Ch.3 Research Ethics Verified Test Bank

Chapter 6: Causation and Experimentation

TEST BANK

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. An explanation that involves the belief that variation in an independent variable will be following by variation in the dependent variable is a (6-2)
2. Idiographic causal explanation
3. Ceteris parabus causal explanation
4. Nomothetic causal explanation
5. None of the above

ANS [C]

LOC: Quantitative (Nomothetic) Causal Explanation

TIP: Quantitative (Nomothetic) Causal Explanation

[LO 1]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. An explanation that identifies the concrete, individual sequence of events, thoughts or actions, resulting in a particular outcome is a (6-4)
2. Idiographic causal explanation
3. Ceteris parabus causal explanation
4. Nomothetic causal explanation
5. None of the above

ANS [A]

LOC: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

TIP: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

[LO 4]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. The criterion of time order indicates that the variation in the independent variable came before the (6-7)
2. Time sensitive criterion variable
3. Dependent variable
4. Variation variable
5. Mechanistic variable

ANS [B]

LOC: Criteria for Nomothetic Causal Explanations

TIP: Time Order

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. A true experiment has (6-9)
2. Three comparison groups
3. Two comparison groups and five interventional groups
4. Two comparison groups
5. None of the above

ANS [C]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 4]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. An important feature of a true experiment is that there is random assignment to (6-9)
2. One comparison group
3. Two or more comparison groups
4. The associative group
5. The nonspurious comparison group

ANS [B]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. The assessment of change in the dependent variable for both groups after the experimental condition has been applied is known as (6-9)
2. The pretest
3. The ex post facto test
4. The assigned test
5. The posttest

ANS [D]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 4]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. A relationship that exists between two variables that is not due to variation in a third variable is (6-7)
2. Spurious
3. Real
4. Conclusive
5. Nonspurious

ANS [D]

LOC: Criteria for Nomothetic Causal Explanations

TIP: Nonspuriousness

[LO 2]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. A discernable process that creates a causal connection between two variables is (6-8)
2. The context
3. A mechanism
4. A spurious relationship
5. None of the above

ANS [B]

LOC: Criteria for Nomothetic Causal Explanations

TIP: Mechanism

[LO 1]

COG [Application]

DIF [Medium]

1. Experimental research provides the most powerful design for testing (6-9)
2. Contextual effects
3. Causal hypotheses
4. Randomization
5. Nonequivalency

ANS [B]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. The group of subjects who are either exposed to a different treatment than the experimental group or who receive no treatment at all is the (6-9)
2. Control group
3. Posttest group
4. Contextual group
5. None of the above

ANS [A]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. A researcher determines whether an association exists between the independent and dependent variables in a true experiment because two or more groups differ in terms of their value on the (6-9)
2. Independent variable
3. Dependent variable
4. Control variable
5. Experimental variable

ANS [A]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Medium]

1. In a true experiment, the ______________ group receives some “treatment” (6-9)
2. Control
3. Experimental
4. Dependent
5. Independent

ANS [B]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. All true experiments measure the outcome in both groups after the experimental group has received the treatment which is known as the (6-11)
2. Pretest
3. Subtest
4. Ex post facto test
5. Posttest

ANS [D]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. Social experiments conducted in the ‘real world’ are known as (6-12)
2. City experiments
3. Field experiments
4. Town experiments
5. None of the above

ANS [B]

LOC: True Experiments

TIP: Field Experiments: Determining the Effect of Incarceration on Employment

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Medium]

1. When using a true experimental design to test a hypothesis is not feasible, a researcher may use a (6-13)
2. Semi-experimental design
3. Nonequivalent experimental design
4. Nonspurious experimental design
5. Quasi-experimental design

ANS [D]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Quasi-experimental Design

[LO 5]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. In non-equivalent control group designs, a comparison group is selected to be as comparable as possible to the treatment group. One of the selection methods that may be used is (6-13)
2. Individual matching
3. Field Experiment
4. Cohort matching
5. Control Experimentation

ANS [A]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Nonequivalent control group designs

[LO 5]

COG [Analysis]

