wind a fishing reel. Similarly, “in the presence of others” in this case was operationalized as another child winding a fishing reel at the same time in the same room. Creating specific operational definitions like this allows scientists to precisely manipulate the independent variable , or “cause” (the presence of others), and to measure the dependent variable , or “effect” (performance)—in other words, to collect data. Clearly described operational definitions also help reveal possible limitations to studies (e.g., Triplett’s study did not investigate the impact of another child in the room who was not also winding a fishing reel) and help later researchers replicate them precisely.

Laboratory Research

As you can see, social psychologists have always relied on carefully designed laboratory environments to run experiments where they can closely control situations and manipulate variables (see  the NOBA module on Research Designs  for an overview of traditional methods). However, in the decades since Triplett discovered social facilitation, a wide range of methods and techniques have been devised, uniquely suited to demystifying the mechanics of how we relate to and influence one another. This module provides an introduction to the use of complex laboratory experiments, field experiments, naturalistic observation, survey research, nonconscious techniques, and archival research, as well as more recent methods that harness the power of technology and large data sets, to study the broad range of topics that fall within the domain of social psychology. At the end of this module we will also consider some of the key ethical principles that govern research in this diverse field.

The use of complex experimental designs , with multiple independent and/or dependent variables, has grown increasingly popular because they permit researchers to study both the individual and joint effects of several factors on a range of related situations. Moreover, thanks to technological advancements and the growth of social neuroscience , an increasing number of researchers now integrate biological markers (e.g., hormones) or use neuroimaging techniques (e.g., fMRI) in their research designs to better understand the biological mechanisms that underlie social processes.

We can dissect the fascinating research of Dov Cohen and his colleagues ( 1996 ) on “culture of honor” to provide insights into complex lab studies. A culture of honor is one that emphasizes personal or family reputation. In a series of lab studies, the Cohen research team invited dozens of university students into the lab to see how they responded to aggression. Half were from the Southern United States (a culture of honor) and half were from the Northern United States (not a culture of honor; this type of setup constitutes a participant variable of two levels). Region of origin was independent variable #1. Participants also provided a saliva sample immediately upon arriving at the lab; (they were given a cover story about how their blood sugar levels would be monitored over a series of tasks).

The participants completed a brief questionnaire and were then sent down a narrow corridor to drop it off on a table. En route, they encountered a confederate at an open file cabinet who pushed the drawer in to let them pass. When the participant returned a few seconds later, the confederate, who had re-opened the file drawer, slammed it shut and bumped into the participant with his shoulder, muttering “asshole” before walking away. In a manipulation of an independent variable—in this case, the insult—some of the participants were insulted publicly (in view of two other confederates pretending to be doing homework) while others were insulted privately (no one else was around). In a third condition—the control group—participants experienced a modified procedure in which they were not insulted at all.

Although this is a fairly elaborate procedure on its face, what is particularly impressive is the number of dependent variables the researchers were able to measure. First, in the public insult condition, the two additional confederates (who observed the interaction, pretending to do homework) rated the participants’ emotional reaction (e.g., anger, amusement, etc.) to being bumped into and insulted. Second, upon returning to the lab, participants in all three conditions were told they would later undergo electric shocks as part of a stress test, and were asked how much of a shock they would be willing to receive (between 10 volts and 250 volts). This decision was made in front of two confederates who had already chosen shock levels of 75 and 25 volts, presumably providing an opportunity for participants to publicly demonstrate their toughness. Third, across all conditions, the participants rated the likelihood of a variety of ambiguously provocative scenarios (e.g., one driver cutting another driver off) escalating into a fight or verbal argument. And fourth, in one of the studies, participants provided saliva samples, one right after returning to the lab, and a final one after completing the questionnaire with the ambiguous scenarios. Later, all three saliva samples were tested for levels of cortisol (a hormone associated with stress) and testosterone (a hormone associated with aggression).

The results showed that people from the Northern United States were far more likely to laugh off the incident (only 35% having anger ratings as high as or higher than amusement ratings), whereas the opposite was true for people from the South (85% of whom had anger ratings as high as or higher than amusement ratings). Also, only those from the South experienced significant increases in cortisol and testosterone following the insult (with no difference between the public and private insult conditions). Finally, no regional differences emerged in the interpretation of the ambiguous scenarios; however, the participants from the South were more likely to choose to receive a greater shock in the presence of the two confederates.

Field Research

Because social psychology is primarily focused on the social context—groups, families, cultures—researchers commonly leave the laboratory to collect data on life as it is actually lived. To do so, they use a variation of the laboratory experiment, called a field experiment . A field experiment is similar to a lab experiment except it uses real-world situations, such as people shopping at a grocery store. One of the major differences between field experiments and laboratory experiments is that the people in field experiments do not know they are participating in research, so—in theory—they will act more naturally. In a classic example from 1972 , Alice Isen and Paula Levin wanted to explore the ways emotions affect helping behavior. To investigate this they observed the behavior of people at pay phones (I know! Pay phones! ). Half of the unsuspecting participants (determined by random assignment ) found a dime planted by researchers (I know! A dime! ) in the coin slot, while the other half did not. Presumably, finding a dime felt surprising and lucky and gave people a small jolt of happiness. Immediately after the unsuspecting participant left the phone booth, a confederate walked by and dropped a stack of papers. Almost 100% of those who found a dime helped to pick up the papers. And what about those who didn’t find a dime? Only 1 out 25 of them bothered to help.

In cases where it’s not practical or ethical to randomly assign participants to different experimental conditions, we can use naturalistic observation —unobtrusively watching people as they go about their lives. Consider, for example, a classic demonstration of the “ basking in reflected glory ” phenomenon: Robert Cialdini and his colleagues used naturalistic observation at seven universities to confirm that students are significantly more likely to wear clothing bearing the school name or logo on days following wins (vs. draws or losses) by the school’s varsity football team ( Cialdini et al., 1976 ). In another study, by Jenny Radesky and her colleagues ( 2014 ), 40 out of 55 observations of caregivers eating at fast food restaurants with children involved a caregiver using a mobile device. The researchers also noted that caregivers who were most absorbed in their device tended to ignore the children’s behavior, followed by scolding, issuing repeated instructions, or using physical responses, such as kicking the children’s feet or pushing away their hands.

