There is a beast hidden within each of us. And although civilization hides this fact even from ourselves, several experiments that have gone down in the history of psychology have proven: “humanism” is too conventional a concept...
1. Asch experiment, 1951 Student volunteers were invited ostensibly for an eye test. The subject was in a group with seven actors, whose results were not taken into account when summing up the results.
The young people were shown a card with a vertical line on it. Then they were shown another card, where three lines were already depicted - the participants were asked to determine which of them corresponded in size to the line from the first card. The subject's opinions were asked last.
This was repeated 18 times. In the first two rounds, the participants were persuaded to name the correct answers, which was not difficult, since the coincidence of the lines on all the cards was obvious. But then they began to unanimously adhere to the obviously incorrect option.
As a result, 75% of students were not ready to speak out against the majority opinion at least once - they indicated a false option, despite the obvious visual inconsistency of the lines.
What does this say about us?
People are highly dependent on the opinions of the group they are in. Even if it contradicts common sense or our beliefs, this does not mean that we can resist it. As long as there is at least a ghostly threat of condemnation from others, it can be much easier for us to drown out our inner voice than to defend our position.
2. The Good Samaritan Experiment, 1973
The parable of the Good Samaritan tells how a traveler freely helped a wounded and robbed man on the road, whom everyone else was passing by. 
Psychologists decided to test how strongly such moral imperatives influence human behavior in a stressful situation.
One group of seminary students was told the parable of the Good Samaritan and then asked to preach a sermon about something they had heard in another building on campus. The second group was tasked with preparing a speech about various job opportunities. At the same time, some of the subjects were asked to especially hurry on the way to the audience.
On their way from one building to another, students passed a man lying on the ground in an empty alley who looked like he needed help.
It turned out that only 10% of seminarians who were asked to come to the classroom as soon as possible helped the stranger- even if shortly before that they heard a lecture about how important it is to help your neighbor in a difficult situation.
What does this say about us?
We can with surprising ease abandon religion or any other ethical imperatives when it suits us. People tend to justify their indifference with the words “this doesn’t concern me,” “I still can’t help,” or “they’ll manage here without me.”
3. Indifferent Witness Experiment, 1968
In 1964, a criminal attack on a woman, repeated twice within half an hour, ended with her death on the way to the hospital. More than a dozen people witnessed the crime, and yet no one bothered to call the police. Based on these events, John Darley and Bib Latein decided to conduct their own psychological experiment. 
They invited volunteers to participate in the discussion. Participants were asked to communicate remotely using intercoms. During the conversation, one of the interlocutors simulated an epileptic seizure, which could be clearly recognized by the sounds from the speakers.
When the conversation took place one-on-one, 85% of the subjects reacted vividly to what happened and tried to help the victim. But in a situation where the participant believed that there were 4 other people in the conversation besides him, only 31% had the strength to try to influence the situation. Everyone else thought that someone else should do it.
What does this say about us?
If you think that a large number of people around ensures your safety, this is not at all true. Crowds can be indifferent to the plight of others, especially when people from marginalized groups find themselves in difficult situations. As long as there is someone else nearby, we happily shift responsibility for what is happening to him.
4. Stanford Prison Experiment, 1971
Psychologist Philippa Zimbardo set up the basement of Stanford University as a prison and invited male volunteers to take on the roles of guards and prisoners - all of them college students. 
The participants passed a mental stability test, after which they were divided by lot into two groups of 12 people - guards and prisoners. The guards wore uniforms from a military store that replicated the actual uniforms of prison guards. They were also given wooden batons and mirrored sunglasses, behind which their eyes were not visible.
The prisoners were given uncomfortable clothes without underwear and rubber slippers. They were called only by numbers that were sewn onto the uniform. They also could not remove the small chains from their ankles, which were supposed to constantly remind them of their imprisonment. 
At the beginning of the experiment, the prisoners were sent home. From there they were allegedly arrested by the state police, who facilitated the experiment. They were fingerprinted, photographed and had their license read out. After which they were stripped naked, examined and assigned numbers.
Unlike prisoners, guards worked in shifts, but Many of them were happy to work overtime during the experiment.. Zimbardo himself acted as the general manager of the prison. The experiment was supposed to last 4 weeks. The guards were given one single task - to walk around the prison, which they could carry out as they themselves wanted, but without using force against the prisoners. 
Already on the second day, the prisoners staged a riot, during which they barricaded the entrance to the cell with beds and teased the guards. They responded by using fire extinguishers to calm the unrest. Soon they were forcing their charges to sleep naked on bare concrete, and the opportunity to use the shower became a privilege for the prisoners. Terrible unsanitary conditions began to spread in the prison - prisoners were denied access to the toilet outside their cells, and the buckets they used to relieve themselves were prohibited from cleaning as punishment.
Every third guard showed sadistic tendencies - the prisoners were mocked, some were forced to wash drain barrels with their bare hands. Two of them were so mentally damaged that they had to be excluded from the experiment. One of the new participants, who replaced those who dropped out, was so shocked by what he saw that he soon went on a hunger strike. In retaliation, he was placed in a cramped closet - solitary confinement. Other prisoners were given a choice: refuse blankets or leave the troublemaker in solitary confinement all night. Only one person agreed to sacrifice his comfort.
About 50 observers monitored the work of the prison, but only Zimbardo’s girlfriend, who came to conduct several interviews with the participants in the experiment, was outraged by what was happening. The Stamford prison was closed six days after people were admitted there. Many guards expressed regret that the experiment ended prematurely. 
What does this say about us?
