SOC 104 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Santa Barbara City College, Internal Validity, Random Assignment
Document Summary
External validity is the extent to which the results of a study can be generalized to other situations and people. Mundane realism - the extent to which an experiment is similar to real-life situation. Social psychologists study the way in which people in general are susceptible to social influence: so would the results have been same if different population had been used. Best test of external validity is replication: replication conducting the study over again, generally with different subject populations or in different settings or using different methods. Meta analysis a statistical technique that averages the results of two or more studies to see if the effect of an independent variable is reliable: same thing as p-test, but avgs results from different studies. Max control over situation so no extraneous variables affect results and to randomly assign people. Ensure results can generalize to everyday life. Field experiments experiments conducted in natural settings, rather than in the laboratory.
