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The Most Famous Social Psychology Experiments Ever Performed

Social experiments often seek to answer questions about how people behave in groups or how the presence of others impacts individual behavior. Over the years, social psychologists have explored these questions by conducting experiments .

The results of some of the most famous social psychology experiments remain relevant (and often quite controversial) today. Such experiments give us valuable information about human behavior and how group influence can impact our actions in social situations.

At a Glance

Some of the most famous social psychology experiments include Asch's conformity experiments, Bandura's Bobo doll experiments, the Stanford prison experiment, and Milgram's obedience experiments. Some of these studies are quite controversial for various reasons, including how they were conducted, serious ethical concerns, and what their results suggested.

The Asch Conformity Experiments

What do you do when you know you're right but the rest of the group disagrees with you? Do you bow to group pressure?

In a series of famous experiments conducted during the 1950s, psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated that people would give the wrong answer on a test to fit in with the rest of the group.

In Asch's famous conformity experiments , people were shown a line and then asked to select a line of a matching length from a group of three. Asch also placed confederates in the group who would intentionally choose the wrong lines.

The results revealed that when other people picked the wrong line, participants were likely to conform and give the same answers as the rest of the group.

What the Results Revealed

While we might like to believe that we would resist group pressure (especially when we know the group is wrong), Asch's results revealed that people are surprisingly susceptible to conformity .

Not only did Asch's experiment teach us a great deal about the power of conformity, but it also inspired a whole host of additional research on how people conform and obey, including Milgram's infamous obedience experiments.

The Bobo Doll Experiment

Does watching violence on television cause children to behave more aggressively? In a series of experiments conducted during the early 1960s, psychologist Albert Bandura set out to investigate the impact of observed aggression on children's behavior.

In his Bobo doll experiments , children would watch an adult interacting with a Bobo doll. In one condition, the adult model behaved passively toward the doll, but in another, the adult would kick, punch, strike, and yell at the doll.

The results revealed that children who watched the adult model behave violently toward the doll were likelier to imitate the aggressive behavior later on.​

The Impact of Bandura's Social Psychology Experiment

The debate over the degree to which violence on television, movies, gaming, and other media influences children's behavior continues to rage on today, so it perhaps comes as no surprise that Bandura's findings are still so relevant.

The experiment has also helped inspire hundreds of additional studies exploring the impacts of observed aggression and violence.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

During the early 1970s, Philip Zimbardo set up a fake prison in the basement of the Stanford Psychology Department, recruited participants to play prisoners and guards, and played the role of the prison warden.

The experiment was designed to look at the effect that a prison environment would have on behavior, but it quickly became one of the most famous and controversial experiments of all time.

Results of the Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford prison experiment was initially slated to last a full two weeks. It ended after just six days. Why? Because the participants became so enmeshed in their assumed roles, the guards became almost sadistically abusive, and the prisoners became anxious, depressed, and emotionally disturbed.

While the Stanford prison experiment was designed to look at prison behavior, it has since become an emblem of how powerfully people are influenced by situations.  

Ethical Concerns

Part of the notoriety stems from the study's treatment of the participants. The subjects were placed in a situation that created considerable psychological distress. So much so that the study had to be halted less than halfway through the experiment.

The study has long been upheld as an example of how people yield to the situation, but critics have suggested that the participants' behavior may have been unduly influenced by Zimbardo himself in his capacity as the mock prison's "warden."  

Recent Criticisms

The Stanford prison experiment has long been controversial due to the serious ethical concerns of the research, but more recent evidence casts serious doubts on the study's scientific merits.

An examination of study records indicates participants faked their behavior to either get out of the experiment or "help" prove the researcher's hypothesis. The experimenters also appear to have encouraged certain behaviors to help foster more abusive behavior.

The Milgram Experiments

Following the trial of Adolph Eichmann for war crimes committed during World War II, psychologist Stanley Milgram wanted to better understand why people obey. "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" Milgram wondered.

The results of Milgram's controversial obedience experiments were astonishing and continue to be both thought-provoking and controversial today.

What the Social Psychology Experiment Involved

The study involved ordering participants to deliver increasingly painful shocks to another person. While the victim was simply a confederate pretending to be injured, the participants fully believed that they were giving electrical shocks to the other person.

Even when the victim was protesting or complaining of a heart condition, 65% of the participants continued to deliver painful, possibly fatal shocks on the experimenter's orders.

Obviously, no one wants to believe that they are capable of inflicting pain or torture on another human being simply on the orders of an authority figure. The results of the obedience experiments are disturbing because they reveal that people are much more obedient than they may believe.

Controversy and Recent Criticisms

The study is also controversial because it suffers from ethical concerns, primarily the psychological distress it created for the participants. More recent findings suggest that other problems question the study's findings.

Some participants were coerced into continuing against their wishes. Many participants appeared to have guessed that the learner was faking their responses, and other variations showed that many participants refused to continue the shocks.

What This Means For You

There are many interesting and famous social psychology experiments that can reveal a lot about our understanding of social behavior and influence. However, it is important to be aware of the controversies, limitations, and criticisms of these studies. More recent research may reflect differing results. In some cases, the re-evaluation of classic studies has revealed serious ethical and methodological flaws that call the results into question.

Jeon, HL.  The environmental factor within the Solomon Asch Line Test .  International Journal of Social Science and Humanity.  2014;4(4):264-268. doi:10.7763/IJSSH.2014.V4.360 

Bandura and Bobo . Association for Psychological Science.

Zimbardo, G. The Stanford Prison Experiment: a simulation study on the psychology of imprisonment .

Le Texier T.  Debunking the Stanford Prison Experiment.   Am Psychol.  2019;74(7):823-839. doi:10.1037/amp0000401

Blum B.  The lifespan of a lie .  Medium .

Baker PC. Electric Schlock: Did Stanley Milgram's famous obedience experiments prove anything? Pacific Standard .

Perry G.  Deception and illusion in Milgram's accounts of the obedience experiments .  Theory Appl Ethics . 2013;2(2):79-92.

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

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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3 Social science theories, methods, and values

Learning Objectives for this Chapter

After reading this Chapter, you should be able to:

• understand, apply, and evaluate core social science values, concepts, and theories, which can help inform and guide our understanding of how the world works, how power is defined and exercised, and how we can critically understand and engage with these concepts when examining the world around us.

Social science theory: theories to explain the world around us

As we have discussed in previous chapters, social science research is concerned with discovering things about the social world: for instance, how people act in different situations, why people act the way they do, how their actions relate to broader social structures, and how societies function at both the micro and macro levels. However, without theory, the ‘social facts’ that we discover cannot be woven together into broader understandings about the world around us.

Theory is the ‘glue’ that holds social facts together. Theory helps us to conceptualise and explain why things are the way they are, rather than only focusing on how things are. In this sense, different theoretical perspectives, such as those discussed in this Chapter, act as different lenses through which we can see and interpret the world around us.

Theory testing and generation is also an important part of social scientific research. As shown in the image below, different theories are rooted in different philosophical foundations. That is, various theories arise in accordance with different ways of seeing and living in the world, as well as different understandings about how knowledge is understood and constructed. As we learned earlier in the book, these concern both ontological and epistemological considerations, but also axiological considerations; that is, questions about the nature of value,  and what things in the world hold value (including in relation to one another). While theory is rooted in these philosophical foundations, however, it also gives way to different ways of doing research, both in terms of the methodology and methods employed. Overall, using different theoretical perspectives to consider social questions is a bit like putting on different pairs of glasses to see the world afresh.

Below we consider some foundational social science theories. While these are certainly not the only  theoretical perspectives that exist, they are often considered to be amongst the most influential. They also provide helpful building blocks for understanding other theoretical perspectives, as well as how theory can be applied to guide and build social scientific knowledge.

Structural functionalism

Structural functionalism is a theory about social institutions, ‘social norms’ (i.e., the often unspoken rules that govern social behaviours), and social stability. We talk more about social institutions in the next Chapter of this book, but essentially they are the ‘big building blocks’ of society that act as both repositories and creators/instigators of social norms. These include things like school/education, the state (often called a meta-institution), the family, the economy, and more. In this regard, structural functionalism is considered a macro theory; that is, it considers macro (large) structures in society, and concerns how they work in an interdependent way to produce what structural functionalists believe to be ‘harmonious’ and stable societies. Structural functionalists are particularly concerned with social institutions’ manifest and latent functions, as well as their functions and dysfunctions (Merton [1910-2003]).

Manifest functions of social institutions include things that are overt and obvious. By contrast, latent functions of social institutions are those that are more hidden or secondary. For instance, a manifest function of the social institution of school is to teach students new knowledge and skills, which can assist them to move into chosen careers. Alternatively, we might also argue that school has other latent functions, such as socialisation and conformity to social norms, and building relationships with peers.

In addition to manifest and latent functions, structural functionalists are also concerned with the  functions  and  dysfunctions  of social institutions. They believe, for instance, that dysfunctions play just as much of an important role as functions, because they enable social institutions to identify and punish them, thereby making an example of dysfunctional elements (e.g., punishing those committing crime). This serves to reinforce social norms around how society should function.

Reflection exercise

Take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a brief definition of structural functionalism. Then re-read the above sub-section. How does your understanding fit with the information above?

Structural functionalism: want to learn more?

If you’d like to reinforce your understanding of structural functionalism, the below video provides a good summary that might be helpful.

Functionalism (YouTube, 5:40) :

Phenomenology

Phenomenology is the study of our experiences and how our consciousness makes sense of the phenomena (be they objects, people or ideas) around us. As a methodology or approach in the social sciences it has garnered renewed interest in the last few decades to better understand the world around us by studying how we experience the world in a subjective and often individual manner. It is, thus, considered a ‘micro’ theory.

This philosophical approach was developed by Edmund Husserl (1859–1938), and his students and critics in France and Germany (key figures were philosophers Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)) and later made it to the US via influential sociologists, such as Alfred Schütz (1899–1959).

Phenomenologists reject objectivity and instead focus on the subjective and intersubjective, the relations between people, and between people and objects. So, rather than trying to come to some objective truth, they are more interested in relationships and connections between the individual and the world around them. Indeed, there is a strong centering of and focus on the individual and their experiences of the world that phenomenologists believe can tell us about society at large. The individual is also key, as there is a focus on the sensory and the body both as instruments of enquiring as well as enquiry. Thus, we are always already part of the world around us and have to make sense of being here, but also want to go beyond ourselves by understanding others and how they relate to the world. The body features as a key site for such enquiries as it is the physical connection we have with people and objects around us. Further, there is a focus on everyday, mundane experiences as they have much to tell us about how society operates. This background environment in which we as people operate is called a lifeworld,  the shared horizon of experience we share and inhabit. It is marked by linguistic, cultural, and social codes and norms.

One key method inherent to Husserl’s early approaches is ‘bracketing’ , the process of standing back or aside from phenomena to understand it better. Such processes of ‘reflexivity’ and understanding our taken for granted attitudes and beliefs about certain phenomena are crucial to enable the social sciences to better understand the world around us. Debates in philosophy continue around whether such a bracketing is ever fully possible, especially considering that we as humans remain trapped in our minds and  bodies. Nonetheless, phenomenology has had a profound impact in most social sciences to redirect the focus towards the intersubjective nature of life and the lifeworld, within which we experience the world around us.

Take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a brief definition of phenomenology. Then re-read the above sub-section. How does your understanding fit with the information above?

Phenomenology: want to learn more?

If you’d like to reinforce your understanding of phenomenology, the below video provides a good summary that might be helpful.