People very quickly accept the social roles imposed on them and are so carried away by their own power that the line of what is permissible in relation to others is rapidly erased for them. The participants in the Stanford experiment were not sadists, they were very ordinary people. Higher education and good mental health did not prevent the subjects from using violence against those people over whom they had power.
5. Milgram experiment, 1961
Psychologist Stanley Milgram decided to test how far people can go to harm others if it is part of their job responsibilities.
Participants in the experiment were recruited for a small fee from volunteers. At the very beginning, the roles of “student” and “teacher” were supposedly played between the subject and a specially trained actor, and the subject always got the second role.
After this, the “student” actor was demonstratively tied to a chair with electrodes, and the “teacher” was given an introductory shock of 45 V and taken to another room. There he was seated behind a generator, where 30 switches from 15 to 450 V were located in 15 V increments. 
Under the control of the experimenter, who was in the room all the time, the “teacher” had to check the “student’s” memorization of pairs of associations that had been read to him in advance. For every mistake he received a punishment in the form of an electric shock. With each new error the discharge increased. The switch groups have been signed. The final caption stated the following: “Danger: hard-to-bear shock.” The last two switches were outside the groups, were graphically isolated and marked with the marker “X X X”.
The “student” answered using four buttons, his answer was indicated on a light board in front of the teacher. The “teacher” and his student were separated by a blank wall. 
If the “teacher” hesitated in assigning punishment, the experimenter, whose persistence increased as doubts increased, used specially prepared phrases to convince him to continue. Upon reaching 300 volts, clear blows to the wall were heard from the “student’s” room, after which the “student” stopped answering questions. Silence for 10 seconds was interpreted by the experimenter as an incorrect answer, and he asked to increase the power of the blow. At the next discharge of 315 volts, even more persistent blows were repeated, after which the “student” stopped responding to questions. The experiment was considered complete when the “teacher” administered the maximum possible punishment three times.
65% of all subjects reached the last switch and did not stop until they were asked to do so by the experimenter. Only 12.5% refused to continue immediately after the victim knocked on the wall for the first time - everyone else continued to press the button even after the answers stopped coming from behind the wall.
What does this say about us?
Even being severely depressed, contrary to all expert predictions, the vast majority of subjects were ready to give fatal electric shocks to a stranger only because there was a man in a white coat nearby who told them to do it. Most people follow authority surprisingly easily, even when doing so has devastating or tragic consequences.
Report on the topic "Social Experiments" rojo1 wrote in December 7th, 2009
It is rare that science has an exact date of birth. Sometimes it is difficult to say which researcher was the first to conduct research in a particular area, when the first works and scientific papers were written. Social psychology is lucky in this regard. The beginning of its birth can be firmly considered to be 1908, when two books were published at once, where this concept was present: “Introduction to Social Psychology” by William McDougall and “Social Psychology” by Edward Ross.
What is social psychology? In general terms, social psychology is a branch of psychology that studies human behavior in society. If we use the terminology of Galina Mikhailovna Andreeva, the founder of the Soviet school of social psychology, then this is a branch of psychology that studies the patterns of behavior and activity of people determined by their inclusion in social groups, as well as the psychological characteristics of the groups themselves.
Many may disagree with me by saying that social psychology existed before. Undoubtedly, but as a science (I want to especially emphasize this), an academic discipline, it took shape only at the beginning of the 20th century.
It so happened that the young science received its main development in the West, especially in the United States of America. In the American school, the main way to obtain data has become a social experiment, that is, the ability to control and quantitatively assess the situation in detail.
Social experiment is a method of studying social phenomena and processes, carried out by observing changes in a social object under the influence of factors that control and direct its development. A social experiment involves:
making changes to existing relationships;
control over the impact of changes on the activities and behavior of individuals and social groups;
analysis and assessment of the results of this influence.
The organization of socio-psychological experiments is a cunning fusion of science and art. And the most interesting studies sometimes resemble real performances, where the psychologist acts as a director, and volunteer subjects act as actors. But no one knows the ending of this production in advance. And this is the most terrible thing.
The fact is that human personality, even in the 21st century, is perhaps one of the biggest mysteries for humans. No one can predict how a person will behave in a given situation, and this is precisely what is of greatest interest to researchers. Under the guise of the noble goals of science, the most cruel social experiments of the 20th century were carried out.
This report will deliberately omit the experiments of Milgram (Yale University) and Zimbardo (Stanford University), since they were discussed in detail in the lecture.
Watson's experiment ("Little Albert")
1920
This social experiment was conducted back in 1920 by John Watson, the father of the behaviorist movement in psychology, and his assistant and graduate student Rosalie Rayner. At that time, Watson, as a behaviorist, was very interested in the topic of the classical formation of conditioned reflexes in humans. While researching the nature of fears and phobias and studying the emotions of infants, Watson became interested in the possibility of forming a fear reaction in relation to objects that had not previously caused fear.
For his experiment, he chose nine-month-old baby Albert, the son of one of the nannies in an orphanage. Before starting the experiment, Watson wanted to see his reaction to a number of objects: a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, a Santa Claus mask, burning newspapers. Albert did not feel fear about any of these subjects, but rather showed interest.
After a two-month break, when the baby was nine months old, Watson began his experiment. The child was seated on a rug in the middle of the room and allowed to play with the rat. At first he was not at all afraid of the rat and calmly played with it. After a while, Watson began hitting a metal plate behind the child's back with an iron hammer every time Albert touched the rat. It is not surprising that the loud sound frightened the child, and he began to cry every time. After repeated blows, Albert began to avoid contact with the rat. He cried and tried to crawl away from her. Based on this, Watson concluded that the child associates the rat with a loud sound, and therefore with fear.