A group of techniques collectively referred to as experience sampling methods represent yet another way of conducting naturalistic observation, often by harnessing the power of technology. In some cases, participants are notified several times during the day by a pager, wristwatch, or a smartphone app to record data (e.g., by responding to a brief survey or scale on their smartphone, or in a diary). For example, in a study by Reed Larson and his colleagues ( 1994 ), mothers and fathers carried pagers for one week and reported their emotional states when beeped at random times during their daily activities at work or at home. The results showed that mothers reported experiencing more positive emotional states when away from home (including at work), whereas fathers showed the reverse pattern. A more recently developed technique, known as the electronically activated recorder , or EAR, does not even require participants to stop what they are doing to record their thoughts or feelings; instead, a small portable audio recorder or smartphone app is used to automatically record brief snippets of participants’ conversations throughout the day for later coding and analysis. For a more in-depth description of the EAR technique and other experience-sampling methods, see the NOBA module on  Conducting Psychology Research in the Real World .

Survey Research

In this diverse world, survey research offers itself as an invaluable tool for social psychologists to study individual and group differences in people’s feelings, attitudes, or behaviors. For example, the World Values Survey II was based on large representative samples of 19 countries and allowed researchers to determine that the relationship between income and subjective well-being was stronger in poorer countries ( Diener & Oishi, 2000 ). In other words, an increase in income has a much larger impact on your life satisfaction if you live in Nigeria than if you live in Canada. In another example, a nationally-representative survey in Germany with 16,000 respondents revealed that holding cynical beliefs is related to lower income (e.g., between 2003-2012 the income of the least cynical individuals increased by $300 per month, whereas the income of the most cynical individuals did not increase at all). Furthermore, survey data collected from 41 countries revealed that this negative correlation between cynicism and income is especially strong in countries where people in general engage in more altruistic behavior and tend not to be very cynical ( Stavrova & Ehlebracht, 2016 ).

Of course, obtaining large, cross-cultural, and representative samples has become far easier since the advent of the internet and the proliferation of web-based survey platforms—such as Qualtrics—and participant recruitment platforms—such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. And although some researchers harbor doubts about the representativeness of online samples, studies have shown that internet samples are in many ways more diverse and representative than samples recruited from human subject pools (e.g., with respect to gender; Gosling et al., 2004 ). Online samples also compare favorably with traditional samples on attentiveness while completing the survey, reliability of data, and proportion of non-respondents ( Paolacci et al., 2010 ).

Subtle/Nonconscious Research Methods

The methods we have considered thus far—field experiments, naturalistic observation, and surveys—work well when the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors being investigated are conscious and directly or indirectly observable. However, social psychologists often wish to measure or manipulate elements that are involuntary or nonconscious, such as when studying prejudicial attitudes people may be unaware of or embarrassed by. A good example of a technique that was developed to measure people’s nonconscious (and often ugly) attitudes is known as the implicit association test (IAT) ( Greenwald et al., 1998 ). This computer-based task requires participants to sort a series of stimuli (as rapidly and accurately as possible) into simple and combined categories while their reaction time is measured (in milliseconds). For example, an IAT might begin with participants sorting the names of relatives (such as “Niece” or “Grandfather”) into the categories “Male” and “Female,” followed by a round of sorting the names of disciplines (such as “Chemistry” or “English”) into the categories “Arts” and “Science.” A third round might combine the earlier two by requiring participants to sort stimuli into either “Male or Science” or “Female and Arts” before the fourth round switches the combinations to “Female or Science” and “Male and Arts.” If across all of the trials a person is quicker at accurately sorting incoming stimuli into the compound category “Male or Science” than into “Female or Science,” the authors of the IAT suggest that the participant likely has a stronger association between males and science than between females and science. Incredibly, this specific gender-science IAT has been completed by more than half a million participants across 34 countries, about 70% of whom show an implicit stereotype associating science with males more than with females ( Nosek et al., 2009 ). What’s more, when the data are grouped by country, national differences in implicit stereotypes predict national differences in the achievement gap between boys and girls in science and math. Our automatic associations, apparently, carry serious societal consequences.

Another nonconscious technique, known as priming , is often used to subtly manipulate behavior by activating or making more accessible certain concepts or beliefs. Consider the fascinating example of terror management theory (TMT) , whose authors believe that human beings are (unconsciously) terrified of their mortality (i.e., the fact that, some day, we will all die; Pyszczynski et al., 2003 ). According to TMT, in order to cope with this unpleasant reality (and the possibility that our lives are ultimately essentially meaningless), we cling firmly to systems of cultural and religious beliefs that give our lives meaning and purpose. If this hypothesis is correct, one straightforward prediction would be that people should cling even more firmly to their cultural beliefs when they are subtly reminded of their own mortality.

In one of the earliest tests of this hypothesis, actual municipal court judges in Arizona were asked to set a bond for an alleged prostitute immediately after completing a brief questionnaire. For half of the judges the questionnaire ended with questions about their thoughts and feelings regarding the prospect of their own death. Incredibly, judges in the experimental group that were primed with thoughts about their mortality set a significantly higher bond than those in the control group ($455 vs. $50!)—presumably because they were especially motivated to defend their belief system in the face of a violation of the law ( Rosenblatt et al., 1989 ). Although the judges consciously completed the survey, what makes this a study of priming is that the second task (sentencing) was unrelated, so any influence of the survey on their later judgments would have been nonconscious. Similar results have been found in TMT studies in which participants were primed to think about death even more subtly, such as by having them complete questionnaires just before or after they passed a funeral home ( Pyszczynski et al., 1996 ).

To verify that the subtle manipulation (e.g., questions about one’s death) has the intended effect (activating death-related thoughts), priming studies like these often include a manipulation check following the introduction of a prime. For example, right after being primed, participants in a TMT study might be given a word fragment task in which they have to complete words such as COFF_ _ or SK _ _ L. As you might imagine, participants in the mortality-primed experimental group typically complete these fragments as COFFIN and SKULL, whereas participants in the control group complete them as COFFEE and SKILL.