Understanding Phenomenology (YouTube, 2:59) :

Symbolic interactionism

Symbolic interactionism is related to phenomenology as it is also a theory focused on the self. In this regard, it’s also a micro theory – it has particular focus on individuals and how they interact with one another. Symbolic interactionists say that symbolism is fundamental to how we see ourselves and how we see and interact with others. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) is often regarded as the founder of this theory and his focus was on the relationship between the self and others in society. He considered our individual minds to function through interactions with others and through the shared meanings and symbols we create for the people and objects around us. Mead’s best known book Mind, Self, Society, was posthumously put together by his students and demonstrates how our individual minds allow us to use language and symbols to make sense of the world around us and how we construct a self based on how others perceive us.

Charles Cooley’s (1864-1929) concept of the “ looking glass self ” points out, for instance, that other peoples’ perceptions of us can also influence and change our perceptions of ourselves. Other sociologists, such as Erving Goffman (1922-1982), have built on this understanding, suggesting that ‘all of life is a stage’ and that each of us play different parts, like actors in a play. Goffman argued that we adapt our personality, behaviours, actions, and beliefs to suit the different contexts we find ourselves in. This understanding is often referred to as a ‘dramaturgical model’ of social interaction; it understands our social interactions to be performative – they are the outcomes of our ‘play acting’ different roles.

In explaining this theory, Goffman also referred to what he called ‘impression management’. As part of this, for instance, Goffman drew a crucial distinction between what he referred to as our ‘ front stage selves ‘ and our ‘ backstage selves ‘. For Goffman, our ‘front stage selves’ are those that we are willing to share with the ‘audience’ (e.g., the person or group with whom we are interacting). Alternatively, our ‘backstage selves’ are those that we keep for ourselves; this is the way we act when we are alone and have no audience.

Goffman also pointed to the important role that stigma can play in how we see ourselves and thus, how we act and behave in relation to others. Stigma occurs when “the reaction of others spoils normal identity”. Goffman argued that those who feel stigmatised by others (e.g., through public discourses and ‘frames’ of social issues that vilify certain groups of people) also experience changes in the way they see themselves – that is, their own sense of self-identity is ‘spoiled’. This can lead to other negative effects, such as social withdrawal and poorer health and wellbeing.

Take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a brief definition of symbolic interactionism. Then re-read the above sub-section. How does your understanding fit with the information above?

This exercise is to be conducted in small groups. First, get into a small group with other students. Then, do the following:

• Think about your daily life, activities, and interactions with others.
• Take a few moments to identify at least three examples of social symbols that you and other group members frequently use to interpret the world around you.
• Talk about how each of the group members interprets/responds to these symbols. Are there similarities? Are there differences?

Students should share/discuss their thoughts within the group, and if undertaken in a class environment, then report back to the class.

Symbolic interactionism: want to learn more?

If you’d like to reinforce your understanding of symbolic interactionism, the below videos provide good summaries that might be helpful.

Symbolic Interactionism (YouTube, 3:33) provides an easy-to-understand summary of symbolic interactionism:

What does it mean to be me? Erving Goffman and the Performed Self (YouTube, 1:58) provides a helpful summary of Erving Goffman’s conception of the ‘performed self’ – including his notions of a ‘front stage’ and ‘backstage’ self:

Conflict theories

Conflict theories focus particularly on conflict within and across societies and, thus, are particularly interested in power: where it does and doesn’t exist, who does and doesn’t hold it, and what they do or don’t do with it, for example. These theories hold that societies will always be characterised by states of conflict and competition over goods, resources, and more. These conflicts can arise along various lines, though

this group of theories emanate from the work of Karl Marx (1818-1883), who saw the capitalist economy as a primary site of conflict.

In Marx’s view, social ills emanated particularly from what he described as an upper- and lower-class structure, which had been perpetuated across multiple societies (e.g., in ancient societies in terms of slave owners/slaves, or in pre-Enlightenment times between the feudal peasantry/aristocracy). He saw capitalism as replicating this upper/lower class structure through the creation of a bourgeoisie (upper class, who own the means of production) and proletariat (lower class, who supply labour to the capitalist market). Marx also talked about a lumpenproletariat , an underclass without class consciousness and/or organised political power. Classical Marxism takes a macro lens: it is particularly concerned with how power is invested in the social institution of the capitalist economy. In this sense, classical Marxism represents a structural theory of power.

Marx argued that the only way for society to be fairer and more equal was if the proletariat was to rise up and revolt against the bourgeoisie; to “smash the chains of capitalism”! Thus, he strongly advocated for revolution as a means of creating a fairer, utopic society. He stated, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it” (Marx 1968: 662). Nevertheless, a series of revolutions in the early 20th century that drew on Marxist thinking resulted in power vacuums that made way for violent, totalitarian regimes, as political philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) argued in On the Origins of Totalitarianism . On this basis, subsequent conflict theorists (and critical theorists) have tended towards advocating for more incremental reforms, as opposed to revolution.

Take a few moments to watch the below two videos, which explain conflict theory in greater detail.

Key concepts: Conflict theory – definition and critiques (YouTube, 2:49) :

Political theory – Karl Marx (YouTube, 9:27) :

After watching these videos, take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a definition of conflict theories. After doing so, re-read the above sub-section. How does your understanding fit with the information in the above sub-section, and in the videos? Was anything missing? Is anything still unclear?

Critical theories

Marx saw the capitalist economy as a primary site of oppression, between the working class and the property owning class. Marx advocated for revolution, where the proletariat were urged to rise up and break the chains of capitalism by overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Marx saw this as being necessary for ensuring the freedom of the working classes. Critical theory develops from the work of Karl Marx, supplementing his theory of capitalism with other sociological and philosophical concepts.

Gramsci and cultural hegemony

In addition to Marx, critical theory utilised the work of Italian political philosopher Antonio Gramsci, specifically his concept of ‘Cultural Hegemony’. When we refer to ‘hegemonic’ social norms, we’re referring to social norms that are regarded as ‘common sense’ and thus, which overshadow and suppress alternative norms. Hegemonic norms typically reflect the values of the ruling classes (in Marxist terms, the bourgeoisie). To learn more, you might like to watch the video below:

Hegemony: WTF? An introduction to Gramsci and cultural hegemony (YouTube, 6:25)

Developing from this, critical theory also considers how power and oppression can operate in more subtle ways across the whole of society. Critical theory does not seek to actively bring about revolution, as the possibility for a revolution in the years post-World War Two was unlikely. Whilst critical theorists are by no means opposed to revolution, their focus lies more in identifying how capitalist society and its institutions limits advancement of human civilisation. In this respect, conflict theorists see more opportunities for praxis than classical Marxists.

Critical theory observes how the Enlightenment ideals of freedom, reason, and liberalism have developed throughout the first half of the 1900s. Ultimately, critical theorists see that reason has not necessarily progressed in a positive way throughout history. In fact, reason has developed to become increasingly technical, interested in classifying, regulating, and standardising all aspects of human society and culture. German philosopher Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) thought that Nazi Germany and the holocaust is a devastating example of the potential evils of rationality if developed without a critical perspective.

Another, less extreme, example of this tendency toward standardisation is in the production of art and culture. Big budget films, typically in the superhero or science fiction genre, all appear to be virtually identical: extravagant special effects, epic soundtracks, and relatively simple plots. However, this is not to say that such films are of a poor quality. Rather the similarity and popularity of these films indicates a homogenisation of culture. If culture is merely the reproduction of the same, how can society progress beyond its current point?

This critique of the development of reason throughout the 20th century does not mean that we must abandon reason entirely. To do so would be to discount the vast wealth of knowledge that humanity has come to grasp, as well as prevent further knowledge production. Instead, critical theorists argue that reason should be critiqued to uncover what has been left out of its development thus far, as well as open up the possibility for a more free, progressive form of society.

At its core, then, critical theory can be thought about as being an additional theoretical lens through which we can look at and understand the social world around us. In tune with Flyvbjerg’s (2001) conception of phronetic social science, critical theorists are also concerned with disrupting the systems they observe as a means of achieving social change. Critical theory urges us to recognise, understand and address how capitalist society reproduces itself and limits the free organisation of human beings.

Take a few moments to watch Critical theory definition and critiques (YouTube, 3:26) , which explains critical theory in greater detail.

Take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a brief definition of critical theories. Then re-read the above sub-section. How does your understanding fit with the information above and the video?

Critical theory can be applied in myriad different ways to better understand the world around us. In  Critical theory and the production of mass culture (YouTube, 2:12) , critical theory is adopted as a lens to understand and critique the production of mass culture. Watch the video and then consider the questions below.

• Can you think of examples where you could argue that the primary objective of producing art is to preserve the economic structure of the capitalist system?
• Do you agree with the proposition that mass-consumed entertainment, like popular television shows, are only  produced as a source of light entertainment and escapism from work, and thus serve to placate and pacify the worker? Why or why not? (What other  purposes might such entertainment serve, if any?)
• Do you agree with Adorno’s proposition that the products of the ‘culture industry’ are not only the artworks, but also the consumers themselves? Why or why not?

Critical race theory

Critical race theory applies a critical theory lens to the notion of race, seeking to understand how the concept of race itself can act as a site of power and oppression. Arising from the work of American legal scholars during the 1980s (including key thinkers like Derrick Bell [1930-2011] and Kimberlé Crenshaw [1959-]), it originally sought to understand and challenge “the ways in which race and racial power [were]… cosnstructed and represented in American legal culture and, more generally, in American society as a whole.” (Crenshaw et al. 1995: xiii) In particular, it questioned whether the civil rights afforded to African Americans in the aftermath of the civil rights movement had made a substantive impact on their experiences of social justice. Critical race theorists argued that more needed to be done; that civil rights had not had the desired impacts because (amongst other reasons) they:

• were imagined, shaped and brought into being by (predominantly) white, male middle- or upper-class lawyers, and thus, were only imagined within the bounds of white ontology,
• did not move beyond race – race still mattered, and
• implicitly perpetuated white privilege (e.g. they were constrained to only imagine redress and justice within the existing oppressive, white hegmonic system).

Crenshaw (1995: xiii) writes that, although critical race scholars’ work is heterogenous, they are nevertheless united by the following common interests:

• “The first is to understand how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained in America, and, in particular, to examine the relationship between that social structure and professed ideas such as ‘the rule of law’ and ‘equal protection’.”
• “The second is a desire not merely to understand the vexed bond between law and racial power but to change it.”

In Australia, scholars have also taken up aspects of a critical race lens to understand how privilege is bound up with race. As Moreton-Robinson (2015: xiii) puts it, in Australia:

Race matters in the lives of all peoples; for some people it confers unearned privileges, and for others it is the mark of inferiority. Daily newspapers, radio, television, and social media usually portray Indigenous peoples as a deficit model of humanity. We are overrepresented as always lacking, dysfunctional, alcoholic, violent, needy, and lazy… For Indigenous people, white possession is not unmarked, unnamed or invisible; it is hypervisible…

Crenshaw has been crucial in also stressing the key importance of understanding how race can also intersect with other aspects of social identity, such as gender, to produce a ‘double’ or ‘triple’ oppression. In Australia, Professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson’s 2000 book, Talkin’ up to the white woman, was also crucial in understanding how Australian feminism could also be oppressive of Indigenous Australian women by not seeing and hearing them or the specific issues they face/d. She called for the need for “white feminists to relinquish some power, dominance and privilege in Australian feminism to give Indigenous women’s interest some priority” (Moreton-Robinson 2000: xxv). This emphasised that an intersectional lens was needed to acknowledge the different but cumulative impacts of both racial oppression and sexism. At the centre of this argument is the reality that “all white feminists [in Australia] benefit from colonisation; they are overwhelmingly represented and disproportionately predominant, have the key roles, and constitute the norm, the ordinary and the standard of womanhood in Australia” (Moreton-Robinson 2000: xxv).

Uproar over critical race theory

During 2020, racial sensitivity training in the USA prompted widespread discussion about critical race theory. Former US President, Donald Trump, posits in the video below that the theory, and the kinds of racial sensitivity training it promotes, are fundamentally racist – against white people. Others argued that this represented a deep misunderstanding of the theory, but also an ignorance of the extent and power of white privilege.