After another seventeen days, Watson decided to test whether the child would be afraid of similar objects. The child was afraid of the white rabbit, cotton wool, and the Santa Claus mask. Since the scientist did not make loud sounds when showing objects, Watson concluded that fear reactions were transferred. Watson suggested that many fears, aversions and anxieties of adults are formed in early childhood.
Little Albert died 5 years later from dropsy of the brain.
Johnson's Experiment ("The Monstrous Experiment")
1939
In 1939, Dr. Wendell Johnson of the University of Iowa, a psychologist and speech pathologist, and his graduate student Mary Tudor conducted a shocking experiment involving 22 orphans, which was later called the “Monster Experiment.”
The researchers took 22 children, 10 of whom were stutterers, and 12 were children without speech problems, and divided them into 4 groups. The first group included 5 stutterers who were told by the researchers that their speech was normal and that they had no problems with speech, and that their stuttering would soon go away. The second group also included 5 stutterers who were told that they had problems with speech. The third group included 6 normal children who were told that they had serious problems with speech and that they would probably soon become stutterers. The fourth group also included 6 normal children who were told that they had no problems with speech. The experiment lasted 5 months: from January to May 1939.
As a result of the experiment, many children who had never experienced problems with speech and, by the will of fate, ended up in the “negative” group, developed all the symptoms of stuttering, which persisted throughout their lives. In addition, these children became withdrawn, studied poorly, and began to skip classes. Some children stopped talking altogether towards the end of the experiment, citing fear of saying the next word incorrectly.
The experiment, later called “monstrous,” was hidden from the public for a long time for fear of damaging Johnson’s reputation. During Nazi Germany, similar experiments were carried out in large quantities on concentration camp prisoners.
In 2001, the University of Iowa made official changes to all those affected by the study. In 2007, the six surviving participants in the experiment were awarded $925,000 by the State of Iowa.
Mani's experiment ("Boy-Girl")
1965
This experiment was conducted since 1965 by John Money from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, an American psychologist and sexologist who studies problems of sexual identification and the nature of gender.
In 1965, eight-month-old baby Bruce Reimer, born in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, was circumcised along with his twin brother Brian. However, due to an error by the surgeon who performed the operation, the boy's penis was completely damaged.
John Money, to whom the child’s parents turned to for advice, advised them a “simple” way out of a difficult situation: change the sex of the child and raise him as a girl until he grew up and began to experience complexes about his male inadequacy. So Bruce became Brenda. The unfortunate parents had no idea that their child was involved in a cruel experiment: John Money had long been looking for an opportunity to prove that gender is determined not by nature, but by upbringing, and Bruce became the ideal object of observation.
The boy's testicles were removed, and then for several years Mani published reports in scientific journals about the "successful" development of his experimental subject. “It is absolutely clear that the child behaves like an active little girl and her behavior is strikingly different from the boyish behavior of her twin brother,” the scientist assured.
However, both family at home and teachers at school noted typical boyish behavior and biased perceptions in the child. The worst thing was that the parents, who were hiding the truth from their son and daughter, experienced severe emotional stress. As a result, the mother became suicidal, the father became an alcoholic, and the twin brother was constantly depressed.
When Bruce-Brenda reached adolescence, he was given estrogen to stimulate breast growth, and then the psychologist began to insist on a new operation, during which Brenda would have to form female genitalia.
However, at the age of 14, Bruce-Brenda's parents revealed the whole truth. After this conversation, he flatly refused to have the operation and stopped coming to see Mani. Three suicide attempts followed one after another. The last of them ended in a coma for him, but he recovered and began the fight to return to a normal existence - as a man.
Bruce changed his name to David, cut his hair and began wearing men's clothes. In 1997, he underwent a series of reconstructive surgeries to restore the physical characteristics of his gender. He also married a woman and adopted her three children. However, there was no happy ending: in May 2004, after breaking up with his wife, David Reimer committed suicide at the age of 38.
Dr. Money published a series of articles in which he recognized the experiment as an obvious success.
Afterword or “Fiddler in the Subway”
In conclusion, I would like to note that not all social experiments are as terrible as those discussed above. The fact is that often during the experiment the most important part of a person is affected - his soul, which, as we know, is obscure to us. And it is impossible to predict how a person will behave in one case or another.
However, there are other, more “humane” social experiments. I want to tell you about one of them at the end of my report. It's called "Fiddler in the Subway."
This experiment was conducted on January 12, 2007 at the initiative of The Washington Post newspaper as part of a study on people's perception, taste and priorities. At one of the metro stations a man sat down and began to play the violin. Over the course of 45 minutes he played 6 pieces. During this time, since it was rush hour, more than a thousand people passed by, most of whom were on their way to work.
The musician received the most attention from a three-year-old boy. His mother hurriedly led him along, but the boy stopped to look at the violinist. This situation was repeated with several other children. All parents, without exception, did not allow them to stay even for a minute.
During the 45 minutes of play, only 6 people stopped briefly and listened, another 20, without stopping, threw money. The musician's earnings amounted to $32.
None of the passersby knew that the violinist was Joshua Bell - one of the best musicians in the world. He played some of the most complex pieces ever written, and his instrument was a $3.5 million Stradivarius violin. Two days before the subway performance, his concert in Boston, where the average ticket price was $100, was sold out.
University of the Russian Academy of Education
Cherepovets branch
Faculty of Economics and Law
Abstract on the discipline "sociology"
Topic: “Social experiments”
Completed by a student
3rd year groups
Smirnova Yu.V.
Checked by the teacher
Pogorely A.P.