DIF [Easy]

1. The common feature of before-and-after quasi-experimental designs is (6-16)
2. The absence of an experimental treatment group
3. A fixed sample panel design
4. Absence of a comparison group because all cases are exposed to the experimental group
5. The comprehension of a before and after group

ANS [C]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Nonequivalent control group design

[LO 5]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. A powerful way to ensure that the independent variable actually affected the dependent variable when using a before-and-after design is by (6-16)
2. Using a multiple group before-and-after design
3. Using only multiple “after” groups
4. Using only multiple “before” groups
5. Using multiple “before and after” groups

ANS [A]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Before-and-After designs

[LO 5]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. In ex post facto control group designs, the groups are (6-17)
2. Designated before the treatment has occurred
3. Randomly assigned
4. Designated after the treatment has occurred
5. Correlated to define the group units of analysis

ANS [C]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Ex Post Facto Control Group Designs

[LO 5]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

1. One of the five basic sources of internal invalidity is (6-18)
2. Endogenous Change
3. Being high in internal validity
4. Inability to produce valid conclusions about causality
5. Lower in generalizable results than quasi-experimental designs

ANS [A]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability

TIP: Causal (Internal) Invalidity

[LO 1]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. When subjects develop or change during the experiment as part of an ongoing process independent of the experimental treatment is known as (6-18)
2. Exogenous change
3. Contamination effects
4. Selection bias
5. Endogenous change

ANS [D]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Causal (Internal) Validity

[LO 4]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Medium]

1. Data collected at two or more points in time are (6-26)
2. Cross-sectional designs
3. Inefficient designs
4. Longitudinal research designs
5. Event Based Designs

ANS [C]

LOC: The Element of Time in Research

TIP: The Element of Time in Research

[LO 4]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. A source of causal invalidity that occurs when subjects who are chosen for a study because of their extreme scores on the dependent variable become less extreme due to natural cyclical or episodic change in the variable is known as (6-19)
2. The regression effect
3. The maturation effect
4. The testing effect
5. The endogenous effect

ANS [A]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Endogenous Change

[LO 4]

COG [Analysis]

DIF [Hard]

1. If an event such as the murder trial of O. J. Simpson occurred during an experiment which changes the subjects’ outcome scores, the effect on the experiment would be known as the (6-20)
2. history effect
3. histrionic effect
4. contamination effect
5. regression effect

ANS [A]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Endogenous Change

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

1. When comparison group members become aware that they are being denied some advantage, they may increase efforts to compensate, creating a problem known as (6-20)
2. Compensatory rivalry
3. The John Henry effect
4. The history effect
5. Both A and B

ANS [D]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Contamination

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. In order to keep experimental staff from subtly conveying their enthusiasm for an experimental program to subjects, experimenters may (6-21)
2. Use blind procedures so that subjects are not aware of who is receiving the actual treatment
3. Use blind, double-blind procedures so that the experimenter is unaware of who is receiving the treatment
4. Use double-blind procedures so that neither the experimenter nor the subjects know who is receiving the treatment
5. Change to another type of experimental process in order to keep from having problems

ANS [C]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Treatment Misidentification

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

1. When treatment group members compare their situation to that of the control group members who are not receiving the treatment; experimental group members feel special simply because they are in the experiment. This effect is known as (6-21)
2. The Electric Company effect
3. The Hawthorne effect
4. The Chicago effect
5. None of the above

ANS [B]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Treatment Misidentification

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard

1. Using a Solomon four-group design, subjects are randomly assigned to (6-22)
2. Four different experimental groups
3. Three experimental groups and a comparison group
4. Three comparison groups and an experimental group
5. Two experimental groups and two comparison groups

ANS [D]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Interaction and Testing and Treatment

[LO 5]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

1. Sample generalizability exists when (6-23)
2. A conclusion based on a sample holds true for a subset of the population
3. A conclusion based on a sample of a larger population holds true for that population
4. Both A and B are true
5. None of the above

ANS [*]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Generalizability

[LO 4]

COG [Analyze]

DIF [Easy]