For an example of former President Trump’s views, watch  Trump: Racial sensitivity training on white privilege is ‘racist’ (YouTube, 3:16) :

Postmodern critique of critical race theory

Postmodernists have levelled critique at critical race theory on the basis that understanding/explaining power as being rooted in racial difference has the consequence of reinforcing and perpetuating the validity of ‘race’. Postmodernism, however, rejects the distinct, conceptual bounds of ‘race’ and racialised identities. Instead, it sees race itself as a social construction, which should be questioned and disrupted, thereby leading to new insights that aren’t constrained by socially constructed definitions of race.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, for example, seeks to “probe the very definitions of race itself. He bypasses the empirical question of whether racism exists to ask the theoretical question of what race and racism are” (in Chong-Soon Lee 1995: 441)

Take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a brief definition of critical race theory . Then re-read the above sub-section. How does your understanding fit with the information above?

Putting theory into action: rethinking crime through a critical lens

Critical criminologists apply a critical theory lens to the study of crime and criminality. In this regard, critical criminology is concerned with understanding how the criminal justice system can act as a site of power and oppression; a perspective that tends to sit in contrast with western (non-critical) criminology, which sees the criminal justice system as a natural social institution that has the primarily purpose of protecting society against deviants (criminals) and making an example of those who fail to comply with hegemonic social norms. (This non-critical view draws parallels, for example, with the perceived ‘functions’ of the criminal justice system under a structural functionalist perspective, and its role in making examples of ‘dysfunctional’ elements of society.)

Critical criminologists in Australia have considered the role of the criminal justice system as a key site of oppression under, for example, Australian settler colonialism. For instance, Indigenous Australians are, per capita, the most incarcerated peoples in the entire world ( Anthony & Baldry 2017 ) and these incarceration rates are rising, not reducing (ABS 2018). In using a critical lens to understand the difference between incarceration rates for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, however, we can seek better insight into how the criminal justice system operates as a site of oppression, perpetuating white settler colonial norms and values, which seek to punish alternative ontologies and epistemologies. Lynch (cited in Cunneen and Tauri 2016: 26) argued,

In short, criminology is one of the disciplines that established the conditions necessary for maintenance of the status quo of power. It can only do so by oppressing those who would undermine the status quo. In this sense, criminology must be viewed as a science of oppression.

In part, this oppression operates through the construction of knowledge and truth within (positivist) criminology (which relates to Foucault’s conception of power-knowledge, as we touched on last week). In turn, this also involves what Cunneen and Tauri (2016: 26) describe as “the ideologically driven dismissal of Indigenous knowledge about the social world as ‘subjective’, ‘unscientific’, and/or at best ‘folk epistemology’… which in turn paves the way for excluding other ways of knowing from the Western, criminological lexicon”.

In their book, Decolonising criminology, Blagg and Anthony (2019: 22-23) set out a taxonomy for what they see as a decolonised criminology (noting, though, that Blagg and Anthony themselves are non-Indigenous researchers, though they have worked closely with Indigenous peoples and communities for decades).  In their taxonomy (which we have included an adapted version of below), they include the following probing comparisons between a positivist (largely uncritical) criminology and a decolonised (critical) criminology:

A table comparing positivist and decolonial approaches to criminology.

Source: Authors’ adaptation from Blagg & Anthony (2019: 22-23 )

The probes and questions that Blagg & Anthony pose in the above taxonomy are critical in their focus and intent; they seek to critique the criminal justice system as a site of colonial power, but they also seek to change it — through research that produces knowledge about these truths. This is, in essence, a reframing (to use Bacchi’s term) of the nature of criminological research towards a richer, and more historically and culturally contextualised understanding of the Australian criminal justice system. As a result, this produces different knowledge about crime and justice in Australia: knowledge that shifts blame away from the individual (the ‘bad’ Indigenous citizen, to use Moreton-Robinson’s [2009] language) to the structures, history and continuation of colonial oppression.

Critical or radical criminology?

Radical criminology is rooted in the Marxist conflict tradition and sees the capitalist economy as being central to the definitions of crime (arrived at by the bourgeoisie) that constrict, control and suppress the working classes (proletariat).

In contrast (or in addition to), critical criminology is interested in more than just class relations and also sees different opportunities for praxis – tending to favour a more incremental approach to social change as opposed to widespread revolution ( Bernard 1981 )

Drawing on a critical criminology and decolonising perspective, consider the below graph, which shows the over-representation of Indigenous Australians in prisons, indicating an upward trend from 2008-2018. Then consider, from a critical criminology standpoint, what kinds of ‘truths’ might you draw on to help explain this trend?

(To guide your thinking, you may like to revisit the above taxonomy by Blagg and Anthony.)

Watch the below short clip of Senator Patrick Dodson talking in March 2021 about the issue of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody. Consider LNP Senator, Amanda Stoker’s response to Senator Pat Dodson, in particular her comment that she “understand[s] the outrage is real… because the lives of every person, though our justice system are important, no matter the colour of their skin.”

In #Estimates , @SenatorDodson fires up over a lack of action on deaths in custody. @stoker_aj ‘s response: “I understand the outrage is real…because the lives of every person, through our justice system are important, no matter the colour of their skin.” #Auspol @SBSNews @NITV pic.twitter.com/jgsb8y9YcD — Naveen Razik (@naveenjrazik) March 26, 2021

What do you think about Senator Stoker’s response to Senator Dodson? How might you analyse her response, through a critical race theory lens?

Choose one of the following social issues:

• The gender pay gap
• The workplace ‘stress’ epidemic
• Homelessness
• Childhood obesity

Consider how your chosen social issue might be explained by drawing on the different theoretical perspectives outlined earlier in this Chapter. Record your thoughts in a short, written explanation.

Reflection exercise: a critical reading of meritocracy

Kim and Choi (2017: 112) define meritocracy as “a social system in which advancement in society is based on an individual’s capabilities and merits rather than on the basis of family, wealth, or social background.” According to Kim and Choi (2017: 116), meritocracy has two key features: “impartial competition” and “equality of opportunity”.

The notion of meritocracy has arisen over the past few centuries primarily in response to feudalism and absolute monarchy, where power and privilege are handed down on the basis of familial lines (‘nepotism’) or friendships (‘cronyism’). This kind of system could (and often did) place people into positions of power, regardless of whether they were the most appropriate or ‘best’ person for the job. In essence, then, the notion of meritocracy is intended to tie social advancement to merit; that is, the focus is supposed to be on ‘what you know’ rather than ‘who you know’, which seems a noble cause, right? Many have argued, however, that a blinkered belief in meritocracy leaves a lot of things out of the ‘frame’.

The belief in meritocracy, and its focus on ‘what you know’ rather than ‘who you know’, can have both positive and negative impacts. Take a piece of paper and write a short list of each.

If critical theory operates according to the broad Marxist understanding of history as class struggle, post-structuralism is a theory that attempts to abandon the idea of grand historical narratives altogether. Fundamentally, post-structuralism differs from other social theories in its rejection of metanarratives , its critique of binaries, and its refusal to understand all human action as being shaped solely by universal social structures. Whilst there is much disagreement between post-structuralist thinkers, these three broad trends help us to understand this social theory.

Post-structuralism

Post-structural accounts of conflict and power can take a macro and micro lens. They see power as transcending social structures, like social institutions (e.g., the state, the economy) and instead being all around us at all times. Michel Foucault (1926-1984), for example, argued that power is everywhere and acts upon us to shape our identities, bodies, behaviours, and being. In terms of a liberal democratic society, therefore, where coercive (‘sovereign’) power is only exerted by the state under certain specific circumstances, Foucault argued that the state otherwise uses its power to create ‘responsibilised’ citizens who absorb hegemonic (i.e. authoritative/dominant) social norms and use these to govern themselves . This relates to what Fairclough (1995: 257) referred to as power by consent:

We live in an age in which power is predominantly exercised through the generation of consent rather than through coercion… through the inculcation of self-disciplining practices rather than through the breaking of skulls (though there is still unfortunately no shortage of the latter).

Foucault was also particularly interested in the link between power and knowledge. He argued that those who hold the power tend to construct knowledge and ‘truth’ in certain ways, which can reinforce their power by, for example, perpetuating certain social norms. This is elaborated on by Watts and Hodgson (2019) in reading 5.2, where they describe Foucault’s conception of power/knowledge as follows:

Truth is not neutral or objective, and is not simply a thing that can be verified scientifically because its ‘truth value’ is dependent on the operation and circulation of power (think, for example, the oft-quoted phrase that ‘truth is whatever the powerful say it is’). In the context of the human and social sciences, power creates knowledge and is also a force for the translation of knowledge of and about human beings into practice… For example, the moment we speak into existence the concept of something as commonplace as ‘human being’ or ‘human rights’ or ‘social justice’ we are using some form of power (truth) to render such things thinkable and knowable as things in the world (Watts and Hodgson 2019: 85-86).

Take a piece of paper and, in your own words, write down a brief definition of Foucault’s post-structural concept of power. Then, re-read the above account. Does your definition align with the information above?

Beck and Risk Society

The notion of risk society is outlined by Ulrich Beck in his 1992 book ‘Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity’. Where society was once organised around wealth distribution based on scarcity, Beck argues that society is becoming increasingly based on the distribution of risks. Risks are defined as “a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself” (Beck 1992: 21). Beck argues that the process of modernisation is no longer focused exclusively on the creation of new technologies, but rather the focus lies in the management of risks of potential technologies. As such, modernisation is becoming increasingly reflexive, involved not only in the production of technologies to meet needs, but rather investigating the often unknown side-effects of technologies. For example, a nuclear energy plant might be built in order to meet society’s increasing energy demand. However, this solution to a specific problem then must deal with the new issue of disposing of this radioactive waste that modernisation itself has produced. This is just one example of the ecological risks inherent with the development of new technologies, which often have unintended side-effects, that must themselves be uncovered and solved.

Postmodernism

Before we can get to postmodernism, we need to define modernism to see what postmodernism wants to supersede. Modernism describes the social upheaval and major changes of 20th century life. It is marked by processes of industrialisation, rationalisation and bureaucratisation – in short a world in which the sciences seemed to provide ever more answers and ultimate truths about the world and us. Modernism or modernity was also about hope for a new society, unfettered technological and material progress and, with advances in scientific fields, led to longer lives and new and exciting materials to make new things to make life easier (think household machines). It was also punctured by some key social movements that brought the world to the brink of destruction in the epic fight over what ultimate truth should prevail. The key political ideologies of fascism, socialism and liberalism clashed in the second World War over their different visions for a new world order. In the post war climate of a new stand-off between socialism/communism and liberalism or the Soviet bloc and ‘the West’ many writers, academics and artists became disillusioned with the modernist project. Slowly critiques of these universalising truths and meta-narratives came to think of this time as a time of postmodernism. Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) defined postmodernism as the ‘incredulity towards meta-narratives’, by which he meant that increasingly people were no longer persuaded by grand or master narratives about themselves, a particular nation, people or even humanity. The singular, stable, coherent modern subject was thrown into a void and thus becomes fragmented, fluid and plural in the postmodern. No one truth exists anymore and the certainty of facts becomes disputed and muddied once more. Thus, postmodernity is about scepticism, deconstruction and questioning rather than offering answers and solutions. This has made it a controversial theory or topic as it offers little in the way of hope for a better world, indeed it is often seen as dystopic. Inherent in many postmodern critiques of current society is a critique of (late) capitalism and consumer or mass culture that pervade every aspect of our lives, whilst others focus on technology and its pervasive intrusion into our daily lives.

