COMM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Claire Underwood, Blind Experiment, Natural Experiment
Document Summary
Many things can be effectively manipulated: exposure to stimuli, perceptions about the world, what you are thinking about. It"s unethical to conduct some manipulations: ex: you can"t reasonably test how attachment works for babies by forcibly removing them from their mothers. Some manipulations aren"t feasible: you can"t change who is leading in the polls in a presidential election, you also can"t manipulate status as a parent, or someone"s gender. Take away #1: not everything can be effectively manipulated. How can you do experiments on things you can"t manipulate: often it is impossible, however, sometimes you can nd what is called a natural experiment. Natural experiment: happens when some event causes your manipulation for you. We can"t conclude what caused watching house of cards to reduce trust in government: that speci c episode, house of cards in general, political dramas in general, seeing image of claire underwood, hearing congress mentioned.