1. A longitudinal research design is a study in which data can be collected (6-25)
2. At only one point in time
3. At two or more points in time
4. As though a snapshot were taken from a camera
5. None of the above

ANS [B]

LOC: The Element of Time in Research

TIP: The Element of Time in Research

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

TRUE/FALSE

1. An idiographic causal explanation would be that the likelihood of committing violent crimes is higher for individuals who were abused as children. (6-4)
2. True
3. False

ANS [B]

LOC: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

TIP: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

[LO 4]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. An explanation identifying the concrete individual sequence of events, thoughts or actions that resulted in a particular outcome for a particular individual is a nomothetic causal explanation. (6-4)
2. True
3. False

ANS [B]

LOC: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

TIP: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Medium]

1. Empirical association is one of the conditions necessary to determine causality. (6-5)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Criteria for Nomothetic Causal Explanation

TIP: Criteria for Nomothetic Causal Explanation

[LO 1]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. Being able to show that variation in the independent variable came before variation in the dependent variable is crucial in illustrating the criterion of time order. (6-7)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Case Study: Media Violence and Violent Behavior

TIP: Time Order

[LO 1]

COG [Application]

DIF [Medium]

1. Nonspuriousness is a relationship between two variables not due to a variation in a third variable. (6-7)

ANS [A]

LOC: Case Study: Media Violence and Violent Behavior

TIP: Nonspuriousness

[LO 2]

COG [Application]

DIF [Medium]

1. When demonstrating a causal connection, it is helpful to be able to conclude that there is a truly discernable means of creating a connection, or mechanism, between the variables. (6-8)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Case Study: Media Violence and Violent Behavior

TIP: Mechanism

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. No cause can be separated from the larger context in which it occurs. (6-8)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Case Study: Media Violence and Violent Behavior

TIP: Context

[LO 1]

COG [Synthesis]

DIF [Hard]

1. True experiments are the most powerful design for testing causal hypotheses. (6-9)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Evaluation]

DIF [Medium]

1. The control group in a true experiment receives the treatment, or experimental manipulation. (6-9)
2. True
3. False

ANS [B]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. Although it is not an optimal substitute for randomization, matching is sometimes used to equate experimental and comparison groups. (6-11)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Synthesis]

DIF [Medium]

1. All true experiments have a posttest. (6-11)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 4]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. Social experiments are always conducted in a laboratory or controlled environment. (6-12)
2. True
3. False

ANS [B]

LOC: True Experiments

TIP: Field Experiments: Determining the Effect of Incarceration on Employment

[LO ___]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Easy]

1. In a quasi-experimental design, a comparison group is predetermined to be comparable to the treatment group in critical ways. (6-13)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: True Experiments

TIP: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

[LO 5]

COG []

DIF [Medium]

1. Before-and-after designs are types of quasi-experimental designs. (6-14)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Before-and-After Designs

[LO 5]

COG [Knowledge]

DIF [Medium]

1. The groups in ex post facto designs are designated after the treatment has occurred. (6-17)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: Ex Post Facto Control Group Designs

[LO 5]

COG [Analysis]

DIF [Medium]

1. Endogenous change occurs when the subjects develop or change during an experiment as part of an ongoing process independent of the experimental treatment. (6-18)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Causal (Internal) Validity

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

1. A source of causal invalidity known as regression effect occurs when subjects have extreme scores on the dependent variable and the scores become less extreme on the posttest due to the natural cyclical change in the variable. (6-19)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Endogenous Change

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

1. The John Henry effect is a type of contamination in experimental and quasi-experimental designs that occurs when control group members become aware that others are being denied some advantage and they increase their efforts by compensating. (6-21)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Contamination

[LO 4]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Hard]

1. The Hawthorne effect is named after a famous experiment where workers became aware that others had been denied some advantage so they slowed their productivity as a result. (6-21)
2. True
3. False

ANS [B]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Treatment Misidentification

[LO 4]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Hard]

1. In a double-blind procedure, neither the subjects nor staff overseeing the experiment know which subjects are receiving the experimental treatment and which are receiving the placebo. (6-22)
2. True
3. False

ANS [A]

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Treatment Misidentification

[LO 4]

COG [Application]

DIF [Hard]

ESSAY

1. What are the three criteria for establishing a causal relationship? What are the two conditions that can improve understanding of a causal connection? (6-9)

1. Two comparison groups—one receiving the experimental condition (e.g., treatment or intervention), termed the experimental group, and the other receiving no treatment/intervention or another form thereof, termed the control group.