Resources for further learning

• Moreton-Robinson, A. 2015. ‘Introduction: white possession and Indigenous sovereignty matters.’ In. Moreton-Robinson, A.  The White Possessive: property, power and Indigenous sovereignty,  pp. xi-xxiv.
• Powers, C. 2009. Sociology as a coherent discipline: unifying themes. In. Powers, C. Making sense of social theory , Chapter 16.
• Watts, L. and Hodgson, D. 2019. ‘Power and knowledge’. In. Watts, L. and Hodgson, D. Social justice theory and practice for social work, Chapter 5.
• Cunneen, C. and Tauri, J. 2016. ‘Towards a critical Indigenous criminology.’ In. Cunneen, C. and Tauri, J. Indigenous criminology, pp. 23-43.
• Kim, C.H. and Choi, Y.B. 2017. How meritocracy is defined today – contemporary aspects of meritocracy. Economics and Sociology, 10(1): 112-121.
• Flyvbjerg, B. 2001. ‘Values in social and political inquiry.’ In. Flyvbjerg, B. Making social science matter, Chapter 5.

Other resources:

• Watego, C. 2021.  ‘Who are the real criminals? Making the case for abolishing criminology.’ (YouTube, 1:35:01),
• Anderson, E. 2017. ‘How good social science can and ought to be value-laden’ (YouTube, 17:00) .
• Zigon, J. and Throop, J. 2021. ‘ Phenomenology ‘ Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology .

Introduction to the Social Sciences Copyright © 2023 by The University of Queensland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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3.4 Social Science Research Methods

In this section we take a closer look at a variety of research methods that are commonly used in social science research. Here you will learn more about surveys, experiments, ethnography, interviews, content analysis, and community-based action research.

3.4.1 Surveys

Do you strongly agree? Agree? Neither agree or disagree? Disagree? Strongly disagree? You’ve probably completed your fair share of surveys, if you’ve heard this before. At some point, most people in the United States respond to some type of survey. The 2020 U.S. Census is an excellent example of a large-scale survey intended to gather sociological data. Since 1790, the United States has conducted a survey consisting of six questions to receive demographic data of the residents who live in the United States.

As a research method, a survey collects data from subjects who respond to a series of questions about behaviors and opinions, often in the form of a questionnaire or an interview. Surveys are one of the most widely used scientific research methods. The standard survey format allows individuals a level of anonymity in which they can express personal ideas.

Not all surveys are considered sociological research. Many surveys people commonly encounter focus on identifying marketing needs and strategies rather than testing a hypothesis or contributing to social science knowledge. Questions such as, “How many hot dogs do you eat in a month?” or “Were the staff helpful?” are not usually designed as scientific research. Surveys gather different types of information from people. While surveys are not great at capturing the ways people really behave in social situations, they are a great method for discovering how people feel, think, and act—or at least how they say they feel, think, and act. Surveys can track preferences for presidential candidates or reported individual behaviors (such as sleeping, driving, or texting habits) or information such as employment status, income, and education levels.

A survey targets a specific population , people who are the focus of a study, such as college athletes, international students, or teenagers living with type 1 (juvenile-onset) diabetes. Most researchers choose to survey a small sector of the population, or a sample , a manageable number of subjects who represent a larger population. The success of a study depends on how well a population is represented by the sample. In a random sample , every person in a population has the same chance of being chosen for the study. As a result, a Gallup Poll , if conducted with nationwide random sampling, should be able to provide an accurate estimate of public opinion if it only contacts 2,000 people.

When writing survey questions, you should avoid confusing phrasing and offer a range of response categories. It’s good practice to use thoughtful wording that will minimize the risk of bias in responses. You can do this by presenting both sides of attitude scales which will help you avoid social desirability bias (Schutt 2017). Part of designing questionnaires requires researchers to build on existing survey instruments, which is why you conduct exhaustive literature reviews related to your topic. Refining and even testing your questions offers you an opportunity to gain feedback on the design. Often a question makes sense in our minds, but reading it aloud or having another read it can help identify problems with proposed questions. Interpretive questions permit the researcher to learn more about what participants’ responses mean. Thoughtful ordering of questions and maintaining a consistent focus helps the research participant or respondent understand what the survey is about.

A common survey instrument is a questionnaire. Surveys can be carried out online, over the phone, by mail, or face-to-face. Research participants often answer a series of closed-ended questions. The researcher might ask yes-or-no or multiple-choice questions, allowing subjects to choose possible responses to each question. This kind of questionnaire collects quantitative data—data in numerical form that can be counted and statistically analyzed. You could just count up the number of “yes” and “no” responses or correct answers, and chart them into percentages. Another common type of questionnaire is based on the Likert scale. Likert scale formatting allows participants to respond along a continuum; for example, they can select an option from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.”

Questionnaires can also ask more complex questions with more complex answers—beyond “yes,” “no,” or checkbox options. These types of inquiries use open-ended questions that require short essay responses. Participants willing to take the time to write those answers might convey personal religious beliefs, political views, goals, or morals. The answers are subjective and vary from person to person. For example, an open-ended question might be, How do you plan to use your college education?

After your questionnaire is ready, it is important to inform participants of the nature and purpose of the survey up front. We will talk more about the importance of informed consent and research ethics later in this chapter in the “Ethics” section.

Survey data can be quantified and researchers can analyze responses using statistics. Numbers that are presented in the media are routinely assumed to be correct when we should think a bit more about the sample used in data collection and strategies for evaluating statistics. For example, if you were to hear that 90% of college students still use facebook as their main source of social media you would likely be pretty surprised. However, if you learned that the sample was 10 college students, perhaps who are all in the same facebook group, the findings might seem a bit less surprising and maybe not entirely representative of all college students. In this case, it is important to examine the response rate of your survey. Response rate refers to the percentage of surveys completed by respondents and returned to the researchers. For a survey to be valid, there must be an adequate response rate. Once surveys are returned researchers can begin analyzing the data.

Sociologist Joel Best offers some suggestions to help us identify common mistakes when examining statistical data. In popular media, there are a few statistical blunders that lead to misconceptions about data (Best 2008). Slippery decimal points refer to when the decimal point is misplaced (to the right or left). When this happens look for numbers that are surprisingly large or small. Another blunder is botched translations. This is when people repeat a statistic that they do not actually understand. If they try to explain the numbers they get it wrong. Look for explanations that translate statistics into simple language. Misleading graphs occur when people get the numbers wrong. Be aware of graphs that are hard to decipher and that do not fit the actual data. Finally, careless calculations can lead to reporting on the final numbers and leaving the whole calculation process hidden. Again you can look for numbers that seem surprisingly low or high as a way to help identify this blunder.

Researchers aim to understand the relationship between variables. Researchers look for ways to identify relationships like causation and correlation. Causation refers to a change in one variable that directly has an effect on or causes another variable (I hiked 10 miles, now my feet are tired). Correlation is a broad term describing how a change in one variable is associated with a similar pattern of variation in another variable across cases in a data set. Correlations imply a relationship between two or more variables but do not suggest causation. For more examples explaining causation and correction, check out the 5 minute video in the next section, “Pedagogical Element: A Closer look at Causation and Correlation.”

3.4.2 Activity: A Closer Look at Causation and Correlation

Distinguishing between these concepts is a valuable skill. For example, does ice cream kill? Or is something else going on? Learn more about causation and correlation by watching How Ice Cream Kills! Correlation vs. Causation [YouTube Video] .

Figure 3.4. Screenshot from How Ice Cream Kills! Correlation vs. Causation [YouTube Video]

Be sure to come back and answer these questions:

• What are some examples of correlations that do not indicate causation?
• How does the ability to distinguish between these concepts help us when we are analyzing data?

3.4.3 Experiments

One way researchers test social theories is by conducting an experiment, meaning they investigate relationships to test a hypothesis. An experiment refers to a procedure typically used to confirm the validity of a hypothesis by comparing the outcomes of one or more experimental groups to a control group on a given measure. This approach closely resembles the scientific method. Researchers select this approach when they want to focus on isolating variables. In order to do this, they create a controlled setting, a setting where the researcher has complete control of factors associated with the study. Not all questions about social interaction and social life can be answered with this approach, but it helps us learn more about patterns in controlled environments.

There are two main types of experiments: lab-based experiments and natural or field experiments. In a lab setting, the research can be controlled so that data can be recorded in a limited amount of time. In a natural or field-based experiment, the time it takes to gather the data cannot be controlled but the information might be considered more accurate since it was collected without interference or intervention by the researcher. Field-based experiments are often used to evaluate interventions in educational settings and health (Baldassarri and Abascal 2017).

As a research method, either type of sociological experiment is useful for testing if-then statements: if a particular thing happens (cause), then another particular thing will result (effect). To set up a lab-based experiment, sociologists create artificial situations that allow them to manipulate variables.

Typically, the sociologist selects a set of people with similar characteristics, such as age, class, race, or education. Those people are divided into two groups. One is the experimental group and the other is the control group. The experimental group is exposed to the independent variable(s) and the control group is not. To test the benefits of tutoring, for example, the sociologist might provide tutoring to the experimental group of students but not to the control group. Then both groups would be tested for differences in performance to see if tutoring had an effect on the experimental group of students. As you can imagine, in a case like this, the researcher would not want to jeopardize the accomplishments of either group of students, so the setting would be somewhat artificial. The test would not be for a grade reflected on their permanent record as a student, for example.

And if a researcher told the students they would be observed as part of a study on measuring the effectiveness of tutoring, the students might not behave naturally. This is called the Hawthorne effect —which occurs when people change their behavior because they know they are being watched as part of a study. The Hawthorne effect is unavoidable in some research studies because sociologists have to make the purpose of the study known. Subjects must be aware that they are being observed, and a certain amount of artificiality may result (Sonnenfeld 1985).

Although this approach closely resembles the scientific method, there are some limitations researchers need to consider. Experiments work best when research can be conducted in a controlled setting, but controlled settings may not accurately reflect the complexities of the real world. Another limitation to consider is that experimental research with human subjects often uses some level of deception to gather information. To avoid influencing the results of the experiment, participants may not be told of the true purpose of the study. It is important to follow ethical guidelines and have a post-participation debriefing where researchers can fully explain the experiment and offer them support as they work through the effects of deception.

3.4.4 Ethnography (Field Research)

Another research method sociologists used to collect data is ethnography —studying people in their own environments in order to understand the meanings they give to their activities. The work of sociology rarely happens in limited, confined spaces. Rather, sociologists go out into the world. They meet people where they live, work, and play. Ethnography or ethnographic research refers to gathering primary data from a natural environment. This field research or “field work” requires the sociologist to step into new environments and observe, participate, or experience those worlds.

In field work, the sociologists, rather than the people under study, are the ones out of their element. The researcher interacts with or observes people and gathers data along the way. While field research often begins in a specific setting , the study’s purpose is to observe specific behaviors in that setting. Ethnographers aim to provide a “thick description” of the setting and interactions they observe (Geertz 1973). For example, rather than writing “Parker smiled,” the researcher would elaborate on what is observable and may write something like “They parted their lips with an upward lift at the ends of their mouth, displaying a few top teeth”—the approach of “thick description” aims for the researcher to both account for what they see and the context they view it in as a way to deeply understand society. This level of detail can make the reader feel as though they are experiencing the setting first hand. Ethnographic research is conducted through participant observation. Generally, the goal is to study groups of people and understand what is meaningful to group members, but there are other types of ethnography that we will learn about in the next sections. Some center the experience of the researcher (autoethnography) and other approaches analyze gendered relations in power structures (institutional ethnography).

3.4.4.1 Participant Observation

Participant observation refers to a style of ethnographic research where researchers join people and participate in a group’s routine activities for the purpose of observing them within that context. This method lets researchers experience a specific aspect of social life. A researcher might go to great lengths to get a firsthand look into a trend, institution, or behavior. For instance, a researcher might work as a waitress in a diner, experience homelessness for several weeks, or ride along with police officers as they patrol their regular beat. Often, these researchers try to blend in seamlessly with the population they study, and they may not disclose their true identity or purpose if they feel it would compromise the results of their research.