The use of priming to unwittingly influence behavior, known as social or behavioral priming ( Ferguson & Mann, 2014 ), has been at the center of the recent “replication crisis” in Psychology ( see the NOBA module on replication). Whereas earlier studies showed, for example, that priming people to think about old age makes them walk slower ( Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996 ), that priming them to think about a university professor boosts performance on a trivia game ( Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998 ), and that reminding them of mating motives (e.g., sex) makes them more willing to engage in risky behavior ( Greitemeyer, Kastenmüller, & Fischer, 2013 ), several recent efforts to replicate these findings have failed (e.g., Harris et al., 2013 ; Shanks et al., 2013 ). Such failures to replicate findings highlight the need to ensure that both the original studies and replications are carefully designed, have adequate sample sizes, and that researchers pre-register their hypotheses and openly share their results—whether these support the initial hypothesis or not.

Archival Research

Imagine that a researcher wants to investigate how the presence of passengers in a car affects drivers’ performance. She could ask research participants to respond to questions about their own driving habits. Alternately, she might be able to access police records of the number of speeding tickets issued by automatic camera devices, then count the number of solo drivers versus those with passengers. This would be an example of archival research . The examination of archives, statistics, and other records such as speeches, letters, or even tweets, provides yet another window into social psychology. Although this method is typically used as a type of correlational research design—due to the lack of control over the relevant variables—archival research shares the higher ecological validity of naturalistic observation. That is, the observations are conducted outside the laboratory and represent real world behaviors. Moreover, because the archives being examined can be collected at any time and from many sources, this technique is especially flexible and often involves less expenditure of time and other resources during data collection.

Social psychologists have used archival research to test a wide variety of hypotheses using real-world data. For example, analyses of major league baseball games played during the 1986, 1987, and 1988 seasons showed that baseball pitchers were more likely to hit batters with a pitch on hot days ( Reifman et al., 1991 ). Another study compared records of race-based lynching in the United States between 1882-1930 to the inflation-adjusted price of cotton during that time (a key indicator of the Deep South’s economic health), demonstrating a significant negative correlation between these variables. Simply put, there were significantly more lynchings when the price of cotton stayed flat, and fewer lynchings when the price of cotton rose ( Beck & Tolnay, 1990 ; Hovland & Sears, 1940 ). This suggests that race-based violence is associated with the health of the economy.

More recently, analyses of social media posts have provided social psychologists with extremely large sets of data (“ big data ”) to test creative hypotheses. In an example of research on attitudes about vaccinations, Mitra and her colleagues ( 2016 ) collected over 3 million tweets sent by more than 32 thousand users over four years. Interestingly, they found that those who held (and tweeted) anti-vaccination attitudes were also more likely to tweet about their mistrust of government and beliefs in government conspiracies. Similarly, Eichstaedt and his colleagues ( 2015 ) used the language of 826 million tweets to predict community-level mortality rates from heart disease. That’s right: more anger-related words and fewer positive-emotion words in tweets predicted higher rates of heart disease.

In a more controversial example, researchers at Facebook attempted to test whether emotional contagion—the transfer of emotional states from one person to another—would occur if Facebook manipulated the content that showed up in its users’ News Feed ( Kramer et al., 2014 ). And it did. When friends’ posts with positive expressions were concealed, users wrote slightly fewer positive posts (e.g., “Loving my new phone!”). Conversely, when posts with negative expressions were hidden, users wrote slightly fewer negative posts (e.g., “Got to go to work. Ugh.”). This suggests that people’s positivity or negativity can impact their social circles.

The controversial part of this study—which included 689,003 Facebook users and involved the analysis of over 3 million posts made over just one week—was the fact that Facebook did not explicitly request permission from users to participate. Instead, Facebook relied on the fine print in their data-use policy. And, although academic researchers who collaborated with Facebook on this study applied for ethical approval from their institutional review board (IRB), they apparently only did so after data collection was complete, raising further questions about the ethicality of the study and highlighting concerns about the ability of large, profit-driven corporations to subtly manipulate people’s social lives and choices.

Research Issues in Social Psychology

The question of representativeness.

Along with our counterparts in the other areas of psychology, social psychologists have been guilty of largely recruiting samples of convenience from the thin slice of humanity—students—found at universities and colleges ( Sears, 1986 ). This presents a problem when trying to assess the social mechanics of the public at large. Aside from being an overrepresentation of young, middle-class Caucasians, college students may also be more compliant and more susceptible to attitude change, have less stable personality traits and interpersonal relationships, and possess stronger cognitive skills than samples reflecting a wider range of age and experience ( Peterson & Merunka, 2014 ; Visser, Krosnick, & Lavrakas, 2000) . Put simply, these traditional samples (college students) may not be sufficiently representative of the broader population. Furthermore, considering that 96% of participants in psychology studies come from western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic countries (so-called WEIRD cultures ; Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010 ), and that the majority of these are also psychology students , the question of non-representativeness becomes even more serious.

Of course, when studying a basic cognitive process (like working memory capacity) or an aspect of social behavior that appears to be fairly universal (e.g., even cockroaches exhibit social facilitation!), a non-representative sample may not be a big deal. However, over time research has repeatedly demonstrated the important role that individual differences (e.g., personality traits, cognitive abilities, etc.) and culture (e.g., individualism vs. collectivism) play in shaping social behavior. For instance, even if we only consider a tiny sample of research on aggression, we know that narcissists are more likely to respond to criticism with aggression ( Bushman & Baumeister, 1998 ); conservatives, who have a low tolerance for uncertainty, are more likely to prefer aggressive actions against those considered to be “outsiders” ( de Zavala et al., 2010 ); countries where men hold the bulk of power in society have higher rates of physical aggression directed against female partners ( Archer, 2006 ); and males from the southern part of the United States are more likely to react with aggression following an insult ( Cohen et al., 1996 ).

