Examine why some sociologists choose not to use experiments when conducting research? (20 marks) Many sociologists choose not to use laboratory experiments for research because it fails to achieve their main goal of validity. To have complete control of conditions in a lab experiment is impossible as that level of control over variables would require a completely artificial environment which will be very expensive. However in contrast other sociologists such as Positivists disagree and are in favour of laboratory experiments. Other alternatives to laboratory experiments are field experiment and the comparative method.
However, they are opposed by Interpretivists who say they impose the researcher’s framework of ideas on the respondents and they claim this may influence the respondents’ view on the question being asked. A reason as to why some sociologists choose not to use questionnaires when conducting research is because of a chance of a low response rate. This may be a result of people who receive questionnaires being not bothered to complete and return it. This can be a problem as the people who do not respond having a different opinion to those who do respond, this does not provide accurate representativeness. A higher response rate can be obtained if follow-up questionnaires are sent, but this can add to the cost and time.
However, token economy has issues, such as that you could argue that you are taking away patient’s basic rights to use as rewards. Another criticism which shows why token economy may not be and appropriate and effective therapy is that it has low ecological validity; it may not transfer into the real world. Once patients are away from institutions, they often discarded desirable behavior as there are no longer any rewards to reinforce it. Another disadvantage is the ethical issues surrounding the use of behavioral therapy. It could be argued it doesn't really help the patient; it just makes their behavior more acceptable to others.
Overall, the presentation of the results were poor. The authors leaned more toward winning favor of the reader through not providing clear results. The case study presented was inserted creating biased favor toward the use of Family Therapy (FT) where numbers were void. Critique of Discussion: Numbers 1, 2, 4, 7, and
Therefore it is thought that life stress and negative emotions can reduce the effectiveness of the immune system. A criticism with this study is that a cause and effect can’t be established because there was no direct manipulation of the independent variable i.e. the stress index. This was a questionnaire so demand characteristics were present meaning that they could have not been telling the truth (social desirability) or have forgotten. Also in this study there wasn’t a direct way of measuring immune function and is only an indirect study.
Also this can rule out fluke answers which can be ignored. This is then why sociologists like to use questionnaires when conducting research. Questionnaires pose fewer ethical issues than other research methods. With questionnaires some intrusive questions may be asked but it is under the respondent’s choice whether they want to answer that specific question or not. There should be guaranteed anomity so they know that anything that is answered will not be brought back to them as the questionnaire is anonymous.
Also their small scale means that results may not be representative or generalisable to the wider population. On the other hand interpretivists reject the laboratory experiments because it fails to achieve their main goal of validity. It is an artificial environment producing unnatural behavior. Drifting away from the advantages, There are various practical problems with laboratory experiments. Society is very complex and in practice it would be impossible to control variables that may influence a situation.
If we judge and label someone by appearance, we probably can’t learn special characteristics about someone because we don’t know about their belief and personality in appearance. Some people just hide their emotion and seldom express themselves by a verbal communication. Therefore, the “Squiggling game” is a good form of communication to allow us to know someone without judgment more. 250 words Additional material: Gordon Allport Prejudice jeopardizes to learn special characteristics about someone. As a result, we should find different ways to reduce prejudice.
Research Methods Participant Observation: Overview Participant Observation Some research methods (such as questionnaires) stress the importance of the researcher not becoming "personally involved" with the respondent, in the sense of the researcher maintaining both a personal and a social distance between themselves and the people they are researching. Participant observation, however, is sometimes called a form of subjective sociology, not because the researcher aims to impose their beliefs on the respondent (this would simply produce invalid data), but because the aim is to understand the social world from the subject's point-of-view. This method involves the researcher "getting to know" the people they're studying by entering their world and participating - either openly or secretly - in that world. This means you put yourself "in the shoes" of the people you're studying in an attempt to experience events in the way they experience them. Social Distance The technical term for this social distance is objectivity - the ability to remain detached, aloof or personally separate from the people you are researching.
Technology seems to be subtly destroying the meaningfulness of human interactions, disconnecting us from each other and the world around us, and leading to a menacing sense of isolation in society. We need to go back to simpler times and back to simple communication. People tend to exaggerate the personas they portray because they have much more time to revise and calculate the content rather than a spontaneous face-to-face interaction. Some psychologists and sociologists who have studied usage habits on Twitter, Facebook and popular dating sites say there's little correlation between how people act on the internet and how they act in person. Not to mention, Face to face communication had been the "norm" for thousands of years.