At the beginning of a field study, researchers might have a question: “What really goes on in the kitchen of the most popular diner on campus?” or “What is it like to be homeless?” Participant observation is a useful method if the researcher wants to explore a certain environment from the inside. The ethnographer will be alert and open minded to whatever happens, recording all observations accurately. Soon, as patterns emerge, questions will become more specific, and the researcher will be able either make connections to existing theories or develop new theories based on their observations. This approach will guide the researcher in analyzing data and generating results.

Researchers use participant observation as an ethnographic tool to help them gain insight into cultural practices and phenomena. Once researchers gain access to their fieldsite, they need to consider what their role as a participant observer will be. Adler and Adler (1987) outline different types of roles researchers take in their fieldsites. As a peripheral member, researchers would have daily or near-daily interactions with members that vary from acquaintanceship to close friendship with key informants. This role is not as embedded in the context as active members. This role facilitates trust and acceptance of the researcher, but increases the identification of the researcher with members of the setting. To maintain this role, the researcher must undergo self-reflexivity and periodic withdrawal from the setting. Finally, complete members are immersed in their research setting. In this role, the researcher may study a setting or group that they already have membership in.

How do researchers decide what roles to maintain in their fieldsite? Several factors influence roles in the setting. Conditions of settings may limit or enable the researcher’s level of participation. Personal characteristics of the researcher, including abilities, theoretical orientations, demographic characteristics and others may influence the researcher’s membership in the setting. Finally, a researcher’s role may change over time due to changes in either the researcher or the setting during data collection (Adler and Adler 1987).

Researchers gain insights to cultural practices over time and through repeated analysis of many aspects of fieldsites. To facilitate this process, ethnographers must learn how to take useful and reliable notes regarding the details of life in their research contexts. These fieldnotes will constitute a major part of the data researchers will analyze and connect to sociological theories. As you can see in figure 3.5, fieldnotes are often taken with brief handwritten “jottings” while a researcher is observing participants in the field. Jottings refer to the keywords or phrases researchers will write down to help them remember what occurred when they are elaborating on their notes later. Some researchers will use their phones or other recording devices to capture pictures, interactions, or even record their impressions of a setting. Later those brief notes will be typed and expanded on. Figure 3.6 shows an example of an observation protocol or template that the authors of your text find helpful in their own research. Consistently documenting your observations helps with data Many researchers use qualitative data management software to help them organize the documents they analyze which later conclusions will be based.

3.4.4.2 Autoethnography

Autoethnography is a form of participant observation where the researchers use self-reflection and writing to examine their experiences in a setting. They connect their autobiographical story to wider cultural, political, and social meanings and understandings (Ellis 2004; Marechal 2010). Autoethnographic methods include journaling, interviewing one’s own self, and generating cultural understanding through reflective writing.

3.4.4.3 Institutional Ethnography

Institutional ethnography is an extension of basic ethnographic research principles that focuses on gendered relationships within institutions. Developed by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith (1990), institutional ethnography is often considered a feminist-inspired approach to social analysis and primarily considers women’s experiences within male- dominated societies and power structures. Smith’s work is seen to challenge sociology’s exclusion of women, both academically and in the study of women’s lives (Fenstermaker, n.d.).

Historically, social science research tended to objectify women and ignore their experiences except as viewed from the male perspective. Modern feminists note that describing women, and other marginalized groups, as subordinates helps those in authority maintain their own dominant positions (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada n.d.). Smith’s three major works explored what she called “the conceptual practices of power” and are still considered seminal works in feminist theory and ethnography (Fensternmaker n.d.).

3.4.4.4 International Research

International research is conducted outside of the researcher’s own immediate geography and society. This work carries additional challenges considering that researchers often work in regions and cultures different from their own. Researchers need to make special considerations in order to counter their own biases, navigate linguistic challenges and ensure the best cross cultural understanding possible. Look at this map and descriptions of field projects around the world by students at Oxford University’s Masters in Development Studies. What are some interesting projects that stand out to you?

For example, in 2021 Jörg Friedrichs at Oxford published his research on Muslim hate crimes in areas of North England where Islam is the majority religion. He studied police data of racial and religious hate crimes in two districts to look for patterns related to the crimes. He related those patterns to the wider context of community relations between Muslims and other groups, and presented his research to practitioners in police, local government and civil society (Friedrichs 2021).

3.4.5 Activity: A Closer Look at Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonizing Research Methods

An emerging fieldwork methodology involves the production of Indigenous knowledge by Indigenous communities themselves. Indigenous communities are distinct social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced. As the world becomes increasingly aware of the environmental crisis, researchers are more often acknowledging the ways that indigenous peoples care for their ecological surroundings. For example, communities and fire agencies in Northern California and the Northwest are looking to Indigenous fire management practices to help control wildfires (Kuhn 2021). As Indigenous communities conduct their own fieldwork to identify and document their own knowledge they are able to engage with research as agents of ecological conservation.

Alongside better recognition of Indigenous knowledges is a recent emphasis on research methods insights led by Indigenous leaders and scholars. This body of methods emerges as a response to the colonialist roots of international fieldwork and the damage that has been caused by some researcher-community relationships. The roots of international fieldwork are tied to the regime of settler colonialism and colonialist thinking that came with it. Until recently international fieldwork was viewed as the study of the “exotic” other.

Many argue that contemporary international fieldwork needs to be decolonized (Kim 2019, Datta 2018). Decolonization refers to the active resistance against colonial powers. It involves a shifting of power towards political, economic, educational, cultural, psychic independence that originates from a colonized nation’s own indigenous culture. This context prompts the urgency to bring in diverse voices and perspectives, along with an expectation that researchers’ engage in some level of reflexivity in their studies. In other words, researchers should acknowledge their own reactions and motives in the field.

An early promoter of these ideas is Linda Tuhiwai Smith (of the Māori iwi (tribes) Ngati Awa and Ngati Porou) in New Zealand. In her 1999 book, Decolonizing Methodologies Tuhiwai Smith encourages scholars to “research back,” or critically and creatively interrogate the role that one’s self, discipline, and community has played in engaging with communities of study in a way that can shift our knowledge in the present. Researching back disrupts colonizing practices, attempting to move toward respectful, ethical, and useful practices (Tuhiwai Smith 1999).We can explore this concept more in Decolonizing Methodologies: Can relational research be a basis for renewed relationships? [YouTube Video] .

Please watch the 5 minute video (figure 3.7) where Dr. Shawn Wilson and Dr. Monica Mulrennan at Concordia University in Monréal, Québec, Canada explore decolonized methodologies in research.

While watching, consider these main ideas: Research should be community defined with the process itself collaborative; research should look for and be guided by community strengths; and outcomes should be meaningful, promoting improvements to the community, at times serving a reconciliation process.

Figure 3.7. Decolonizing Methodologies: Can relational research be a basis for renewed relationships? [YouTube Video]

Considering the ideas in the video, take a moment to reflect on these questions:

• The film mentioned that indigenous research methods can provide an opportunity for the renewal of relationships between those working within systems of research and indigenous communities? How do you see this renewal can happen?
• What does the quote by the indigenous geographer, mentioned in the film, mean to you? “…if we assume we’re guests we will be welcome, but if we assume we’ll be welcome we’re no longer guests.

3.4.6 Qualitative Interviews

Interviews , sometimes referred to as in-depth interviews, are one on one conversations with participants designed to gather information about a particular topic. When you have a research topic, there are several questions to consider to determine if interviewing is the best method to conduct your study:

• Are you looking for nuance and subtlety?
• Does answering the research question require you to trace how present situations resulted from prior events?
• Is an entirely fresh view required? If the existing literature cannot explain your research problem or the current approaches to the topic do not seem to be headed anywhere, interviews allow you to look at the topic (possibly) in a different way. Interviews can provide new perspectives on the issue.
• Are you trying to explain the unexpected?

If you answered yes to these questions, qualitative interviewing would most likely be an appropriate method (Weiss 1994).

Interviews can take a long time to complete, but they can produce very rich data. In fact, in an interview, a respondent might say something that the researcher had not previously considered, which can help focus the research project. Researchers have to be careful not to use leading questions. You want to avoid leading the respondent into certain kinds of answers by asking questions like, “You really like eating vegetables, don’t you?” Instead researchers should allow the respondent to answer freely by asking questions like, “How do you feel about eating vegetables?” A strength of this approach occurs during the back-and-forth conversation of an interview where a researcher can ask for clarification, spend more time on a subtopic, or ask additional questions.

3.4.6.1 Developing an Interview Guide or Protocol

When designing an interview study, it is important to think about how different types of questions can engage the participant. Most questions should be open ended because it allows the answer to take whatever form the respondent chooses. The respondent can give lots of information, examples, and personal experiences, all of which could provide valuable data to the researcher. Closed-ended questions may be more likely to resemble survey type responses.

The goal when structuring interview guides or protocols is to ask questions that will provide depth and detail about the situation or topic. Detail allows you to understand the unexpected or learn about things that may initially seem unimportant. Depth means getting the distinct points of views while getting enough context to put the different pieces of what you heard together in a meaningful way. It is looking for answers beyond the superficial level. In seeking depth, knowledge, and detail, you explore alternative perspectives. Interviewers use probes which are techniques to keep the interviewee discussing the topic to learn more. By asking interviewees to elaborate or following up with comments like “mmhmm” or “then what?” researchers are able to get more detail without changing the focus of what is being said.

When structuring an interview guide, you should start out broadly and then narrow the questions as you learn more. Main questions will provide the framework for your interview. They help the interviewee talk about the main puzzles and topics you are interested in. They help make sure your research problem is explored thoroughly. These questions translate your research topic into language that is understandable and relatable to the interviewees. You will also use follow up questions which are specific questions in response to the comments made by the interviewees. It involves listening carefully to what they are saying and then asking additional questions to explore the topics, themes, and ideas brought up by the interviewee (Rubin and Rubin 2005). Give your interviewees the opportunity to answer as they see fit and avoid yes or no questions as they limit dialogue between the researcher and the interviewee.

3.4.6.2 Finding Interviewees and Conducting Interviews

After you’ve designed your interview guide, it’s time to recruit people to participate in your study. Ideally the people you interview should be experienced and knowledgeable in the area you are interviewing. Finding people with first hand relevant experience will help make your findings convincing. You also want your interviewees to be knowledgeable, the caveat here is that people you might expect to have knowledge on the topic will not necessarily be the most well informed. Rarely will you find an individual who has answers to all the information you seek. The credibility of interview findings can be enhanced by making sure you get a variety of perspectives on the topic. You can try to gather contradictory or overlapping perceptions and select interviewees that you think will give you a different perspective on the topic.

People are usually more than willing to talk to you if they know who you are. You can get to know people by immersing yourself in the research setting (perhaps as an ethnographic component). Another option is to use your social networks. You could start with people you know in the group and then ask them to provide names of other people that may be interested in participating in the study, an approach called snowball sampling.

Once you have recruited people to your study, you want to build trust with your interviewees. There are several things you can do to build trust, such as sharing aspects of your background that you have in common with the interviewee. Getting someone to vouch for you can also be useful in building trust. Further, being seen as honest, open, fair, and accepting helps build trust. Before going into the interview you want to make sure the interviewees know what the study is about. Explain that participation is voluntary, and their participation will be helpful.

There are a few limitations to consider before selecting this approach. There is a risk that some respondents may not be truthful or forthcoming on the interview subject. The topic may be difficult to discuss or the respondent may be concerned about being presented favorably. A skilled interviewer will be able to encourage meaningful responses. Similar to ethnographic research, the sample used by the researcher may not be representative of the population. Interviews are time consuming so are rarely conducted with large numbers of people. Instead interviews can provide us with depth and detail.