Ethics in Social Psychological Research

For better or worse (but probably for worse), when we think about the most unethical studies in psychology, we think about social psychology. Imagine, for example, encouraging people to deliver what they believe to be a dangerous electric shock to a stranger (with bloodcurdling screams for added effect!). This is considered a “classic” study in social psychology. Or, how about having students play the role of prison guards, deliberately and sadistically abusing other students in the role of prison inmates. Yep, social psychology too. Of course, both Stanley Milgram’s ( 1963 ) experiments on obedience to authority and the Stanford prison study ( Haney et al., 1973 ) would be considered unethical by today’s standards, which have progressed with our understanding of the field. Today, we follow a series of guidelines and receive prior approval from our institutional research boards before beginning such experiments. Among the most important principles are the following:

• Informed consent: In general, people should know when they are involved in research, and understand what will happen to them during the study (at least in general terms that do not give away the hypothesis). They are then given the choice to participate, along with the freedom to withdraw from the study at any time. This is precisely why the Facebook emotional contagion study discussed earlier is considered ethically questionable. Still, it’s important to note that certain kinds of methods—such as naturalistic observation in public spaces, or archival research based on public records—do not require obtaining informed consent.
• Privacy: Although it is permissible to observe people’s actions in public—even without them knowing—researchers cannot violate their privacy by observing them in restrooms or other private spaces without their knowledge and consent. Researchers also may not identify individual participants in their research reports (we typically report only group means and other statistics). With online data collection becoming increasingly popular, researchers also have to be mindful that they follow local data privacy laws, collect only the data that they really need (e.g., avoiding including unnecessary questions in surveys), strictly restrict access to the raw data, and have a plan in place to securely destroy the data after it is no longer needed.
• Risks and Benefits: People who participate in psychological studies should be exposed to risk only if they fully understand the risks and only if the likely benefits clearly outweigh those risks. The Stanford prison study is a notorious example of a failure to meet this obligation. It was planned to run for two weeks but had to be shut down after only six days because of the abuse suffered by the “prison inmates.” But even less extreme cases, such as researchers wishing to investigate implicit prejudice using the IAT, need to be considerate of the consequences of providing feedback to participants about their nonconscious biases. Similarly, any manipulations that could potentially provoke serious emotional reactions (e.g., the culture of honor study described above) or relatively permanent changes in people’s beliefs or behaviors (e.g., attitudes towards recycling) need to be carefully reviewed by the IRB.
• Deception: Social psychologists sometimes need to deceive participants (e.g., using a cover story) to avoid demand characteristics by hiding the true nature of the study. This is typically done to prevent participants from modifying their behavior in unnatural ways, especially in laboratory or field experiments. For example, when Milgram recruited participants for his experiments on obedience to authority, he described it as being a study of the effects of punishment on memory! Deception is typically only permitted (a) when the benefits of the study outweigh the risks, (b) participants are not reasonably expected to be harmed, (c) the research question cannot be answered without the use of deception, and (d) participants are informed about the deception as soon as possible, usually through debriefing.
• Debriefing: This is the process of informing research participants as soon as possible of the purpose of the study, revealing any deceptions, and correcting any misconceptions they might have as a result of participating. Debriefing also involves minimizing harm that might have occurred. For example, an experiment examining the effects of sad moods on charitable behavior might involve inducing a sad mood in participants by having them think sad thoughts, watch a sad video, or listen to sad music. Debriefing would therefore be the time to return participants’ moods to normal by having them think happy thoughts, watch a happy video, or listen to happy music.

As an immensely social species, we affect and influence each other in many ways, particularly through our interactions and cultural expectations, both conscious and nonconscious. The study of social psychology examines much of the business of our everyday lives, including our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors we are unaware or ashamed of. The desire to carefully and precisely study these topics, together with advances in technology, has led to the development of many creative techniques that allow researchers to explore the mechanics of how we relate to one another. Consider this your invitation to join the investigation.

Test Your Knowledge

Types of research.

Social psychology research involves observations, correlational studies, experiments, field experiments and other methods of evaluation. Social psychologists often wish to assess attitudes and beliefs about particular subjects of interest. One way to gather this data is through surveys. Surveys are convenient and allow us to gather large amounts of data in a relatively quick fashion. It may appear as though surveys are easy to create and distribute; however, there are many factors to consider when creating a survey. Word placement and the ordering of questions are two factors that can influence the results of your survey. The following video breaks down some of the factors to keep in mind when creating a survey.

Link to video

Further reading: How to be a wise consumer of the research

Is all research the same? How do we know if we can trust the results or if there may be flaws? Well, as noted above, replication is one way to help us make these determinations. Often times, research conducted in social psychology involves topics that involve every day activities and relationships. In psychology, we want students to be able to not only able to read research studies, but to be able to critically evaluate them. We want you to learn how to be a wise consumer of research. The following article from the American Psychological Association (2007) provided tips on how to critically evaluate psychology research:

American Psychological Association article

In research, we want to show that the results of our studies can be replicated. In other words, other researchers who utilize the same hypothesis and approach as our study should receive similar results-right? Why does replication matter? It matters because replication helps to support our results and show that the results from our study weren’t just a “fluke.” It helps to add confidence to our results. The activity below takes you through some social psychology studies that have been replicated. See if you can determine which studies were able to be successfully replicated.

Test your knowledge

Go through the following quiz to see if you can identify which of the following experiments have been successfully replicated. Link to quiz.

Research Methods in Social Psychology Resources

Jhangiani, R. (2020). Research methods in social psychology. In R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers. Retrieved from Research methods in social psychology

Outside Resources

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• Harris, C. R., Coburn, N., Rohrer, D., & Pashler, H. (2013). Two failures to replicate high-performance-goal priming effects. PLoS ONE , 8(8): e72467. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0072467
• Henrich, J., Heine, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences , 33(2-3), 61-83. The weirdest people in the world?
• Hovland, C. I., & Sears, R. R. (1940). Minor studies of aggression: VI. Correlation of lynchings with economic indices. The Journal of Psychology , 9(2), 301-310. doi: 10.1080/00223980.1940.9917696
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• Kramer, A. D. I., Guillory, J. E., & Hancock, J. T. (2014). Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 111(24), 8788-8790. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320040111
• Larson, R. W., Richards, M. H., & Perry-Jenkins, M. (1994). Divergent worlds: the daily emotional experience of mothers and fathers in the domestic and public spheres. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 67(6), 1034-1046.
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• Sears, D. O. (1986). College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology’s view of human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 51(3), 515-530. College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology’s view of human nature.
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When performance on simple or well-rehearsed tasks is enhanced when we are in the presence of others.