Grade___________
Cherepovets 2009
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..3
- Definition and types of experiment………………………………………………………..5
- Multivariate and factorial experiments…………………………………………….….7
- Application of random control groups in psychology………………………….…..9
- Milgram experiment (obedience phenomenon)………………………………….……..11
- Stanford Prison Experiment…………………………………………………………….14
Conclusion……………………………………………………………...…………………………………….16
References………………………………………………………………………………...18
Introduction
One of the most unique and difficult to master methods of collecting sociological information is experimentation. An experiment is an experimental study of the impact of a single factor (or several factors) on a variable of interest to the researcher. An experimental study is constructed in accordance with the rules of inductive inference about the presence of a cause-and-effect relationship between events, firstly, demonstrating the regular nature of the occurrence of a “response” event after a previous event-impact and, secondly, excluding through special methods of experimental isolation and control for alternative explanations for the emergence of the “response” through extraneous influences and competing causal hypotheses. Accordingly, data from an experimental study represent the best approximation to a model of statistical inference about the existence of a causal relationship between an exposure and a “response” or, in more familiar terms, between an independent and a dependent variable.
The expression “social experimentation” appeared in the first half of the 19th century. French sociologist Auguste Comte applied it to natural disturbances of social order, such as avalanches and floods. British political economists John Stuart Mill and George Cornwall Lewis spoke of government legislation as a "social experiment." Comte, Mill and Lewis, however, denied the possibility of scientific experiment with people. As Lewis wrote about it, deliberate experimentation is inapplicable to man because it would mean "to ruin his life, to attack his feelings, or at least to disturb and impose restrictions on him." The expression "social experiment" was a metaphor borrowed from the natural sciences to describe those events that disrupt the normal state of affairs. This metaphor meant that observing events that disrupt the normal order could shed light on the natural state of society. In no way was it intended that researchers should conduct such destructive social experiments. Thus, the expression “social experimentation” did not yet imply any special methodological rules.
The expression “social experimentation” acquired a different meaning when views on public management changed. In the last decades of the 19th century. extreme poverty and the generally miserable condition of workers in the industrial countries of Europe and America gave rise to a large-scale movement for centralized public administration. An administration was created at different levels of society management in charge of planning and implementing innovations. This turn toward bureaucratic dominance led to a strengthening of the relationship between management and the social sciences. Moreover, he contributed to changing the very type of knowledge obtained in the social sciences.
In 1917, American sociologist F. S. Chapin published two articles in which he argued that the expression meant “the deliberate interference of some people in groups of other people.” In addition, a social experiment must be scientific, that is, some reasons must vary in it while other factors remain unchanged. Chapin, however, admitted that this has not yet been done. He believed that in the future it would hardly be possible to control all conditions, such as racial differences, political views and living standards.
1. Definition and types of experiment
The experimental method came to the social sciences from the natural sciences, where, starting around the 17th century, it became the main way of experimentally testing scientific theories. The most popular type of experiment in the exact sciences was and remains a laboratory experiment, which has also become widespread in the sciences of human behavior.
A laboratory, or true, experiment is aimed at testing a theoretical hypothesis and is carried out under conditions of maximum control over the level of influence of an independent variable and purification (isolation) of this influence from extraneous influences exerted by external, i.e., irrelevant from the point of view of the hypothesis being tested, variables. Experimental control and isolation make it possible to reject other possible explanations for the observed effect - competitive hypotheses. An important condition for the validity and validity of the results obtained in a laboratory experiment is the possibility of a sufficiently reliable measurement of the dependent variable. In this case, with an infinite number of tests, the results of inevitable random disturbances in the dependent variable will “cancel” each other and the researcher will receive an accurate estimate of the effect of interest.
In the social sciences, it is customary to distinguish from a laboratory experiment a field experiment conducted in natural conditions and in most cases aimed not so much at testing a scientific hypothesis about the causal relationship between variables, but at assessing the effectiveness of various programs or methods of influence.
Social experimentation is as typical of many applied sociological studies focused on the development and evaluation of social programs as laboratory experiments are typical of social psychology or the sociology of small groups. Social experimentation makes it possible to answer a wide variety of questions related primarily to the sphere of practical politics and administration - for example, how does the abolition of the death penalty affect crime rates, does museum attendance increase when admission prices decrease, does an increase in remuneration in all cases lead to an increase in labor productivity, etc.
For example, in a study of the impact of the children's television series Sesame Street on the cultural and intellectual development of American preschoolers, a field experiment involved children and parents living in cities (Boston, Durham, Phoenix), as well as in rural areas of California and Philadelphia. In the experiment, children and their parents were encouraged to watch the series (independent variable) while recording changes in preschoolers' cognitive development using achievement tests and general development tests (dependent variables). A two-year field experiment demonstrated a significant learning effect associated with watching the series, especially evident in a group of children from disadvantaged families.
Field experimentation is a leading method for practice-oriented evaluation research.
Sometimes researchers conduct experiments in conditions that simulate reality or even present some features of the real situation in an exaggerated, “purified” form. R. Gottsdanker proposed to distinguish between two types of field experiments - experiments that duplicate the real world (i.e., the already described “natural” experiments), and experiments that improve the real world. Experiments that improve the real world primarily improve the validity and reliability of the data. .
In a laboratory experiment, the validity of the conclusions of an experimental study, i.e. their validity and reliability are ensured thanks to three principles of experimental design:
1) control over the level of the independent variable;
2) isolating the main effect (i.e., the actual impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable) from the influence of extraneous, confounding factors;
3) repeated reproduction of the obtained results, which allows you to level out random changes in the results of individual tests associated with unsystematic background fluctuations, random errors, fatigue, etc.