2. Random assignment to the two (or more) comparison groups.

3. Assessment of change in the dependent variable for both groups after the experimental condition has been applied. This is usually called a posttest.

Conditions:

1. Mechanism – A discernible process that creates a causal connection between two variables.
2. Context – Relationships between variables that vary between geographic units or other contexts

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 1]

COG [Synthesis]

DIF [Hard]

1. Contrast the strengths and weaknesses of dealing with nonspuriousness through statistical control and through randomization.

Strengths: Experimental research provides the most powerful design for testing causal hypotheses because it allows us to confidently establish the first three criteria for causality—association, time order, and nonspuriousness. True experiments have at least three features that help us meet these criteria:

1. Two comparison groups—one receiving the experimental condition (e.g., treatment or intervention), termed the experimental group, and the other receiving no treatment/intervention or another form thereof, termed the control group.

2. Random assignment to the two (or more) comparison groups.

3. Assessment of change in the dependent variable for both groups after the experimental condition has been applied. This is usually called a posttest.

We can determine whether an association exists between the independent and dependent variables in a true experiment because two or more groups differ in terms of their value on the independent variable. One group, the experimental group, receives some “treatment” that is a manipulation of the value of the independent variable. In a simple experiment, there may be one other group that does not receive the treatment; it is termed the control group or comparison group.

First, it is crucial that the two groups be more or less equal at the beginning of the study. If you let students choose which group to be in, the more violent students may pick the violent movie, hoping, either consciously or unconsciously, to have their aggressive habits reinforced. If so, your two groups won’t be equivalent at the beginning of the study. As such, any difference in their aggressiveness may be the result of that initial difference (a source of spuriousness), not whether they watched the violent video. You must randomly sort the students into the two different groups. You can do this by flipping a coin for each one of them, pulling names out of a hat, or using a random number table as described in the previous chapter. In any case, the subjects themselves should not be free to choose nor should you (the experimenter) be free to put them into whatever group you want.

Note that the random assignment of subjects to experimental and comparison groups is not the same as random sampling of individuals from some larger population (see Exhibit 6.5). In fact, random assignment (randomization) does not help at all to ensure that the research subjects are representative of some larger population; instead, representativeness is the goal of random sampling. What random assignment does—create two (or more) equivalent groups—is useful for ensuring internal validity, not generalizability.

Next, people in the two groups will interact among themselves. Then, the control group will watch a video about gardening while the experimental group will watch a video featuring a lot of violence. Next, both groups will sit and interact again among themselves. At the end, the interactions within both groups before and after the videos will be coded and you will see whether either group increased in aggressiveness. Thus, you may establish association.

Weaknesses: Quasi-experiments are weaker than true experiments in establishing the nonspuriousness of an observed association—that it does not result from the influence of some third, uncontrolled variable. On the other hand, because these quasi-experiments do not require the high degree of control necessary in order to achieve random assignment, they can be conducted using more natural procedures in more natural settings, so we may be able to achieve a more complete understanding of causal context. In identifying the mechanism of a causal effect, though, quasi-experiments are neither better nor worse than experiments.

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO 2]

COG [Analyze]

DIF [Medium]

1. Explain the meaning of the expression “correlation does not prove causation.” (6-7)

Before we conclude that variation in an independent variable causes variation in a dependent variable, we must have reason to believe that the relationship is nonspurious. Nonspuriousness is a relationship between two variables that is not due to variation in a third variable.