An argument that is based on personal experience and not considered reliable or representative.

A method of investigation that includes systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.

A possible explanation that can be tested through research.

How researchers specifically measure a concept.

The variable the researcher manipulates and controls in an experiment.

The variable the researcher measures but does not manipulate in an experiment.

A setting in which the researcher can carefully control situations and manipulate variables.

An experiment with two or more independent variables.

An interdisciplinary field concerned with identifying the neural processes underlying social behavior and cognition.

The individual characteristics of research subjects - age, personality, health, intelligence, etc.

A fake description of the purpose and/or procedure of a study, used when deception is necessary in order to answer a research question.

A person working with a researcher, posing as a research participant or as a bystander.

An experiment that occurs outside of the lab and in a real world situation.

Assigning participants to receive different conditions of an experiment by chance.

Unobtrusively watching people as they go about the business of living their lives.

The tendency for people to associate themselves with successful people or groups.

A methodology where participants wear a small, portable audio recorder that intermittently records snippets of ambient sounds around them.

A method of research that involves administering a questionnaire to respondents in person, by telephone, through the mail, or over the internet.

A computer-based categorization task that measures the strength of association between specific concepts over several trials.

The process by which exposing people to one stimulus makes certain thoughts, feelings or behaviors more salient.

A theory that proposes that humans manage the anxiety that stems from the inevitability of death by embracing frameworks of meaning such as cultural values and beliefs.

A measure used to determine whether or not the manipulation of the independent variable has had its intended effect on the participants.

A field of research that investigates how the activation of one social concept in memory can elicit changes in behavior, physiology, or self-reports of a related social concept without conscious awareness.

A type of research in which the researcher analyses records or archives instead of collecting data from live human participants.

A type of descriptive research that involves measuring the association between two variables, or how they go together.

The degree to which a study finding has been obtained under conditions that are typical for what happens in everyday life.

The analysis of large data sets.

Participants that have been recruited in a manner that prioritizes convenience over representativeness.

Cultures that are western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.

Subtle cues that make participants aware of what the experimenter expects to find or how participants are expected to behave.

Social Psychology Copyright © by Jennifer Croyle is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What Are The Steps Of The Scientific Method?

Julia Simkus

Editor at Simply Psychology

BA (Hons) Psychology, Princeton University

Julia Simkus is a graduate of Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She is currently studying for a Master's Degree in Counseling for Mental Health and Wellness in September 2023. Julia's research has been published in peer reviewed journals.

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Saul McLeod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul McLeod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Science is not just knowledge. It is also a method for obtaining knowledge. Scientific understanding is organized into theories.

The scientific method is a step-by-step process used by researchers and scientists to determine if there is a relationship between two or more variables. Psychologists use this method to conduct psychological research, gather data, process information, and describe behaviors.

It involves careful observation, asking questions, formulating hypotheses, experimental testing, and refining hypotheses based on experimental findings.

How it is Used

The scientific method can be applied broadly in science across many different fields, such as chemistry, physics, geology, and psychology. In a typical application of this process, a researcher will develop a hypothesis, test this hypothesis, and then modify the hypothesis based on the outcomes of the experiment.

The process is then repeated with the modified hypothesis until the results align with the observed phenomena. Detailed steps of the scientific method are described below.

Keep in mind that the scientific method does not have to follow this fixed sequence of steps; rather, these steps represent a set of general principles or guidelines.

7 Steps of the Scientific Method

Psychology uses an empirical approach.

Empiricism (founded by John Locke) states that the only source of knowledge comes through our senses – e.g., sight, hearing, touch, etc.

Empirical evidence does not rely on argument or belief. Thus, empiricism is the view that all knowledge is based on or may come from direct observation and experience.

The empiricist approach of gaining knowledge through experience quickly became the scientific approach and greatly influenced the development of physics and chemistry in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Step 1: Make an Observation (Theory Construction)

Every researcher starts at the very beginning. Before diving in and exploring something, one must first determine what they will study – it seems simple enough!

By making observations, researchers can establish an area of interest. Once this topic of study has been chosen, a researcher should review existing literature to gain insight into what has already been tested and determine what questions remain unanswered.

This assessment will provide helpful information about what has already been comprehended about the specific topic and what questions remain, and if one can go and answer them.

Specifically, a literature review might implicate examining a substantial amount of documented material from academic journals to books dating back decades. The most appropriate information gathered by the researcher will be shown in the introduction section or abstract of the published study results.

The background material and knowledge will help the researcher with the first significant step in conducting a psychology study, which is formulating a research question.

This is the inductive phase of the scientific process. Observations yield information that is used to formulate theories as explanations. A theory is a well-developed set of ideas that propose an explanation for observed phenomena.

Inductive reasoning moves from specific premises to a general conclusion. It starts with observations of phenomena in the natural world and derives a general law.

Step 2: Ask a Question

Once a researcher has made observations and conducted background research, the next step is to ask a scientific question. A scientific question must be defined, testable, and measurable.

A useful approach to develop a scientific question is: “What is the effect of…?” or “How does X affect Y?”

To answer an experimental question, a researcher must identify two variables: the independent and dependent variables.

The independent variable is the variable manipulated (the cause), and the dependent variable is the variable being measured (the effect).

An example of a research question could be, “Is handwriting or typing more effective for retaining information?” Answering the research question and proposing a relationship between the two variables is discussed in the next step.

Step 3: Form a Hypothesis (Make Predictions)

A hypothesis is an educated guess about the relationship between two or more variables. A hypothesis is an attempt to answer your research question based on prior observation and background research. Theories tend to be too complex to be tested all at once; instead, researchers create hypotheses to test specific aspects of a theory.

For example, a researcher might ask about the connection between sleep and educational performance. Do students who get less sleep perform worse on tests at school?

It is crucial to think about different questions one might have about a particular topic to formulate a reasonable hypothesis. It would help if one also considered how one could investigate the causalities.

It is important that the hypothesis is both testable against reality and falsifiable. This means that it can be tested through an experiment and can be proven wrong.

The falsification principle, proposed by Karl Popper , is a way of demarcating science from non-science. It suggests that for a theory to be considered scientific, it must be able to be tested and conceivably proven false.