3.4.7 Secondary Data Analysis

While sociologists often engage in original research studies, they also contribute knowledge to the discipline through secondary data analysis. Secondary data does not result from firsthand research collected from primary sources. Instead secondary data uses data collected by other researchers or data collected by an agency or organization. Sociologists might study works written by historians, economists, teachers, or early sociologists. They might search through periodicals, newspapers, or magazines, or organizational data from any period in history.

3.4.7.1 Content Analysis

Content analysis is the systematic analysis of forms of communication to identify and study patterns and themes. Using available information not only saves time and money but can also add depth to a study. Sociologists often interpret findings in a new way, a way that was not part of an author’s original purpose or intention. To study how women were encouraged to act and behave in the 1960s, for example, a researcher might watch movies, television shows, and situation comedies from that period. Or to research changes in behavior and attitudes due to the emergence of television in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a sociologist would rely on new interpretations of secondary data. Decades from now, researchers will most likely conduct similar studies on the advent of mobile phones, the Internet, or social media.

Social scientists also learn by analyzing the research of a variety of agencies. Governmental departments and global groups, like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the World Health Organization (WHO), publish studies with findings that are useful to sociologists. A public statistic like the foreclosure rate might be useful for studying the effects of a recession. A racial demographic profile might be compared with data on education funding to examine the resources accessible by different groups.

3.4.7.2 Advantages and Limitations of Secondary Data

One of the advantages of secondary data like old movies or WHO statistics is that it is nonreactive research (or unobtrusive research), meaning that it does not involve direct contact with subjects and will not alter or influence people’s behaviors. Unlike studies requiring direct contact with people, using previously published data does not require entering a population and the investment and risks inherent in that research process.

Using available data does have its challenges. Public records are not always easy to access. A researcher will need to do some legwork to track them down and gain access to records. To guide the search through a vast library of materials and avoid wasting time reading unrelated sources, sociologists employ content analysis, applying a systematic approach to record and value information gleaned from secondary data as they relate to the study at hand.

Another problem arises when data are unavailable in the exact form needed or do not survey the topic from the precise angle the researcher seeks. For example, the average salaries paid to professors at a public school is public record. But these figures do not necessarily reveal how long it took each professor to reach the salary range, what their educational backgrounds are, or how long they’ve been teaching.

When conducting content analysis, it is important to consider the date of publication of an existing source and to take into account attitudes and common cultural ideals that may have influenced the research. For example, when Robert S. Lynd and Helen Merrell Lynd gathered research in the 1920s on a small town in the Midwest, attitudes and cultural norms were vastly different then than they are now. Beliefs about gender roles, race, education, and work have changed significantly since then. At the time, the study’s purpose was to reveal insights about small U.S. communities. Today, it is an illustration of 1920s attitudes and values.

3.4.8 Community-Based Research and Participatory Action Research

Community-based research takes place in community settings and involves community members in the design. This style of research also engages community members in the implementation of research projects. Research projects involve collaboration between researchers and community partners, whether the community partners are formally structured community-based organizations or informal groups of individual community members.The aim of this type of research is to benefit the community by achieving social justice through social action and change.

Community-based research is sometimes called participatory action research (Stringer 2007). In partnership with community organizations, you utilize your social science research skills to help assess needs, outcomes, and provide data that can be used to improve living conditions. The research is rigorous and often published in professional reports and presented to the board of directors for the organization you are working with. As it sounds, “action research” suggests that we make a plan to implement changes. Often with academic research, we aim to learn more about a population and leave the next steps up to others. This is an important part of the puzzle, as we need to start with knowledge but action research often has the goal of “fixing” something or at least quickly translating the newly acquired findings into a solution for a social problem.

3.4.9 Activity: A Closer Look at Participatory Research

To learn more about participatory action research, check out this short 4-minute clip for an introduction with Shirah Haasan of Just Practice in Participatory Action Research [YouTube Video]

Figure 3.8. Participatory Action Research [YouTube Video]

Be sure to come back after watching to answer these questions:

• What is participatory action research?
• What are the benefits of this type of research? Who holds the “power” in this type of research?
• When do we see the effects of participatory action research?
• What are some ways that elements of this type of research are transferable to other settings? What examples does Shirah Haasan give?

Community-based action research rigorous research, developed from empirical findings. At times this research uses an interpretive framework (this reflective approach is discussed in “Approaches to Sociological Research). It engages people who have traditionally been referred to as “subjects” as active participants in the research process. The researcher is working with the organization during the whole process and will likely bring in different project design elements based on the needs of the organization. As a social scientist, you may bring your more formalized training, but you have to draw both on existing research/literature and goals of the organization you are working with. Community-based research or participatory research can be thought of as an orientation for research rather than strictly a method. Often a number of different methods are used to collect data. Change can often be one of the main aims of the project (ie how to improve access to housing). Think of this as a practical outcome related to the lives or work of research participants (Kemmis and McTaggart 1988; Anderson, Herr, and Nihlen 1994; and Reason 1994).

Community-based research projects can benefit the community in a variety of ways, but there are a few considerations researchers and organizations should consider before entering into a partnership. For example, funding and time may be issues. With limited financial resources, it may be difficult to complete projects in a timely manner or at all. For projects that include collaborations between universities (faculty and students) with community organizations, the groups may have different timelines and goals. Projects may take longer to complete than one quarter or semester which means there may be turn over in the research team. Researchers also need to consider the readiness of communities to undertake research that may challenge current practices.

In the next sections, we will look at some examples of how ethnographic fieldwork has been used in community-based research and social action efforts both locally and internationally. A quick examination of your local community in Oregon demonstrates how social science research methods are applied in the region. Consider how the case shared in the next section, “Pedagogical Element: A Closer Look at Research in the Community” reveals the consequences of interlocking systems of oppression.

3.4.10 Activity: A Closer Look at Research in the Community

Research is not always equitable, but it impacts our society, our local communities, and us as individuals in a multitude of ways. Let’s examine one instance.

Lisa Saldana, a clinical psychologist, uses social research methods to address the needs of children who are referred to Oregon Department of Human Service (ODHS) or child protective services. A disproportionate number of these children come from families with substance use disorder or a drug-related referral, such as neglect (Saldana 2016). Psychology and sociology tend to have different points of analysis with sociologists focusing on societal issues and patterns, while psychologists focus on the brain and the mind. Saldana used a sociological approach to her research, focusing on the micro-experience of the individual within the meso- and macro-system (family and ODHS, respectively) in order to address societal issues that increased referrals to child protective services.

Saldana’s (2021) qualitative research resulted in Families Actively Improving Relationships (FAIR), a community-based program that provides services to people where they live and work. FAIR’s treatment program focuses on mental health, parenting, substance use disorder, and ancillary needs. Clinicians meet the clients wherever they can, whether that’s McDonalds, the park, their home, or homeless shelters. This integral part of the program seeks to address the barriers often found within these communities, such as poverty, lack of access and transportation, and unemployment.

One of the barriers Saldana was surprised by was the insistence by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) that only women were allowed to participate in the trial. On the surface this seems to challenge the exclusion of women in social research. When we examine this through Dorothy Smith’s (1990) theoretical framework, we realize that this gender restriction continues to objectify women and excludes men as fathers and their experiences within the system.

Following the successful trial, Saldana and her team received requests from the community to continue this work and as a result of the research, opened a funded clinic in a Medicaid billable environment in Lane County, allowing FAIR to be utilized by more individuals, including men. The rate of success for men was approximately the same as that of the women, allowing families to grow and remain together which benefits not only the children and the parents, but society as a whole.

While this new clinic allowed more individuals to be reached and engaged, it was only for those who had the complications of co-occurring mental health and substance use problems, along with looking for or needing parent skills training. Saldana, her team, and community members realized that there were more individuals who needed support and assistance but were ineligible for existing services as they were not currently misusing opioids nor methamphetamine.

Employing semi-structured interviews with graduated FAIR parents and current or former FAIR clinicians, the FAIR program was adapted to create a prevention-oriented intervention (PRE-FAIR). PRE-FAIR is currently in its efficacy trial in Benton, Douglas, Linn, and Lane counties. These efficacy trials would not be in place today without the use of social science research methods. We rely on social science research to help us identify the needs of people in our communities.

Saldana’s work showcases the unique and often unexpected ways research impacts or fails to impact various populations and identities due to ingrained biases, objectification, and oppression. To learn more about the FAIR program, you can visit https://www.oslc.org/projects/fair/ . Additional resources can be located here: https://www.odiclinic.org/

3.4.11 Licenses and Attributions for Social Science Research Methods

“Survey” – last 2 sentences of first paragraph, paragraphs 2-4, and 6-7 are from “2.2 Research Methods” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/2-2-research-methods , edited for consistency and brevity.

Correlation definition from the Open Education Sociology Dictionary is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .

“Pedagogical Element: A Closer Look at Causation and Correlation” and figure 3.4 screenshot image and video is adapted from How Ice Cream Kills! Correlation vs. Causation by DecisionSkills. License Terms: Standard YouTube license.

All other content in this section is original content by Jennifer Puentes and is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Experiment” first sentence of first paragraph, first 3 sentences of second paragraph and paragraphs 3-5 are edited for consistency and brevity from “2.2 Research Methods” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/2-2-research-methods

Experiment definition from the Open Education Sociology Dictionary is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .

“Ethnography”

First 3 sentences of paragraph 2 from “2.2 Research Methods” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/2-2-research-methods

“Pedagogical Element: A Closer Look at Ethnography” and figure 3.4 screenshot image and video is adapted from Ethnography: Ellen Isaacs at TEDxBroadway by TEDx Talks . License Terms: Standard YouTube license.

“Participant Observation” the last 4 sentences of paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 are from “2.2 Research Methods” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/2-2-research-methods

Figure 3.5. Photo by Kari Shea . License: Unsplash

Figure 3.6. Photo by Jennifer Puentes licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Institutional Ethnography” edited for clarity and brevity from “2.2 Research Methods” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/2-2-research-methods

“International Research” is original content by Aimee Krouskop and licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Pedagogical Element: A Closer Look at Indigenous Knowledge and Decolonizing Research Methods” and figure 3.7 screenshot and video adapted from Decolonizing Methodologies: Can relational research be a basis for renewed relationships? (c) Concordia University . License Terms: Standard YouTube License. All other content in this section is original content by Aimee Krouskop, Matthew Gougherty, and Jennifer Puentes and is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Decolonization definition from Racial Equity Tools Used Under Fair Use. https://www.racialequitytools.org/resources/fundamentals/core-concepts/decolonization-theory-and-practice

Indigenous communities definition from indigenous peoples definition from World Bank Used Under Fair Use https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/indigenouspeoples

“Qualitative Interviews” is original content by Jennifer Puentes and is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

“Secondary Data Analysis” edited for clarity and brevity from “2.2 Research Methods” by Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang in Openstax Sociology 3e , which is licensed under CC BY 4.0 . Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/introduction-sociology-3e/pages/2-2-research-methods

Content analysis definition from the Open Education Sociology Dictionary is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .

“Community-Based Research and Participatory Action Research” is original content by Jennifer Puentes and is licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Community-based research definition adapted from San Francisco State University Used Under Fair Use.

“Pedagogical Element: A Closer Look at Participatory Research” and figure 3.8 screenshot adapted from Participatory Action Research . (c) Vera Institute of Justice . License Terms: Standard YouTube License.

“Pedagogical Element: A Closer Look at Research in the Community” is original content by Sonya James and licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

Sociology in Everyday Life Copyright © by Matt Gougherty and Jennifer Puentes. All Rights Reserved.

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10 Experimental research

Experimental research—often considered to be the ‘gold standard’ in research designs—is one of the most rigorous of all research designs. In this design, one or more independent variables are manipulated by the researcher (as treatments), subjects are randomly assigned to different treatment levels (random assignment), and the results of the treatments on outcomes (dependent variables) are observed. The unique strength of experimental research is its internal validity (causality) due to its ability to link cause and effect through treatment manipulation, while controlling for the spurious effect of extraneous variable.