LOC: Case Study: Media Violence and Violent Behavior

TIP: Nonspuriousness

[LO 3]

COG [Analysis]

DIF [Medium]

1. What are two challenges to using experimental designs? (6-22)

Suppose you were interested in the effects of a diversity training film on prejudicial attitudes. After answering questions in a pretest about their attitudes on various topics related to diversity (e.g., racial or sexual prejudice), the subjects generally became more sensitive to the issue of prejudice without seeing the training film. On the posttest, then, their attitudes may be different from pretest attitudes simply because they have become sensitized to the issue of diversity through pretesting. In this situation, the treatment may actually have an effect, but it would be difficult to determine how much of the effect was attributable to the sensitizing pretest and how much was due to seeing the film.

This possibility can be tested with what is called the Solomon four-group design. In this version of a true experimental design, subjects are randomly assigned to at least two experimental groups and at least two comparison groups. One experimental group and one comparison group will have a pretest, and the other two groups will not have a pretest (see Exhibit 6.10). If testing and treatment do interact, the difference in outcome scores between the experimental and comparison groups will differ between the subjects who took the pretest and those who did not.

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Interaction of Testing and Treatment

[LO 4]

COG [Evaluate]

DIF [Hard]

1. What are two difficulties with identifying idiographic causal explanations?

Idiographic explanation is deterministic, focusing on what caused a particular event to occur or what caused a particular case to change. As in nomothetic explanations, idiographic causal explanations can involve counterfactuals, by trying to identify what would have happened if a different circumstance had occurred. But unlike nomothetic explanations, in idiographic explanations, the notion of a probabilistic relationship, an average effect, does not really apply. A deterministic cause has an effect only in the case under consideration.

LOC: Causal Explanation

TIP: Qualitative (Idiographic) Causal Explanation

[LO 4]

COG [Synthesis]

DIF [Hard]

1. Name and illustrate the three different quasi-experimental designs. (6-13)

1) Nonequivalent control group designs: These designs have experimental and comparison groups that are designated before the treatment occurs but are not created by random assignment.

2) Before-and-after designs: This type of design has a pretest and posttest but no comparison group. In other words, the subjects exposed to the treatment served, at an earlier time, as their own control group.

3) Ex post facto control group designs: These designs use nonrandomized control groups designated after the fact.

LOC: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

TIP: What If a True Experiment Isn’t Possible?

[LO 5]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. Define and explain the meaning of a nomothetic causal explanation and an idiographic causal explanation. (6-2)

An idiographic causal explanation is the concrete, individual sequence of events, thoughts, or actions that resulted in a particular outcome for a particular individual or that led to a particular event (Hage and Meeker 1988). An idiographic explanation also may be termed an individualist or a historicist explanation.

LOC: Causal Explanation

TIP: Quantitative (Nomothetic) Causal Explanation

[LO 4]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. True experiments have at least three features that help establish the first three criteria for causality. Name those features and explain how they accomplish this. (6-9)

1. Two comparison groups—one receiving the experimental condition (e.g., treatment or intervention), termed the experimental group, and the other receiving no treatment/intervention or another form thereof, termed the control group.

2. Random assignment to the two (or more) comparison groups.

3. Assessment of change in the dependent variable for both groups after the experimental condition has been applied. This is usually called a posttest.We can determine whether an association exists between the independent and dependent variables in a true experiment because two or more groups differ in terms of their value on the independent variable. One group, the experimental group, receives some “treatment” that is a manipulation of the value of the independent variable. In a simple experiment, there may be one other group that does not receive the treatment; it is termed the control group or comparison group.

LOC: Why Experiment?

TIP: True Experiments

[LO ___]

COG Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. Bench and Allen (2003) examined whether prison classification actually affects inmate behavior by conducting an experiment with maximum security prisoners at Utah State Prison. Describe the experiment.

There is wide variability in the criteria used to classify prisoners across the United States. Regardless of how these classifications are made, once these labels are assigned, they have the effect that all labels have: They attach various stigmas and expectations to prisoners. Bench and Allen (2003) state,

An offender classified as maximum security instantly obtains an image of one who is hard to handle, disrespectful of authority, prone to fight with other inmates, and at a high risk for escape. In contrast, an offender classified as medium security is generally regarded as more manageable, less of an escape risk, and not requiring as much supervision as a maximum-security offender. (p. 371)

To examine whether prison classification actually affects inmate behavior, Bench and Allen (2003) obtained a random sample of 200 inmates admitted to the Utah State Prison who had been classified as maximum security following their initial assessment based on the following criteria: severity of current crime, expected length of incarceration, criminal violence history, escape history, prior institutional commitment, age, history of institutional adjustment, and substance abuse history.