To test a hypothesis, we first assume that there is no difference between the populations from which the samples were taken. This is known as the null hypothesis and predicts that the independent variable will not influence the dependent variable.

Examples of “if…then…” Hypotheses:

• If one gets less than 6 hours of sleep, then one will do worse on tests than if one obtains more rest.
• If one drinks lots of water before going to bed, one will have to use the bathroom often at night.
• If one practices exercising and lighting weights, then one’s body will begin to build muscle.

The research hypothesis is often called the alternative hypothesis and predicts what change(s) will occur in the dependent variable when the independent variable is manipulated.

It states that the results are not due to chance and that they are significant in terms of supporting the theory being investigated.

Although one could state and write a scientific hypothesis in many ways, hypotheses are usually built like “if…then…” statements.

Step 4: Run an Experiment (Gather Data)

The next step in the scientific method is to test your hypothesis and collect data. A researcher will design an experiment to test the hypothesis and gather data that will either support or refute the hypothesis.

The exact research methods used to examine a hypothesis depend on what is being studied. A psychologist might utilize two primary forms of research, experimental research, and descriptive research.

The scientific method is objective in that researchers do not let preconceived ideas or biases influence the collection of data and is systematic in that experiments are conducted in a logical way.

Experimental Research

Experimental research is used to investigate cause-and-effect associations between two or more variables. This type of research systematically controls an independent variable and measures its effect on a specified dependent variable.

Experimental research involves manipulating an independent variable and measuring the effect(s) on the dependent variable. Repeating the experiment multiple times is important to confirm that your results are accurate and consistent.

One of the significant advantages of this method is that it permits researchers to determine if changes in one variable cause shifts in each other.

While experiments in psychology typically have many moving parts (and can be relatively complex), an easy investigation is rather fundamental. Still, it does allow researchers to specify cause-and-effect associations between variables.

Most simple experiments use a control group, which involves those who do not receive the treatment, and an experimental group, which involves those who do receive the treatment.

An example of experimental research would be when a pharmaceutical company wants to test a new drug. They give one group a placebo (control group) and the other the actual pill (experimental group).

Descriptive Research

Descriptive research is generally used when it is challenging or even impossible to control the variables in question. Examples of descriptive analysis include naturalistic observation, case studies , and correlation studies .

One example of descriptive research includes phone surveys that marketers often use. While they typically do not allow researchers to identify cause and effect, correlational studies are quite common in psychology research. They make it possible to spot associations between distinct variables and measure the solidity of those relationships.

Step 5: Analyze the Data and Draw Conclusions

Once a researcher has designed and done the investigation and collected sufficient data, it is time to inspect this gathered information and judge what has been found. Researchers can summarize the data, interpret the results, and draw conclusions based on this evidence using analyses and statistics.

Upon completion of the experiment, you can collect your measurements and analyze the data using statistics. Based on the outcomes, you will either reject or confirm your hypothesis.

Analyze the Data

So, how does a researcher determine what the results of their study mean? Statistical analysis can either support or refute a researcher’s hypothesis and can also be used to determine if the conclusions are statistically significant.

When outcomes are said to be “statistically significant,” it is improbable that these results are due to luck or chance. Based on these observations, investigators must then determine what the results mean.

An experiment will support a hypothesis in some circumstances, but sometimes it fails to be truthful in other cases.

What occurs if the developments of a psychology investigation do not endorse the researcher’s hypothesis? It does mean that the study was worthless. Simply because the findings fail to defend the researcher’s hypothesis does not mean that the examination is not helpful or instructive.

This kind of research plays a vital role in supporting scientists in developing unexplored questions and hypotheses to investigate in the future. After decisions have been made, the next step is to communicate the results with the rest of the scientific community.

This is an integral part of the process because it contributes to the general knowledge base and can assist other scientists in finding new research routes to explore.

If the hypothesis is not supported, a researcher should acknowledge the experiment’s results, formulate a new hypothesis, and develop a new experiment.

We must avoid any reference to results proving a theory as this implies 100% certainty, and there is always a chance that evidence may exist that could refute a theory.

Draw Conclusions and Interpret the Data

When the empirical observations disagree with the hypothesis, a number of possibilities must be considered. It might be that the theory is incorrect, in which case it needs altering, so it fully explains the data.

Alternatively, it might be that the hypothesis was poorly derived from the original theory, in which case the scientists were expecting the wrong thing to happen.

It might also be that the research was poorly conducted, or used an inappropriate method, or there were factors in play that the researchers did not consider. This will begin the process of the scientific method again.

If the hypothesis is supported, the researcher can find more evidence to support their hypothesis or look for counter-evidence to strengthen their hypothesis further.

In either scenario, the researcher should share their results with the greater scientific community.

Step 6: Share Your Results

One of the final stages of the research cycle involves the publication of the research. Once the report is written, the researcher(s) may submit the work for publication in an appropriate journal.

Usually, this is done by writing up a study description and publishing the article in a professional or academic journal. The studies and conclusions of psychological work can be seen in peer-reviewed journals such as  Developmental Psychology , Psychological Bulletin, the  Journal of Social Psychology, and numerous others.

Scientists should report their findings by writing up a description of their study and any subsequent findings. This enables other researchers to build upon the present research or replicate the results.

As outlined by the American Psychological Association (APA), there is a typical structure of a journal article that follows a specified format. In these articles, researchers:

• Supply a brief narrative and background on previous research
• Give their hypothesis
• Specify who participated in the study and how they were chosen
• Provide operational definitions for each variable
• Explain the measures and methods used to collect data
• Describe how the data collected was interpreted
• Discuss what the outcomes mean

A detailed record of psychological studies and all scientific studies is vital to clearly explain the steps and procedures used throughout the study. So that other researchers can try this experiment too and replicate the results.

The editorial process utilized by academic and professional journals guarantees that each submitted article undergoes a thorough peer review to help assure that the study is scientifically sound. Once published, the investigation becomes another piece of the current puzzle of our knowledge “base” on that subject.

This last step is important because all results, whether they supported or did not support the hypothesis, can contribute to the scientific community. Publication of empirical observations leads to more ideas that are tested against the real world, and so on. In this sense, the scientific process is circular.