At the same time, the first two principles of planning a laboratory experiment make it possible to ensure validity as the correspondence of the experiment to its purpose, the measurement of exactly the effect that was supposed to be measured. The third principle ensures the reliability of the results - protection from random error, which is a necessary condition for validity. However, most experiments in the social sciences (as, indeed, in a number of engineering disciplines or agrobiology) occur in conditions where the listed principles cannot be fully implemented. The restrictions that arise here are of a technical, and sometimes more fundamental, nature.
When planning a specific experimental study, the described principles are embodied in the development of a plan, or design, of an experiment that determines the order in which subjects (or their groups) are presented with various levels (conditions) of an independent variable in order to adequately test the experimental hypothesis.
The famous English statistician R. Fisher was the first to justify the possibility of using a slightly different approach to planning field experiments, laboratory experiments with incomplete control, as well as quasi-experiments. This approach is based on the targeted use of the laws of chance and probability theory. It requires the introduction of the principle of randomization into experimental planning.
In the media you can often find the opinion that residents of developed countries are especially compassionate and attentive to their neighbors. The participants in this experiment decided to check whether this was actually true. In the frame there is a street of one of the world's largest capitals, winter cold and a freezing little tramp. Will there be any of the hurrying passers-by who will stop and help him?
2. Stealing from a beggar
In this video, the authors test random passers-by for honesty. To do this, they placed a sleeping beggar on one of the alleys of the park, and near him, on a cardboard, quite large bills. For most people, this made no difference and they continued tossing their coins. However, there were also those who wanted to steal money from the poor, so the social experiment ended in a real chase.
3. Rescue of a suicide
One of the most exciting stories on this list. It begins with a man in a terribly depressed mood getting into a taxi and starting to complain to the driver about his life. Driving along one of the bridges, he asks the driver to stop and gets out with the clear intention of committing suicide. The driver's reaction is amazing and touching to the point of tears.
4. Child in the car
What will happen to a small child if he is left in a locked car under the scorching rays of the sun? The answer is obvious. However, almost none of the people passing by took the time to save the baby from danger. In almost ten hours of the experiment, only two people decided to make a desperate attempt to break into someone else's car.
5. Have sex with a stranger
There is an opinion that a real man is always ready for love, especially if such a charming girl offers it. A reality check shatters this claim. Not all of the hundred guys surveyed in this experiment showed a willingness to immediately follow a stranger like that. The video is quite long, but at the end you will see the final score.
6. Violence on the street
Almost every person at least once in his life has found himself in a situation where he sees some kind of blatant injustice in front of him. At such moments, one half of him wants to intervene, while the other urges him to turn away and not look for unnecessary problems for himself. The authors of this video decided to check what decision the residents of the Swedish capital would make if several guys started beating a child in front of their eyes.
Of course, not all of the experiments presented above have scientific value and representative results. But they definitely make you think about modern society and human relationships. And this is the first step towards trying to become better, change your life and look at the people around you in a new way.
One of the widespread general scientific methods of cognition is experiment. It began to be used in the natural sciences of the New Age, in the works of G. Galileo (1564-1642). For the first time, the idea of using experiment in the study of society was expressed by P. Laplace (1749-1827), but only in the 20s of the 20th century did it become quite widespread in social research. The need to use a social experiment arises in cases where it is necessary to solve problems related to determining how this or that social group will react to the inclusion in its usual situation of certain factors leading to a change in this situation. It follows that the task of a social experiment is to measure indicators
the reaction of the group being studied to certain factors that are new to the normal situation of its daily activities in artificially created and controlled conditions by the researcher.
Thus, the implementation of a social experiment presupposes a change in the current situation in which the community of people under study operates and a certain subordination of certain types of activities of this community to the goals of the experiment itself. Therefore, the use of experiment in social life and in the social sciences has stricter boundaries than in the natural sciences. The limits of its applicability are determined, firstly, by the fact that a social system can, without harm to itself, accept the invasion of new factors of an experimental nature only if they do not violate the natural interdependencies and normal functioning of this system as an organic integrity. Secondly, not all aspects of people’s life in certain social situations can be subjected to experimental actions, since in any of these aspects, along with the objective side, independent of the consciousness and will of people, there is a subjective factor, conditioned by consciousness and emotions, that actually operates , will, interests, needs, aspirations of people. Therefore, when conducting a social experiment, one has to take into account the interests and aspirations of people. Thirdly, the content, structure and procedure of a social experiment are also determined by the legal and moral norms functioning in society.
What is an experiment in sociology?
A sociological experiment is a method of researchniya, which allows you to obtain information about the quantitative andqualitative change in the performance indicators of the subject being studiedsocial object as a result of the impact on it of introducedor new factors modified by the experimenter and controlled (managed) by him.
Typically, this procedure is carried out by the experimenter’s intervention in the natural course of events by including new, purposefully chosen or artificially created controlled conditions into a usually existing situation, leading to a change in this situation or to the creation of a new, previously non-existent situation, which makes it possible to record the compliance or inconsistency of the changed conditions and actions
the group being studied by a preliminary assumption. Therefore, the experiment tests hypotheses about the causal relationships of the phenomena, processes and events under study.
A sociological experiment is based on the development of a certain hypothetical model the phenomenon or process being studied. The latter highlights the main interrelated parameters and their connections with other phenomena and processes. Based on the use of this model, the social object under study is described as an integral system of variables, among which stands out independent variable (experimental factor), whose action is subject to the control and control of the experimenter and which acts as a hypothetical cause of certain changes in dependent variable (non-experimentalfactor). Non-experimental variables are the properties, relationships, interdependencies of the social system being studied, which are essential for its functioning, but do not depend on the conditions and factors specifically introduced into this system by the experimenter.
