♥Psychological Investigations| Experiments♥

Experiments

There are three types of main experiments and experimental methods that we learn about in Psych.

I'm going to begin with Field Experiments. These experiments are carried out in the real world so they therefore they have a higher ecological validity in comparison to Laboratory  Experiments. The experimenter still has a degree of control such as being able to manipulate the Independent Variable (IV). However although there is still an element of control this is not as high as the lab experiments and these are also more time consuming than lab experiments. Possible ethical problems or considerations is informed consent, difficult of briefing and the privacy of participants.

Lab Experiments

In lab experiments the researcher has a high level of control over all variables, and they take place in controlled environment using standardised procedures and participants are usually chosen in experimental groups. LE can draw causal conclusions and minimise confounding variables and also due to the procedure are also easy to replicate.However as they are carried out in artificial settings they carry low ecological validity and also investigator and participant effects may occur. One example of participant effects is demand characteristics and this is where participants try to guess the purpose of the study and therefore behave in a way that reflects their idea of the experiment. One Experimenter effect is experimenter bias and this is where the experimenters expectations can affect the results by influencing participants based on the given expectation. Possible ethical problems or considerations relating with lab experiments are, deception informed consent  and psychological harm.

Naturalistic Experiments.

These take place in an everyday life settings and no variables are manipulated by the experimenter however is varied when in happens naturally however dv is still measured, participants may or may not be aware of the participation in the study. Overall this time of experimental method always allows research to take place where iv is not manipulated and allows researcher to study real-life problems, on the other hand causal relationships can not be demonstrated by this type of experiment and there is a lack of control over variables. possible ethical problems and considerations are keeping the confidentiality of participants.

Experimental Design

These are the ways in which participants are grouped together in order to undergo certain experimenter conditions.

Repeated Measures Design- This is where the same group of participants undergo each of the iv

Independent measures design- two or more different groups of participants undergo different iv's

Matched Pairs - this is where participants are chosen upon certain characteristics or traits and put into groups to test the IV. such as of you pick out 3 girls aged 16-24-32 you would have girls the same age in the next group of participants.

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