On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:07:36 -0800, Michael Britt wrote: >Someone on my blog asked what kind of study was the Milgram >study. In the first phase of Milgram's studies,nothing was being >manipulated - Milgram was just observing the subjects to see >what would happen. In later phases of the study he started manipulating >the presence or absence of the "experimenter", the number of >"subjects" in the room with the "learner" and others, so at that >point I'd say the studies became experiments. So what would >you call the first phase of the study - an observational study?
In an experimental or quasi-experimental study one has to ask what was the independent or quasi-independent variable or other variable that is supposed to causally affect the dependent variable. The simplest independent or causal variable is a dichotomy consisting of treatment and no treatment. The study that Milgram reported in his 1963 "Behavioral Study of Obedience" is therefore not an experiment since there is no independent variable, either manipulated or naturally occurring. The level of shock administered to the subject is the dependent variable. It would be best to call this an observational study under controlled, artificial conditions. Why Milgram would use such a design is a puzzle unless he saw this as one level of an indepedent variable and the other studies where distance between the "teacher" and "learner" was varied. Together these studies might constitute a single experiment but it would have taken a long time to do this "properly", as Scott L. points out, as several conditions with subjects randomly assigned to the conditions. This is just one of several peculiarities of how Milgram did and disseminated his research (e.g., the six degrees research being first published in Psychology Today). It should be pointed out that Zimbardo's Stanford prison "experiment" is not really an experiment either. Though subjects were randomly assigned to "guard" or :"prisoner" roles, there is no common dependent variable to compare guard and prisoner. I forget where I heard this story but Zimbardo apparently was jarred when discussing the SPE with another Stanford psychologist who asked "So, what's your null hypothesis?" -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=346 or send a blank email to leave-346-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