As independent variables in a sociological experiment, various aspects of the production activity of a team can be selected (for example, illumination or gas pollution of the premises), methods of influencing workers - encouragement, punishment, the content of joint activities - production, research, political, sociocultural, etc., type leadership - democratic, permissive, totalitarian, etc.
The dependent variables studied in a sociological experiment are usually individual knowledge, skills, motives of activity, group opinions, values, behavioral stereotypes, quality of work activity, activity of economic, political, religious behavior, etc. Since these types of characteristics are most often negative, i.e. amenable to direct detection and quantitative measurement, the researcher, in the process of preparing for a sociological experiment, preliminarily determines a system of signs by which he will monitor changes in the characteristics of the dependent variables.
The independent variable in a sociological experiment must be chosen in such a way that it can be observed and measured relatively easily. Quantitative measurement of non-
a dependent variable implies a numerical fixation of its intensity (for example, room illumination) or the effectiveness of its impact (for example, punishment or reward). A sociological experiment as a specific research procedure has a certain structure. Its main components are as follows
Experimenter- this is a researcher or (much more often) a group of researchers who develop a theoretical model of an experiment and carry out the experiment in practice.
Experimental factor or independent variable- a condition or group of conditions that are introduced into the situation (activity) under study by a sociologist. An independent variable will be controlled and controlled by the experimenter if its direction and intensity of action, qualitative and quantitative characteristics are implemented within the framework of the experiment program.
Experimental situation- such a situation that is deliberately created by the researcher in accordance with the experimental program and in which the experimental factor is not included.
Experimental object - This is a group of people or a social community that finds itself in experimental conditions resulting from a programmatic setting for conducting a sociological experiment.
Organizing and conducting a sociological experiment includes several stages (Fig. 70).
First stage- theoretical At this stage, the experimenter formulates the problem field of the study, determines its object and subject, experimental tasks and research hypotheses. The object of research is certain social groups and communities. When determining the subject of research, the purpose and objectives of the experiment, the main characteristics of the object being studied are taken into account, and the ideal prototype of the experimental situation under study is projected in symbols and signs.
The second stage - methodological - represents the developmentBottom of the experiment program. The most important components of this program are: constructing research methods, defining its procedures, formulating a plan for creating an experimental situation.
It is important typology social experiments, which are carried out for various reasons. Depending on object And subject Research distinguishes between economic, sociological, legal, psychological, and environmental experiments. For example, a legal experiment is a preliminary test, verification of the effectiveness and efficiency of the application of a new normative provision (a separate norm or a normative act as a whole, a legislative form) in order to experimentally identify both the possible advantages and negative consequences of the new provision in a certain area of legal regulation public life.
By character experimental situation, experiments in sociology are divided into field and laboratory, controlled and uncontrolled (natural).
Field a sociological experiment is a type of experimental research in which the influence of an experimental factor on the social object being studied occurs in a real social situation while maintaining the usual characteristics and connections of this object (production team, student group, political organization, etc.). A classic experiment of this type is the famous research conducted under the leadership of the famous American sociologist E. Mayo in 1924-1932. at the Hawthorne factories near Chicago (USA), whose initial goal was to identify the relationship between changes in the intensity of lighting in industrial premises and labor productivity (the so-called Hawthorpe experimentment). The result of the first stage of the experiment was unexpected, since with increasing illumination, labor productivity increased not only among the workers in the experimental group, who worked in a more illuminated room, but also in the control group, where the illumination remained the same. When the illumination began to be reduced, production still continued to increase in both the experimental and control groups. At this stage, two important conclusions were made: 1) there is no direct mechanical connection between one variable in working conditions and productivity; 2) it is necessary to look for more important factors, hidden from the researchers who organized the experiment, that determine people’s work behavior, including their productivity. On the after-
During the first stages of this experiment, various conditions were used as an independent variable (experimental factor): room temperature, humidity, increased material incentives, etc., up to the group cohesion of people included in the experiment. As a result, it turned out that, firstly, working conditions affect the work behavior of individuals not directly, but indirectly, through the so-called “group spirit”, i.e. through their feelings, perceptions, attitudes, through group cohesion, and, secondly, that interpersonal relationships and group cohesion in production conditions have a beneficial effect on labor efficiency.
The enormous theoretical and methodological significance of the Hawthorne experiment for the further development of sociology lies in the fact that it led, firstly, to a revision of the role and significance of material and subjective, human factors in the development of production; secondly, it made it possible to identify not only open functions and their role in production (in particular, the role of material conditions of work), but also hidden, latent functions that had previously eluded the attention of researchers and production organizers (the role of “group spirit”); thirdly, it led to an understanding of the importance of informal organization (group cohesion of a team of workers) in the socio-economic life of the production system; fourthly, it laid the foundation for the development of one of the most important areas of Western sociology - the so-called theory of “human relations”.
According to the degree of researcher activity, field experiments are divided into controlled and natural ones. In case of controlled In an experiment, the researcher has a relationship between the factors that together constitute a social object and the conditions of its functioning, and then introduces an independent variable as a hypothetical cause of expected future changes. This is exactly how the Hawthorne experiment began, in which the initial independent variable was the variability of the illumination of the rooms in which the group of workers participating in the experiment worked.
Natural experiment is a type of field experiment in which the researcher does not select and
does not prepare an independent variable (experimental factor) and does not interfere with the course of events. If, for example, an enterprise is being corporatized, then this event can be used for research purposes. Before its implementation, the indicators of interest to the sociologist are recorded (work efficiency, salary level, the nature of production and interpersonal relations of workers, etc.). They are compared with similar indicators that appeared after corporatization, and are also compared with the dynamics of changes in a similar enterprise that has not undergone transformation. A natural experiment has the advantage that the element of artificiality in it is reduced to a minimum, and if the preparation for it is carried out carefully and thoughtfully, then the purity and reliability of the conclusions obtained as a result of its implementation have a high degree of reliability.