From this group, inmates were randomly assigned to either an experimental group, in which inmates were reclassified to medium-security status, or a control group, in which inmates retained their maximum-security status. The independent variable, then, was security classification. The dependent variable was the number of disciplinary infractions or sanctions for violation of prison rules received by each group. The severity of infractions was weighted to control for the severity of the violations (e.g., possession of unauthorized food was weighted lower than assaulting another inmate). The primary hypothesis was that the experimental group, those reclassified as medium security, would have a lower number of disciplinary infractions compared with the control group, the inmates who retained their maximum-security classification. A diagram depicting the experiment is provided in Exhibit 6.6. Results indicated that inmates reclassified to medium security did not receive a lower number of infractions; both groups received about the same number of disciplinary infractions, regardless of security classification.

LOC: True Experiments

TIP: An Experiment in Action: Prison Classification and Inmate Behavior

[LO ___]

COG [Synthesis]

DIF [Medium]

1. What are the threats to internal validity and generalizability in experiments? (6-18)

LOC: What Are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Causal (Internal) Validity

[LO ___]

COG [Analysis]

DIF [Medium]

1. What are the five basic sources of internal invalidity?

1. Selection bias—when characteristics of the experimental and comparison group subjects differ

2. Endogenous change—when the subjects develop or change during the experiment as part of an ongoing process independent of the experimental treatment

3. External events/history effects—when something occurs during the experiment, other than the treatment, that influences outcome scores

4. Contamination—when either the experimental group or the comparison group is aware of the other group and is influenced in the posttest as a result (Mohr, 1992)

5. Treatment misidentification—when variation in the independent variable (the treatment) is associated with variation in the observed outcome, but the change occurs through a process that the researcher has not identified

LOC: What are the Threats to Internal Validity and Generalizability in Experiments?

TIP: Causal (Internal) Invalidity

[LO ___]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]

1. What are the sources of treatment misidentification? (6-21)

1. Expectancies of experimental staff. Change among experimental subjects may be due to the positive expectancies of the experimental staff who are delivering the treatment rather than due to the treatment itself. Such positive staff expectations can create a self-fulfilling prophecy and can occur even in randomized experiments when well-trained staff convey their enthusiasm for an experimental program to the subjects in subtle ways. These expectancy effects can be very difficult to control in field experiments. However, in some experiments concerning the effects of treatments such as medical drugs, double-blind procedures can be used. Staff will deliver the treatments without knowing which subjects are getting the treatment and which are receiving a placebo—something that looks similar to the treatment but has no effect. In fact, the prison experiment discussed earlier in this chapter used a double-blind procedure to randomly assign inmates to a security classification category. In the experiment, only the executive director of the corrections department and the director of classification were aware of the research. Correctional staff, other individuals who worked with the inmates, and the inmates themselves were unaware of the study. In this way, any expectancies that the staff may have had were unlikely to affect inmate behavior.

2. Placebo effect. Treatment misidentification may occur when subjects receive a treatment that they consider likely to be beneficial and then improve because of that expectation rather than the treatment itself. In medical research, the placebo is often a chemically inert substance that looks similar to the experimental drug but actually has no medical effect. Research indicates that the placebo effect produces positive health effects in two thirds of patients suffering from relatively mild medical problems (Goleman, 1993). Placebo effects can also occur in social science research. The only way to reduce this threat to internal validity is to treat the comparison group with something similar.