The editorial process utilized by academic and professional journals guarantees that each submitted article undergoes a thorough peer review to help assure that the study is scientifically sound.

Once published, the investigation becomes another piece of the current puzzle of our knowledge “base” on that subject.

By replicating studies, psychologists can reduce errors, validate theories, and gain a stronger understanding of a particular topic.

Step 7: Repeat the Scientific Method (Iteration)

Now, if one’s hypothesis turns out to be accurate, find more evidence or find counter-evidence. If one’s hypothesis is false, create a new hypothesis or try again.

One may wish to revise their first hypothesis to make a more niche experiment to design or a different specific question to test.

The amazingness of the scientific method is that it is a comprehensive and straightforward process that scientists, and everyone, can utilize over and over again.

So, draw conclusions and repeat because the scientific method is never-ending, and no result is ever considered perfect.

The scientific method is a process of:

• Making an observation.
• Forming a hypothesis.
• Making a prediction.
• Experimenting to test the hypothesis.

The procedure of repeating the scientific method is crucial to science and all fields of human knowledge.

Further Information

• Karl Popper – Falsification
• Thomas – Kuhn Paradigm Shift
• Positivism in Sociology: Definition, Theory & Examples
• Is Psychology a Science?
• Psychology as a Science (PDF)

List the 6 steps of the scientific methods in order

• Make an observation (theory construction)
• Ask a question. A scientific question must be defined, testable, and measurable.
• Form a hypothesis (make predictions)
• Run an experiment to test the hypothesis (gather data)
• Analyze the data and draw conclusions
• Share your results so that other researchers can make new hypotheses

What is the first step of the scientific method?

The first step of the scientific method is making an observation. This involves noticing and describing a phenomenon or group of phenomena that one finds interesting and wishes to explain.

Observations can occur in a natural setting or within the confines of a laboratory. The key point is that the observation provides the initial question or problem that the rest of the scientific method seeks to answer or solve.

What is the scientific method?

The scientific method is a step-by-step process that investigators can follow to determine if there is a causal connection between two or more variables.

Psychologists and other scientists regularly suggest motivations for human behavior. On a more casual level, people judge other people’s intentions, incentives, and actions daily.

While our standard assessments of human behavior are subjective and anecdotal, researchers use the scientific method to study psychology objectively and systematically.

All utilize a scientific method to study distinct aspects of people’s thinking and behavior. This process allows scientists to analyze and understand various psychological phenomena, but it also provides investigators and others a way to disseminate and debate the results of their studies.

The outcomes of these studies are often noted in popular media, which leads numerous to think about how or why researchers came to the findings they did.

Why Use the Six Steps of the Scientific Method

The goal of scientists is to understand better the world that surrounds us. Scientific research is the most critical tool for navigating and learning about our complex world.

Without it, we would be compelled to rely solely on intuition, other people’s power, and luck. We can eliminate our preconceived concepts and superstitions through methodical scientific research and gain an objective sense of ourselves and our world.

All psychological studies aim to explain, predict, and even control or impact mental behaviors or processes. So, psychologists use and repeat the scientific method (and its six steps) to perform and record essential psychological research.

So, psychologists focus on understanding behavior and the cognitive (mental) and physiological (body) processes underlying behavior.

In the real world, people use to understand the behavior of others, such as intuition and personal experience. The hallmark of scientific research is evidence to support a claim.

Scientific knowledge is empirical, meaning it is grounded in objective, tangible evidence that can be observed repeatedly, regardless of who is watching.

The scientific method is crucial because it minimizes the impact of bias or prejudice on the experimenter. Regardless of how hard one tries, even the best-intentioned scientists can’t escape discrimination. can’t

It stems from personal opinions and cultural beliefs, meaning any mortal filters data based on one’s experience. Sadly, this “filtering” process can cause a scientist to favor one outcome over another.

For an everyday person trying to solve a minor issue at home or work, succumbing to these biases is not such a big deal; in fact, most times, it is important.

But in the scientific community, where results must be inspected and reproduced, bias or discrimination must be avoided.

When to Use the Six Steps of the Scientific Method ?

One can use the scientific method anytime, anywhere! From the smallest conundrum to solving global problems, it is a process that can be applied to any science and any investigation.

Even if you are not considered a “scientist,” you will be surprised to know that people of all disciplines use it for all kinds of dilemmas.

Try to catch yourself next time you come by a question and see how you subconsciously or consciously use the scientific method.

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How the Experimental Method Works in Psychology

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The Experimental Process

Types of experiments, potential pitfalls of the experimental method.

The experimental method is a type of research procedure that involves manipulating variables to determine if there is a cause-and-effect relationship. The results obtained through the experimental method are useful but do not prove with 100% certainty that a singular cause always creates a specific effect. Instead, they show the probability that a cause will or will not lead to a particular effect.

At a Glance

While there are many different research techniques available, the experimental method allows researchers to look at cause-and-effect relationships. Using the experimental method, researchers randomly assign participants to a control or experimental group and manipulate levels of an independent variable. If changes in the independent variable lead to changes in the dependent variable, it indicates there is likely a causal relationship between them.

What Is the Experimental Method in Psychology?

The experimental method involves manipulating one variable to determine if this causes changes in another variable. This method relies on controlled research methods and random assignment of study subjects to test a hypothesis.

For example, researchers may want to learn how different visual patterns may impact our perception. Or they might wonder whether certain actions can improve memory . Experiments are conducted on many behavioral topics, including:

The scientific method forms the basis of the experimental method. This is a process used to determine the relationship between two variables—in this case, to explain human behavior .

Positivism is also important in the experimental method. It refers to factual knowledge that is obtained through observation, which is considered to be trustworthy.

When using the experimental method, researchers first identify and define key variables. Then they formulate a hypothesis, manipulate the variables, and collect data on the results. Unrelated or irrelevant variables are carefully controlled to minimize the potential impact on the experiment outcome.

History of the Experimental Method

The idea of using experiments to better understand human psychology began toward the end of the nineteenth century. Wilhelm Wundt established the first formal laboratory in 1879.

Wundt is often called the father of experimental psychology. He believed that experiments could help explain how psychology works, and used this approach to study consciousness .