Laboratory An experiment is a type of experimental research in which an experimental factor is put into effect in an artificial situation created by the researcher. The artificiality of the latter lies in the fact that the object under study is transferred to it from its usual, natural | a new environment in an environment that allows one to escape from random factors and increase the possibility of more accurately recording variables. As a result, the entire situation under study becomes more repeatable and manageable. However, when conducting a laboratory experiment, a sociologist may encounter various kinds of difficulties. This is, first of all, the unusualness of the laboratory environment itself, the presence of instruments, the presence and active action of the experimenter, as well as the awareness by the object of the experiment (the subject) of the artificiality of the situation specially created for the purpose of research. To minimize the negative impact of these difficulties, it is necessary to provide clear instructions to all participants in the experiment, with special emphasis on the requirement that all participants receive a clear and precise task for their actions and that they all understand it in the same way.
According to the nature of the object and subject of research, the characteristics of the procedures used, they distinguish real And mental experiments.
Real experiment is a type of experimental research activity that is carried out
takes place in the sphere of functioning of a real social object through the influence of the experimenter through the introduction of an independent variable (experimental factor) into a situation that actually exists and is familiar to the community under study. A striking example of such activity is the Hawthorne experiment we described.
Mental experiment is a specific type of experiment conducted not in social reality, but on the basis of information about social phenomena and processes. Recently, an increasingly widely used form of mental experimentation is the manipulation of mathematical models of social processes, carried out with the help of computers. A distinctive feature of such experiments is their multifactorial nature, in which the experimenter has the opportunity to simultaneously vary the values of not just one experimental factor he introduces, but a whole complex of such factors. This allows us to pose and solve problems of a comprehensive study of complex social processes and move from the level of description to the level of explanation, and then to a theory that allows forecasting.
The most interesting example of this type of thought experiment is the development in the mid-60s of the 20th century by R. Sisson and R. Ackoff of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (USA) of the quantitative theory of escalation and de-escalation of social conflicts. The authors of this concept developed several mental experimental situations in which they used as experimental factors several indicators used in the scientific literature that characterize the escalation of an armed conflict. They are:
obvious destruction or lack thereof;
the monetary value of the resources (materials and people) involved in the creation and use of destruction systems, plus the obvious losses of the conflicting parties;
the overall destructive power of the weapon capable of hitting the geographic area in question;
average destructive power relative to the area of the area under consideration;
a complex indicator characterizing the possible state: a) there are no weapons in the area under consideration; b) it
Yes, but not ready for use; c) weapons are in the troops and are ready for use: d) sporadic use of weapons; e) its constant use; f) full mobilization of all resources available to the country; g) nuclear war.
The very list of variables used in this study shows that it is impossible to conduct this kind of experiments with the escalation and de-escalation of armed conflicts in the laboratory, and in natural conditions one cannot run the risk of increasing the conflict with experimental manipulations. Consequently, neither real nor laboratory versions of a social experiment are applicable here; only a thought experiment remains possible.
In the process of preparing and implementing the thought experiment, R. Sisson and R. Ackoff first developed a theoretical experimental situation (a kind of “artificial reality”), relatively complex, but at the same time open to simplification, so that it satisfies the following conditions:
made it possible to test a large number of hypotheses regarding the real social processes being studied (in this case, the dynamics of a major armed conflict);
provided a clear and precise formulation of the experimental variables characterizing the situation, their units of measurement and the nature of the simplification of the real situation;
was amenable to quantitative description of the warring parties;
made it possible to mentally divide the situation being studied into simpler experimental situations, if possible those with which experiments had already been carried out, or those most corresponding to them.
An experimental situation that satisfies these conditions is used by the authors not as a model of reality, but rather as a reality that is being modeled, hence its name - “artificial reality”. Experiments are carried out with the constituent parts of "artificial reality", each of which has its own "history", which is again created through mental experimentation. Then a “microtheory” is developed for each of these parts and its “history”, and then, based on a generalization of the features common to these particular “stories”, a macrotheory of “artificial reality” is created. The macroterritory Ti obtained in this way is modified by theoretical
some approximation to the actually existing reality, as a result of which a macrotheory of the second level arises - T%, allowing you to get a picture of the conflict situation that is closer to reality. This T2 theory is tested on the “history” of the development of the reality it reflects and develops into a metatheory that can bring researchers closer to the creation of a generalized sociological theory of real social conflicts in all their complexity and versatility. The general panorama of the development of this concept based on the use of a whole series of such thought experiments is shown in Fig. 71.
One type of thought experiment is "ex-post factum" - experiment. When conducting this type of experiment, the researcher proceeds from the fact that the assumed causal relationship between the phenomena and processes under study has already been realized, and the research itself is aimed at collecting and analyzing data about the events that took place, the conditions and the supposed reasons for their occurrence. In its orientation, an “ex-post facto” experiment means the movement of research thought from the past to the present. It was this experiment that was used as one of the components of a series of thought experiments carried out by R. Sisson and R. Ackoff in order to develop a concept of the dynamics of variables leading to the escalation of social conflict with the use of armed violence.
Depending on the specifics of solving the problem, experiments are divided into scientific and applied. Scientific an experiment is aimed at testing and confirming a hypothesis containing new scientific data that has not yet received its confirmation, and therefore has not yet been proven. An example of this kind of experiment is the already described mental operations that led R. Sisson and R. Ackoff to develop the concept of social variables leading to the escalation of conflict. Applied the experiment is aimed at carrying out real experimental manipulations in the field of socio-economic, political and other activities and is aimed at obtaining a real practical effect, which is typical, for example, for the first stage of the famous Hawthorne experiment, which aimed to find out the extent of the influence of the intensity of the production premises on the productivity of workers .