3. Hawthorne effect. Members of the treatment group may change in terms of the dependent variable because their participation in the study makes them feel special. This problem can occur when treatment group members compare their situation to that of the control group members who are not receiving the treatment. In this case, this is a type of contamination effect. However, experimental group members could feel special simply because they are in the experiment. The Hawthorne effect is named after a famous productivity experiment at the Hawthorne electric plant outside Chicago. Workers were moved to a special room for a study of the effects of lighting intensity and other work conditions on their productivity. After this move, the workers began to increase their output no matter what change was made in their working conditions, even when the conditions became worse. The researchers concluded that the workers felt they should work harder because they were part of a special experiment.

LOC: Causal (Internal) Validity

TIP: Treatment Misidentification

[LO ___]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. What is the difference between a cross-sectional and longitudinal research design? (6-25)

Much of the research you have encountered so far in this text has been cross-sectional. Although each survey and interview takes some time to carry out, if it measures the actions, attitudes, and characteristics of respondents at only one time, it is considered cross-sectional. The name comes from the idea that a snapshot from a cross-section of the population is obtained at one point in time.

LOC: The Element of Time in Research

TIP: The Element of Time in Research

[LO ____]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Easy]

1. What are two things that experimenters try to protect their subject from in research? (6-31)

1) Deception – Deception is used in social experiments to create more “realistic” treatments, often within the confines of a laboratory. You learned in Chapter 3 about Stanley Milgram’s (1965) use of deception in his classic study of obedience to authority. Volunteers were recruited for what they were told was a study of the learning process, not a study of obedience to authority. The experimenter told the volunteers that they were administering electric shocks to a “student” in the next room, when there were actually neither students nor shocks. Subjects seemed to believe the deception.

Debriefing is a session after an experiment in which all instances of deception are revealed and explained and participants are allowed to ask questions.

Whether or not you believe that you could be deceived in this way, you are not likely to be invited to participate in an experiment such as Milgram’s. Current federal regulations preclude deception in research that might trigger such upsetting feelings. However, deception is still routine in many college laboratories. The question that must always be answered is, “Is there sufficient justification to allow the use of deception?” David Willer and Henry A. Walker (2007) pay particular attention to debriefing after deception in their book about experimental research. They argue that every experiment involving deception should be followed immediately for each participant with debriefing, sometimes called dehoaxing, in which the deception is explained, and all the participants’ questions are answered to their satisfaction and those participants who still feel aggrieved are directed to a university authority to file a complaint or to a counselor for help with their feelings. This is sound advice.

2) Selective Distribution of Benefits – Field experiments conducted to evaluate social programs also can involve issues of informed consent (Hunt, 1985). One ethical issue that is somewhat unique to field experiments is the selective distribution of benefits: How much are subjects harmed by the way treatments are distributed in the experiment? For example, Sherman and Berk’s (1984) experiment, and its successors, required police to make arrests in domestic violence cases largely on the basis of a random process. When arrests were not made, did the subjects’ abused spouses suffer? Selective distribution of benefits An ethical issue about how much researchers can influence the benefits subjects receive as part of the treatment being studied in a field experiment.

Is it ethical to give some potentially advantageous or disadvantageous treatment to people on a random basis? For example, in the drug court field experiment, is it ethical to randomly assign those who wanted extra help with their drug problem to the comparison group that did not receive extra treatment? Random distribution of benefits is justified when the researchers do not know whether some treatment actually is beneficial—and, of course, it is the goal of the experiment to find out. Chance is as reasonable a basis for distributing the treatment as any other. Also, if insufficient resources are available to fully fund a benefit for every eligible person, distribution of the benefit on the basis of chance to equally needy persons is ethically defensible (Boruch, 1997).

LOC: How Do Experimenters Protect Their Subjects?

TIP: Deception

[LO ___]

COG [Application]

DIF [Easy]

1. What are three types of Longitudinal designs?

Studies that use a repeated cross-sectional design, also known as a trend study, have become fixtures of the political arena around election time. Particularly in presidential election years, we accustom ourselves to reading weekly, even daily, reports on the percentage of the population that supports each candidate. Similar polls are conducted to track sentiment on many other social issues. For example, a 1993 poll reported that 52% of adult Americans supported a ban on the possession of handguns compared with 41% in a similar poll conducted in 1991. According to pollster Louis Harris, this increase indicated a “sea change” in public attitudes (cited in Barringer, 1993, p. A14). Another researcher said, “It shows that people are responding to their experience [of an increase in handgun-related killings]” (cited in Barringer, 1993, p. A14).