Wundt coined the term "physiological psychology." This is a hybrid of physiology and psychology, or how the body affects the brain.

Other early contributors to the development and evolution of experimental psychology as we know it today include:

• Gustav Fechner (1801-1887), who helped develop procedures for measuring sensations according to the size of the stimulus
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894), who analyzed philosophical assumptions through research in an attempt to arrive at scientific conclusions
• Franz Brentano (1838-1917), who called for a combination of first-person and third-person research methods when studying psychology
• Georg Elias Müller (1850-1934), who performed an early experiment on attitude which involved the sensory discrimination of weights and revealed how anticipation can affect this discrimination

Key Terms to Know

To understand how the experimental method works, it is important to know some key terms.

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable is the effect that the experimenter is measuring. If a researcher was investigating how sleep influences test scores, for example, the test scores would be the dependent variable.

Independent Variable

The independent variable is the variable that the experimenter manipulates. In the previous example, the amount of sleep an individual gets would be the independent variable.

A hypothesis is a tentative statement or a guess about the possible relationship between two or more variables. In looking at how sleep influences test scores, the researcher might hypothesize that people who get more sleep will perform better on a math test the following day. The purpose of the experiment, then, is to either support or reject this hypothesis.

Operational definitions are necessary when performing an experiment. When we say that something is an independent or dependent variable, we must have a very clear and specific definition of the meaning and scope of that variable.

Extraneous Variables

Extraneous variables are other variables that may also affect the outcome of an experiment. Types of extraneous variables include participant variables, situational variables, demand characteristics, and experimenter effects. In some cases, researchers can take steps to control for extraneous variables.

Demand Characteristics

Demand characteristics are subtle hints that indicate what an experimenter is hoping to find in a psychology experiment. This can sometimes cause participants to alter their behavior, which can affect the results of the experiment.

Intervening Variables

Intervening variables are factors that can affect the relationship between two other variables. 

Confounding Variables

Confounding variables are variables that can affect the dependent variable, but that experimenters cannot control for. Confounding variables can make it difficult to determine if the effect was due to changes in the independent variable or if the confounding variable may have played a role.

Psychologists, like other scientists, use the scientific method when conducting an experiment. The scientific method is a set of procedures and principles that guide how scientists develop research questions, collect data, and come to conclusions.

The five basic steps of the experimental process are:

• Identifying a problem to study
• Devising the research protocol
• Conducting the experiment
• Analyzing the data collected
• Sharing the findings (usually in writing or via presentation)

Most psychology students are expected to use the experimental method at some point in their academic careers. Learning how to conduct an experiment is important to understanding how psychologists prove and disprove theories in this field.

There are a few different types of experiments that researchers might use when studying psychology. Each has pros and cons depending on the participants being studied, the hypothesis, and the resources available to conduct the research.

Lab Experiments

Lab experiments are common in psychology because they allow experimenters more control over the variables. These experiments can also be easier for other researchers to replicate. The drawback of this research type is that what takes place in a lab is not always what takes place in the real world.

Field Experiments

Sometimes researchers opt to conduct their experiments in the field. For example, a social psychologist interested in researching prosocial behavior might have a person pretend to faint and observe how long it takes onlookers to respond.

This type of experiment can be a great way to see behavioral responses in realistic settings. But it is more difficult for researchers to control the many variables existing in these settings that could potentially influence the experiment's results.

Quasi-Experiments

While lab experiments are known as true experiments, researchers can also utilize a quasi-experiment. Quasi-experiments are often referred to as natural experiments because the researchers do not have true control over the independent variable.

A researcher looking at personality differences and birth order, for example, is not able to manipulate the independent variable in the situation (personality traits). Participants also cannot be randomly assigned because they naturally fall into pre-existing groups based on their birth order.

So why would a researcher use a quasi-experiment? This is a good choice in situations where scientists are interested in studying phenomena in natural, real-world settings. It's also beneficial if there are limits on research funds or time.

Field experiments can be either quasi-experiments or true experiments.

Examples of the Experimental Method in Use

The experimental method can provide insight into human thoughts and behaviors, Researchers use experiments to study many aspects of psychology.

A 2019 study investigated whether splitting attention between electronic devices and classroom lectures had an effect on college students' learning abilities. It found that dividing attention between these two mediums did not affect lecture comprehension. However, it did impact long-term retention of the lecture information, which affected students' exam performance.

An experiment used participants' eye movements and electroencephalogram (EEG) data to better understand cognitive processing differences between experts and novices. It found that experts had higher power in their theta brain waves than novices, suggesting that they also had a higher cognitive load.

A study looked at whether chatting online with a computer via a chatbot changed the positive effects of emotional disclosure often received when talking with an actual human. It found that the effects were the same in both cases.

One experimental study evaluated whether exercise timing impacts information recall. It found that engaging in exercise prior to performing a memory task helped improve participants' short-term memory abilities.

Sometimes researchers use the experimental method to get a bigger-picture view of psychological behaviors and impacts. For example, one 2018 study examined several lab experiments to learn more about the impact of various environmental factors on building occupant perceptions.

A 2020 study set out to determine the role that sensation-seeking plays in political violence. This research found that sensation-seeking individuals have a higher propensity for engaging in political violence. It also found that providing access to a more peaceful, yet still exciting political group helps reduce this effect.

While the experimental method can be a valuable tool for learning more about psychology and its impacts, it also comes with a few pitfalls.

Experiments may produce artificial results, which are difficult to apply to real-world situations. Similarly, researcher bias can impact the data collected. Results may not be able to be reproduced, meaning the results have low reliability .

Since humans are unpredictable and their behavior can be subjective, it can be hard to measure responses in an experiment. In addition, political pressure may alter the results. The subjects may not be a good representation of the population, or groups used may not be comparable.

And finally, since researchers are human too, results may be degraded due to human error.

What This Means For You

Every psychological research method has its pros and cons. The experimental method can help establish cause and effect, and it's also beneficial when research funds are limited or time is of the essence.

At the same time, it's essential to be aware of this method's pitfalls, such as how biases can affect the results or the potential for low reliability. Keeping these in mind can help you review and assess research studies more accurately, giving you a better idea of whether the results can be trusted or have limitations.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."