PSY 121 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: External Validity, Factorial Experiment, Meta-Analysis
Document Summary
External validity is the extent to which findings may be generalized. Even though a researcher randomly assigns participants to experimental conditions, rarely are participants randomly selected from the general population. College students were studied in over 70% of the articles published between 1962 and 1964 in 2 psychology journals. Similar percentages in 1980 and 1985 in a variety of social psychology journals. The potential problem is that such studies use a highly restricted population. Sears points out that most of the students are first-year students and sophomores taking the introductory psychology class. They are intelligent with high cognitive abilities. Thus, what we know about people in general may actually be limited to a highly select and unusual group. Students, as a group, are more homogeneous than non-student samples. Students are more similar to each other than adults are similar to other adults in the general population. The use of college students may affect the external validity of research on prejudice.