Experimental research is best suited for explanatory research—rather than for descriptive or exploratory research—where the goal of the study is to examine cause-effect relationships. It also works well for research that involves a relatively limited and well-defined set of independent variables that can either be manipulated or controlled. Experimental research can be conducted in laboratory or field settings. Laboratory experiments , conducted in laboratory (artificial) settings, tend to be high in internal validity, but this comes at the cost of low external validity (generalisability), because the artificial (laboratory) setting in which the study is conducted may not reflect the real world. Field experiments are conducted in field settings such as in a real organisation, and are high in both internal and external validity. But such experiments are relatively rare, because of the difficulties associated with manipulating treatments and controlling for extraneous effects in a field setting.

Experimental research can be grouped into two broad categories: true experimental designs and quasi-experimental designs. Both designs require treatment manipulation, but while true experiments also require random assignment, quasi-experiments do not. Sometimes, we also refer to non-experimental research, which is not really a research design, but an all-inclusive term that includes all types of research that do not employ treatment manipulation or random assignment, such as survey research, observational research, and correlational studies.

Basic concepts

Treatment and control groups. In experimental research, some subjects are administered one or more experimental stimulus called a treatment (the treatment group ) while other subjects are not given such a stimulus (the control group ). The treatment may be considered successful if subjects in the treatment group rate more favourably on outcome variables than control group subjects. Multiple levels of experimental stimulus may be administered, in which case, there may be more than one treatment group. For example, in order to test the effects of a new drug intended to treat a certain medical condition like dementia, if a sample of dementia patients is randomly divided into three groups, with the first group receiving a high dosage of the drug, the second group receiving a low dosage, and the third group receiving a placebo such as a sugar pill (control group), then the first two groups are experimental groups and the third group is a control group. After administering the drug for a period of time, if the condition of the experimental group subjects improved significantly more than the control group subjects, we can say that the drug is effective. We can also compare the conditions of the high and low dosage experimental groups to determine if the high dose is more effective than the low dose.

Treatment manipulation. Treatments are the unique feature of experimental research that sets this design apart from all other research methods. Treatment manipulation helps control for the ‘cause’ in cause-effect relationships. Naturally, the validity of experimental research depends on how well the treatment was manipulated. Treatment manipulation must be checked using pretests and pilot tests prior to the experimental study. Any measurements conducted before the treatment is administered are called pretest measures , while those conducted after the treatment are posttest measures .

Random selection and assignment. Random selection is the process of randomly drawing a sample from a population or a sampling frame. This approach is typically employed in survey research, and ensures that each unit in the population has a positive chance of being selected into the sample. Random assignment, however, is a process of randomly assigning subjects to experimental or control groups. This is a standard practice in true experimental research to ensure that treatment groups are similar (equivalent) to each other and to the control group prior to treatment administration. Random selection is related to sampling, and is therefore more closely related to the external validity (generalisability) of findings. However, random assignment is related to design, and is therefore most related to internal validity. It is possible to have both random selection and random assignment in well-designed experimental research, but quasi-experimental research involves neither random selection nor random assignment.

Threats to internal validity. Although experimental designs are considered more rigorous than other research methods in terms of the internal validity of their inferences (by virtue of their ability to control causes through treatment manipulation), they are not immune to internal validity threats. Some of these threats to internal validity are described below, within the context of a study of the impact of a special remedial math tutoring program for improving the math abilities of high school students.

History threat is the possibility that the observed effects (dependent variables) are caused by extraneous or historical events rather than by the experimental treatment. For instance, students’ post-remedial math score improvement may have been caused by their preparation for a math exam at their school, rather than the remedial math program.

Maturation threat refers to the possibility that observed effects are caused by natural maturation of subjects (e.g., a general improvement in their intellectual ability to understand complex concepts) rather than the experimental treatment.

Testing threat is a threat in pre-post designs where subjects’ posttest responses are conditioned by their pretest responses. For instance, if students remember their answers from the pretest evaluation, they may tend to repeat them in the posttest exam.

Not conducting a pretest can help avoid this threat.

Instrumentation threat , which also occurs in pre-post designs, refers to the possibility that the difference between pretest and posttest scores is not due to the remedial math program, but due to changes in the administered test, such as the posttest having a higher or lower degree of difficulty than the pretest.

Mortality threat refers to the possibility that subjects may be dropping out of the study at differential rates between the treatment and control groups due to a systematic reason, such that the dropouts were mostly students who scored low on the pretest. If the low-performing students drop out, the results of the posttest will be artificially inflated by the preponderance of high-performing students.

Regression threat —also called a regression to the mean—refers to the statistical tendency of a group’s overall performance to regress toward the mean during a posttest rather than in the anticipated direction. For instance, if subjects scored high on a pretest, they will have a tendency to score lower on the posttest (closer to the mean) because their high scores (away from the mean) during the pretest were possibly a statistical aberration. This problem tends to be more prevalent in non-random samples and when the two measures are imperfectly correlated.

Two-group experimental designs

Pretest-posttest control group design . In this design, subjects are randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, subjected to an initial (pretest) measurement of the dependent variables of interest, the treatment group is administered a treatment (representing the independent variable of interest), and the dependent variables measured again (posttest). The notation of this design is shown in Figure 10.1.

Statistical analysis of this design involves a simple analysis of variance (ANOVA) between the treatment and control groups. The pretest-posttest design handles several threats to internal validity, such as maturation, testing, and regression, since these threats can be expected to influence both treatment and control groups in a similar (random) manner. The selection threat is controlled via random assignment. However, additional threats to internal validity may exist. For instance, mortality can be a problem if there are differential dropout rates between the two groups, and the pretest measurement may bias the posttest measurement—especially if the pretest introduces unusual topics or content.

Posttest -only control group design . This design is a simpler version of the pretest-posttest design where pretest measurements are omitted. The design notation is shown in Figure 10.2.

The treatment effect is measured simply as the difference in the posttest scores between the two groups:

The appropriate statistical analysis of this design is also a two-group analysis of variance (ANOVA). The simplicity of this design makes it more attractive than the pretest-posttest design in terms of internal validity. This design controls for maturation, testing, regression, selection, and pretest-posttest interaction, though the mortality threat may continue to exist.

Because the pretest measure is not a measurement of the dependent variable, but rather a covariate, the treatment effect is measured as the difference in the posttest scores between the treatment and control groups as:

Due to the presence of covariates, the right statistical analysis of this design is a two-group analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). This design has all the advantages of posttest-only design, but with internal validity due to the controlling of covariates. Covariance designs can also be extended to pretest-posttest control group design.

Factorial designs

Two-group designs are inadequate if your research requires manipulation of two or more independent variables (treatments). In such cases, you would need four or higher-group designs. Such designs, quite popular in experimental research, are commonly called factorial designs. Each independent variable in this design is called a factor , and each subdivision of a factor is called a level . Factorial designs enable the researcher to examine not only the individual effect of each treatment on the dependent variables (called main effects), but also their joint effect (called interaction effects).

In a factorial design, a main effect is said to exist if the dependent variable shows a significant difference between multiple levels of one factor, at all levels of other factors. No change in the dependent variable across factor levels is the null case (baseline), from which main effects are evaluated. In the above example, you may see a main effect of instructional type, instructional time, or both on learning outcomes. An interaction effect exists when the effect of differences in one factor depends upon the level of a second factor. In our example, if the effect of instructional type on learning outcomes is greater for three hours/week of instructional time than for one and a half hours/week, then we can say that there is an interaction effect between instructional type and instructional time on learning outcomes. Note that the presence of interaction effects dominate and make main effects irrelevant, and it is not meaningful to interpret main effects if interaction effects are significant.

Hybrid experimental designs

Hybrid designs are those that are formed by combining features of more established designs. Three such hybrid designs are randomised bocks design, Solomon four-group design, and switched replications design.

Randomised block design. This is a variation of the posttest-only or pretest-posttest control group design where the subject population can be grouped into relatively homogeneous subgroups (called blocks ) within which the experiment is replicated. For instance, if you want to replicate the same posttest-only design among university students and full-time working professionals (two homogeneous blocks), subjects in both blocks are randomly split between the treatment group (receiving the same treatment) and the control group (see Figure 10.5). The purpose of this design is to reduce the ‘noise’ or variance in data that may be attributable to differences between the blocks so that the actual effect of interest can be detected more accurately.

Solomon four-group design . In this design, the sample is divided into two treatment groups and two control groups. One treatment group and one control group receive the pretest, and the other two groups do not. This design represents a combination of posttest-only and pretest-posttest control group design, and is intended to test for the potential biasing effect of pretest measurement on posttest measures that tends to occur in pretest-posttest designs, but not in posttest-only designs. The design notation is shown in Figure 10.6.

Switched replication design . This is a two-group design implemented in two phases with three waves of measurement. The treatment group in the first phase serves as the control group in the second phase, and the control group in the first phase becomes the treatment group in the second phase, as illustrated in Figure 10.7. In other words, the original design is repeated or replicated temporally with treatment/control roles switched between the two groups. By the end of the study, all participants will have received the treatment either during the first or the second phase. This design is most feasible in organisational contexts where organisational programs (e.g., employee training) are implemented in a phased manner or are repeated at regular intervals.

Quasi-experimental designs

Quasi-experimental designs are almost identical to true experimental designs, but lacking one key ingredient: random assignment. For instance, one entire class section or one organisation is used as the treatment group, while another section of the same class or a different organisation in the same industry is used as the control group. This lack of random assignment potentially results in groups that are non-equivalent, such as one group possessing greater mastery of certain content than the other group, say by virtue of having a better teacher in a previous semester, which introduces the possibility of selection bias . Quasi-experimental designs are therefore inferior to true experimental designs in interval validity due to the presence of a variety of selection related threats such as selection-maturation threat (the treatment and control groups maturing at different rates), selection-history threat (the treatment and control groups being differentially impacted by extraneous or historical events), selection-regression threat (the treatment and control groups regressing toward the mean between pretest and posttest at different rates), selection-instrumentation threat (the treatment and control groups responding differently to the measurement), selection-testing (the treatment and control groups responding differently to the pretest), and selection-mortality (the treatment and control groups demonstrating differential dropout rates). Given these selection threats, it is generally preferable to avoid quasi-experimental designs to the greatest extent possible.

In addition, there are quite a few unique non-equivalent designs without corresponding true experimental design cousins. Some of the more useful of these designs are discussed next.

Regression discontinuity (RD) design . This is a non-equivalent pretest-posttest design where subjects are assigned to the treatment or control group based on a cut-off score on a preprogram measure. For instance, patients who are severely ill may be assigned to a treatment group to test the efficacy of a new drug or treatment protocol and those who are mildly ill are assigned to the control group. In another example, students who are lagging behind on standardised test scores may be selected for a remedial curriculum program intended to improve their performance, while those who score high on such tests are not selected from the remedial program.

Because of the use of a cut-off score, it is possible that the observed results may be a function of the cut-off score rather than the treatment, which introduces a new threat to internal validity. However, using the cut-off score also ensures that limited or costly resources are distributed to people who need them the most, rather than randomly across a population, while simultaneously allowing a quasi-experimental treatment. The control group scores in the RD design do not serve as a benchmark for comparing treatment group scores, given the systematic non-equivalence between the two groups. Rather, if there is no discontinuity between pretest and posttest scores in the control group, but such a discontinuity persists in the treatment group, then this discontinuity is viewed as evidence of the treatment effect.

Proxy pretest design . This design, shown in Figure 10.11, looks very similar to the standard NEGD (pretest-posttest) design, with one critical difference: the pretest score is collected after the treatment is administered. A typical application of this design is when a researcher is brought in to test the efficacy of a program (e.g., an educational program) after the program has already started and pretest data is not available. Under such circumstances, the best option for the researcher is often to use a different prerecorded measure, such as students’ grade point average before the start of the program, as a proxy for pretest data. A variation of the proxy pretest design is to use subjects’ posttest recollection of pretest data, which may be subject to recall bias, but nevertheless may provide a measure of perceived gain or change in the dependent variable.

