Chapter 3 – Experiments and experimental designs in psychology

Experiments use realistic settings and this is a strong advantage of this method.

Experiments clearly demonstrate cause and effect, and this is a strength of this research method.

Participants’ natural behaviour is likely to be observed in an experiment.

There is good control of extraneous variables in an experiment.

Realistic materials are used in experiments.

Participants are generally at ease in experiments.

Experiments can make direction of causal effect unambiguous.

Participants were allocated at random to one of two conditions of an experiment. In one condition participants were asked to learn a list of 20 words with accompanying pictures. In the other condition, the participants were asked to learn the words without the pictures.

A researcher’s confederate sang identical songs on two separate days, one day dressed scruffily and the other day smartly dressed. Passers-by were asked to rate the busker’s performance on the two separate days.

Children were given a reading ability task and the child scoring highest was asked to perform a vocabulary test under reward conditions. The child scoring next highest was asked to perform the test with no reward. All the children in the group were allocated to the test conditions in the same way.

Students are asked to solve maths problems while listening to classical music. They are then asked to solve an equivalent set of maths problems while listening to pop music.

A group of children was shown a film in which several adults behaved quite aggressively. A second group of children was shown a nature film. Both groups were then observed for aggressive behaviour.

Participants were assessed for attitude to bullying before and after being shown an information film outlining the current extent and negative effects of bullying at school.