SOC 2390 Lecture Notes - Laud Humphreys, Content Analysis, Participant Observation

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2390
• Professor: Michael A Dixon

Document Summary

The experiment is unique in its control over variables; it is useful for determining cause and effect. Independent variables: those variables that are thought to produce a change in some variable. Dependent variables: those variables that are influenced by independent variables. Example: smoking (as a dependent variable) is presumed to be influenced by income and education (independent variables). Experimental group: the group of subjects exposed to the independent variable. Control group: the group of subjects not exposed to the independent variable. Classic experiments in sociology and social psychology include: stanley milgram"s shocking findings about obedience, solomon asch"s study of conformity, phillip zimbardo"s prison study, elton mayo"s discovery of the hawthorne effect, survey method. In a survey, data is collected by having people answer a series of questions. It is important to properly sample the population (the target group to be studied) in order to ensure that the research can be generalized to the population of interest.