Separate pretest-posttest samples design . This design is useful if it is not possible to collect pretest and posttest data from the same subjects for some reason. As shown in Figure 10.12, there are four groups in this design, but two groups come from a single non-equivalent group, while the other two groups come from a different non-equivalent group. For instance, say you want to test customer satisfaction with a new online service that is implemented in one city but not in another. In this case, customers in the first city serve as the treatment group and those in the second city constitute the control group. If it is not possible to obtain pretest and posttest measures from the same customers, you can measure customer satisfaction at one point in time, implement the new service program, and measure customer satisfaction (with a different set of customers) after the program is implemented. Customer satisfaction is also measured in the control group at the same times as in the treatment group, but without the new program implementation. The design is not particularly strong, because you cannot examine the changes in any specific customer’s satisfaction score before and after the implementation, but you can only examine average customer satisfaction scores. Despite the lower internal validity, this design may still be a useful way of collecting quasi-experimental data when pretest and posttest data is not available from the same subjects.

An interesting variation of the NEDV design is a pattern-matching NEDV design , which employs multiple outcome variables and a theory that explains how much each variable will be affected by the treatment. The researcher can then examine if the theoretical prediction is matched in actual observations. This pattern-matching technique—based on the degree of correspondence between theoretical and observed patterns—is a powerful way of alleviating internal validity concerns in the original NEDV design.

Perils of experimental research

Experimental research is one of the most difficult of research designs, and should not be taken lightly. This type of research is often best with a multitude of methodological problems. First, though experimental research requires theories for framing hypotheses for testing, much of current experimental research is atheoretical. Without theories, the hypotheses being tested tend to be ad hoc, possibly illogical, and meaningless. Second, many of the measurement instruments used in experimental research are not tested for reliability and validity, and are incomparable across studies. Consequently, results generated using such instruments are also incomparable. Third, often experimental research uses inappropriate research designs, such as irrelevant dependent variables, no interaction effects, no experimental controls, and non-equivalent stimulus across treatment groups. Findings from such studies tend to lack internal validity and are highly suspect. Fourth, the treatments (tasks) used in experimental research may be diverse, incomparable, and inconsistent across studies, and sometimes inappropriate for the subject population. For instance, undergraduate student subjects are often asked to pretend that they are marketing managers and asked to perform a complex budget allocation task in which they have no experience or expertise. The use of such inappropriate tasks, introduces new threats to internal validity (i.e., subject’s performance may be an artefact of the content or difficulty of the task setting), generates findings that are non-interpretable and meaningless, and makes integration of findings across studies impossible.

The design of proper experimental treatments is a very important task in experimental design, because the treatment is the raison d’etre of the experimental method, and must never be rushed or neglected. To design an adequate and appropriate task, researchers should use prevalidated tasks if available, conduct treatment manipulation checks to check for the adequacy of such tasks (by debriefing subjects after performing the assigned task), conduct pilot tests (repeatedly, if necessary), and if in doubt, use tasks that are simple and familiar for the respondent sample rather than tasks that are complex or unfamiliar.

In summary, this chapter introduced key concepts in the experimental design research method and introduced a variety of true experimental and quasi-experimental designs. Although these designs vary widely in internal validity, designs with less internal validity should not be overlooked and may sometimes be useful under specific circumstances and empirical contingencies.

Social Science Research: Principles, Methods and Practices (Revised edition) Copyright © 2019 by Anol Bhattacherjee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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What is a social science?

A social science is any branch of academic study or science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. Usually included within the social sciences are cultural (or social) anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics.

What is the relationship between the terms behavioral science and social science ?

Beginning in the 1950s, the term behavioral sciences was often applied to disciplines categorized as social sciences. Some favored this term because it brought these disciplines closer to some of the sciences, such as physical anthropology, which also deal with human behavior.

Who named the social science discipline of sociology?

Auguste Comte gave the social science of sociology its name and established the new discipline in a systematic fashion.

What is cultural anthropology's relationship to the social sciences?

Cultural anthropology is a branch of the social sciences that deals with the study of culture in all of its aspects and that uses the methods, concepts, and data of archaeology, ethnography and ethnology, folklore, and linguistics.

What was Adolphe Quetelet's contribution to the social sciences?

Adolphe Quetelet was a key figure in the social statistics branch of the social sciences. He was the first person to call attention, in a systematic manner, to the kinds of structured behavior that could be observed and identified only through statistical means.

social science , any branch of academic study or science that deals with human behaviour in its social and cultural aspects. Usually included within the social sciences are cultural (or social) anthropology , sociology , psychology , political science , and economics . The discipline of historiography is regarded by many as a social science, and certain areas of historical study are almost indistinguishable from work done in the social sciences. Most historians, however, consider history as one of the humanities . In the United States , focused programs, such as African-American Studies, Latinx Studies, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, are, as a rule , also included among the social sciences, as are often Latin American Studies and Middle Eastern Studies, while, for instance, French, German, or Italian Studies are commonly associated with humanities. In the past, Sovietology was always considered a social science discipline, in contrast to Russian Studies.

Beginning in the 1950s, the term behavioral sciences was often applied to the disciplines designated as the social sciences. Those who favoured this term did so in part because these disciplines were thus brought closer to some of the sciences, such as physical anthropology and physiological psychology , which also deal with human behaviour.

Strictly speaking, the social sciences, as distinct and recognized academic disciplines, emerged only on the cusp of the 20th century. But one must go back farther in time for the origins of some of their fundamental ideas and objectives. In the largest sense, the origins go all the way back to the ancient Greeks and their rationalist inquiries into human nature , the state , and morality . The heritage of both Greece and Rome is a powerful one in the history of social thought, as it is in other areas of Western society. Very probably, apart from the initial Greek determination to study all things in the spirit of dispassionate and rational inquiry, there would be no social sciences today. True, there have been long periods of time, as during the Western Middle Ages , when the Greek rationalist temper was lacking. But the recovery of this temper, through texts of the great classical philosophers, is the very essence of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in modern European history. With the Enlightenment, in the 17th and 18th centuries, one may begin.

Heritage of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

The same impulses that led people in that age to explore Earth , the stellar regions, and the nature of matter led them also to explore the institutions around them: state, economy, religion , morality , and, above all, human nature itself. It was the fragmentation of medieval philosophy and theory, and, with this, the shattering of the medieval worldview that had lain deep in thought until about the 16th century, that was the immediate basis of the rise of the several strands of specialized social thought that were in time to provide the inspiration for the social sciences.

Medieval theology , especially as it appears in St. Thomas Aquinas ’s Summa theologiae (1265/66–1273), contained and fashioned syntheses from ideas about humanity and society—ideas indeed that may be seen to be political, social, economic, anthropological, and geographical in their substance. But it is partly this close relation between medieval theology and ideas of the social sciences that accounts for the different trajectories of the social sciences, on the one hand, and the trajectories of the physical and life sciences, on the other. From the time of the English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century, there were at least some rudiments of physical science that were largely independent of medieval theology and philosophy. Historians of physical science have no difficulty in tracing the continuation of this experimental tradition, primitive and irregular though it was by later standards, throughout the Middle Ages . Side by side with the kinds of experiment made notable by Bacon were impressive changes in technology through the medieval period and then, in striking degree , in the Renaissance . Efforts to improve agricultural productivity; the rising utilization of gunpowder , with consequent development of guns and the problems that they presented in ballistics; growing trade , leading to increased use of ships and improvements in the arts of navigation , including use of telescopes ; and the whole range of such mechanical arts in the Middle Ages and Renaissance as architecture , engineering , optics , and the construction of watches and clocks —all of this put a high premium on a pragmatic and operational understanding of at least the simpler principles of mechanics , physics , astronomy , and, in time, chemistry .

In short, by the time of Copernicus and Galileo in the 16th century, a fairly broad substratum of physical science existed, largely empirical but not without theoretical implications on which the edifice of modern physical science could be built. It is notable that the empirical foundations of physiology were being established in the studies of the human body being conducted in medieval schools of medicine and, as the career of Leonardo da Vinci so resplendently illustrates, among artists of the Renaissance, whose interest in accuracy and detail of painting and sculpture led to their careful studies of human anatomy .

Very different was the beginning of the social sciences. In the first place, the Roman Catholic Church , throughout the Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance and Reformation , was much more attentive to what scholars wrote and thought about the human mind and human behaviour in society than it was toward what was being studied and written in the physical sciences. From the church’s point of view, while it might be important to see to it that thought on the physical world corresponded as far as possible to what Scripture said—witnessed, for example, in the famous questioning of Galileo—it was far more important that such correspondence exist in matters affecting the human mind, spirit, and soul . Nearly all the subjects and questions that would form the bases of the social sciences in later centuries were tightly woven into the fabric of medieval Scholasticism , and it was not easy for even the boldest minds to break this fabric.

Then, when the hold of Scholasticism did begin to wane, two fresh influences, equally powerful, came on the scene to prevent anything comparable to the pragmatic and empirical foundations of the physical sciences from forming in the study of humanity and society. The first was the immense appeal of the Greek classics during the Renaissance, especially those of the philosophers Plato and Aristotle . A great deal of social thought during the Renaissance was little more than gloss or commentary on the Greek classics. One sees this throughout the 15th and 16th centuries.

Second, in the 17th century there appeared the powerful influence of the philosopher René Descartes . Cartesianism , as his philosophy was called, declared that the proper approach to understanding of the world, including humanity and society, was through a few simple, fundamental ideas of reality and, then, rigorous, almost geometrical deduction of more complex ideas and eventually of large, encompassing theories, from these simple ideas, all of which, Descartes insisted, were the stock of common sense—the mind that is common to all human beings at birth. It would be hard to exaggerate the impact of Cartesianism on social and political and moral thought during the century and a half following publication of his Discourse on Method (1637) and his Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). Through the Enlightenment into the later 18th century, the spell of Cartesianism was cast on nearly all those who were concerned with the problems of human nature and human society.

Great amounts of data pertinent to the study of human behaviour were becoming available in the 17th and 18th centuries. The emergence of nationalism and the associated impersonal state carried with it ever growing bureaucracies concerned with gathering information, chiefly for taxation , census , and trade purposes. The voluminous and widely published accounts of the great voyages that had begun in the 15th century, the records of soldiers, explorers, and missionaries who perforce had been brought into often long and close contact with indigenous and other non-Western peoples, provided still another great reservoir of data. Until the beginning of the 19th century, these and other empirical materials were used, if at all, solely for illustrative purposes in the writings of the social philosophers. Just as in the equally important area of the study of life, no philosophical framework as yet existed to allow for an objective and comprehensive interpretation of these empirical materials. Only in physics could this be done at the time.

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Article Summary

• content locked 1 The logic of the experiment
• content locked 2 Variable analysis
• content locked 3 Problems with the experimental model
• content locked Bibliography

Experiments in social science

• Hughes, John A.

Within social science the experiment has an ambiguous place. With the possible exception of social psychology, there are few examples of strictly experimental studies. The classic study still often cited is the Hawthorne experiments, which began in 1927, and is used mainly to illustrate what became known as the ‘Hawthorne Effect’, that is, the unintended influence of the research itself on the results of the study. Yet, experimental design is often taken within social research as the embodiment of the scientific method which, if the social sciences are to reach the maturity of the natural sciences, social research should seek to emulate. Meeting this challenge meant trying to devise ways of applying the logic of the experiment to ‘non-experimental’ situations where it was not possible directly to manipulate the experimental conditions. Criticisms have come from two main sources: first, from researchers who claim that the techniques used to control factors within non-experimental situations are unrealizable with current statistical methods and, second, those who reject the very idea of hypothesis-testing as an ambition for social research.

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