Repeated cross-sectional surveys are conducted as follows:

1. A sample is drawn from a population at Time 1, and data are collected from the sample.

2. As time passes, some people leave the population and others enter it.

3. At Time 2, a different sample is drawn from this population.

Repeated cross-sectional design (trend study) -- A type of longitudinal study in which data are collected at two or more points in time from different samples of the same population; also known as a trend study

Fixed-Sample Panel Designs

Panel designs allow us to identify changes in individuals, groups, or whatever we are studying. This is the process for conducting fixed-sample panel designs:

1. A sample (called a panel) is drawn from a population at Time 1, and data are collected from the sample.

2. As time passes, some panel members become unavailable for follow-up, and the population changes.

3. At Time 2, data are collected from the same people as at Time 1 (the panel), except for those people who cannot be located.

Fixed-sample panel design (panel study) A type of longitudinal study in which data are collected from the same individuals—the panel—at two or more points in time. In another type of panel design, panel members who leave are replaced with new members.

Because a panel design follows the same individuals, it is better than a repeated cross-sectional design for testing causal hypotheses. For example, Sampson and Laub (1990) used a fixed-sample panel design to investigate the effect of childhood deviance on adult crime. They studied a sample of white males in Boston when the subjects were between 10 and 17 years old and then followed up when the subjects were in their adult years. Data were collected from multiple sources, including the subjects themselves and criminal justice records. The researchers found that children who had been committed to a correctional school for persistent delinquency were much more likely than other children in the study to commit crimes as adults: 61% were arrested between the ages of 25 and 32, compared with 14% of those who had not been in correctional schools as juveniles (p. 614). In this study, juvenile delinquency unquestionably occurred before adult criminality. If the researchers had used a cross-sectional design to study the past of adults, the juvenile delinquency measure might have been biased by memory lapses, by self-serving recollections about behavior as juveniles, or by loss of agency records. The problem, of course, is that tracking people for years is extremely expensive, and many people in the original sample drop out for various reasons. Panel designs are also a challenge to implement successfully, and often are not even attempted, because of two major difficulties:

1. Expense and attrition. It can be difficult, and very expensive, to keep track of individuals over a long period, and inevitably, the proportion of panel members who can be located for follow-up will decline over time. Panel studies often lose more than one quarter of their members through attrition (Miller, 1991, p. 170), and because those who are lost are often dissimilar to those who remain in the panel, the sample’s characteristics begin to change and internal validity is compromised.

2. Subject fatigue. Panel members may grow weary of repeated interviews and drop out of the study, or they may become so used to answering the standard questions in the survey that they start giving stock answers rather than actually thinking about their current feelings or actions (Campbell, 1992). This is called the problem of subject fatigue. Fortunately, subjects do not often seem to become fatigued in this way, particularly if the research staff have maintained positive relations with them.

Subject fatigue Problems caused by panel members growing weary of repeated interviews and dropping out of a study or becoming so used to answering the standard questions in the survey that they start giving stock or thoughtless answers.

Event-Based Designs

Event-based design (cohort study) A type of longitudinal study in which data are collected at two or more points in time from individuals in a cohort.

Cohort Individuals or groups with a common starting point. Examples of a cohort include college class of 1997, people who graduated from high school in the 1980s, General Motors employees who started work between 1990 and the year 2000, and people who were born in the late 1940s or the 1950s (the baby boom generation).

In an event-based design, often called a cohort study, the follow-up samples (at one or more times) are selected from the same cohort, people who all have experienced a similar event or a common starting point. Examples include the following:

• Birth cohorts: those who share a common period of birth (those born in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, etc.)
• Seniority cohorts: those who have worked at the same place for about five years, about 10 years, and so on
• School cohorts: freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors

LOC: The Element of Time in Research

TIP: Three Types of Longitudinal Designs

[LO ___]

COG [Comprehension]

DIF [Medium]