According to the specifics of the factors (independent variables) used in the study, experiments are divided into one-fac-torn And multifactorial. An example of a one-factor experiment is the study of the real distribution of relationships, affection, sympathy and antipathy between its members in a student or student group based on the laboratory application of the sociometric method. An example of a multifactorial experiment can be the already described Hawthorne experiment in its second and third stages, when a whole range of factors influencing the production activities of enterprise employees was studied.
Based on the nature of the logical structure of evidence for the initial hypotheses, parallel and sequential experiments are distinguished. Parallel experiment is a type of research activity in which an experimental and control group are distinguished, and the proof of the hypothesis is based on a comparison of the states of the two social objects under study (experimental and control) in the same time period. In this case, an experimental group is called a group on which the researcher influences an independent variable (experimental factor), i.e. the one in which the experiment is actually carried out. The control group is the group that is identical to the first in its main characteristics (size, composition, etc.) to be studied, which is not influenced by the experimental factors introduced by the researcher into the situation being studied, i.e., in which the experiment does not held. Comparison of state, activity, value orientations, etc. both of these groups and makes it possible to find evidence of the hypothesis put forward by the researcher about the influence of the experimental factor on the state of the object being studied.
An interesting example of a parallel experiment is a laboratory study conducted in 1981 by R. Linden and K. Fillmore on the factors of deviant behavior among Canadian students in the city of Edmont in the province of Alberta in Western Canada. It turned out that in the experimental group of students, low adaptability to the social situation and the presence of an environment of test friends who were delinquents contributed to a wider spread of deviant behavior. In parallel, using the same methodology, the same problem was studied in the control group, which was posed by mountain students. Richmond in
state of Virginia in the Southeastern United States. A comparison of the results obtained at approximately the same time in two groups - experimental and control, of students living in different cities of two different countries, allowed R. Linden and K. Fillmore to conclude that the factors of deviant behavior of students studied in one of the modern post-industrial countries are identical for other countries of the same type - not only for Canada and the USA, but also for France, Germany, Japan.
Consistent the experiment does without a specially designated control group. The same group acts in it as a control group before the introduction of an independent variable and as an experimental group - after the independent variable (experimental factor) has had the intended effect on it. In such a situation, the proof of the initial hypothesis is based on a comparison of two states of the object under study at different times: before and after the influence of the experimental factor.
In addition, according to the specifics of the problem being solved, projective and retrospective experiments are distinguished in the study of the problem. Projective an experiment is aimed at bringing a certain picture of the future into reality: the researcher, by introducing an experimental factor acting as a cause into the flow of events, projects the onset of certain consequences. For example, by introducing a new management factor into the predicted events in an experimental situation (say, wider delegation of management powers along the hierarchical ladder from top to bottom), the researcher expects the emergence of new consequences that are desirable for the better functioning of a given organization - improving the quality of decisions, democratizing the procedure for making and implementing them. Retrospective the experiment is aimed at the past: when performing it, the researcher analyzes information about past events, tries to test hypotheses about the causes that caused the effects that have already occurred or are occurring. If a real experiment is always projective, then a mental experiment can be both projective and retrospective, which was clearly demonstrated in a series of experiments conducted by R. Sisson and R. Ackoff. The typology of social experiments is shown in Fig. 72
In the process of carrying out social experiments, the researcher, as a rule, receives a lot of different data! as we showed in the above examples, a number of rie-i time and factors that cause various consequences in the social phenomena and processes under study. Therefore, the ordering of the obtained empirical material and the classification of the results obtained, which must be carried out before the logical analysis and theoretical generalization of the obtained material, becomes important. The results of ordered and classified experimental data, most often calculated using computers, are presented in the form of tables or graphs. In order to draw correct conclusions from their analysis, it is necessary to take into account the extent to which the resulting causal relationship between the factors under study goes beyond the scope of the experiment itself, i.e. in other words, to what extent the findings can be extended to other social objects and the conditions of their functioning. Consequently, we are talking about how general the cause-and-effect relationships identified in the experiment can be. With a small number of experiments, one can only J outline the relationship being studied and preferably judge its nature | and direction. Only repeated, or even better -; repeated experimentation makes it possible to identify conditions; precise cause-and-effect relationships, and therefore obtain ■ reliable scientific or practically significant results from; experiments performed. This is clearly seen from the several stages of the Hawthorn experiments, which were carried out over almost 9 years, but which enabled E. Mayo, * T. Turner, W. Warner, T. Whitehead and other researchers to obtain not only practically significant , but also theoretically significant results.
Experimental conditions can range from completely artificial to completely natural. It is obvious that empirical data obtained in a laboratory experiment, where the effects of all variables except the experimental variable selected by the researcher are neutralized if possible, can be adequate only for such conditions. In this case, the results of the experiment cannot be unconditionally and completely transferred to natural situations, where the
In addition to the experimental factor used by the researcher, many other factors influence the dependent variable. If we are talking about a well-organized natural experiment, for example, about a field experiment, then the conclusions obtained in natural conditions and situations common to the individuals and groups being studied can be extended to a larger class of similar situations, therefore, the level of generality of the results obtained will be higher, and the adequacy of the conclusions is more evidential and real.
To increase the possibility of extending the conclusions obtained in the experiment beyond the experimental situation, it is necessary that the experimental group be representative, i.e. in their composition, social status, methods of activity, etc. reproduced the basic parameters and significant elements of a broader social community. It is the representativeness of the experimental group that provides the basis for extending the results and conclusions obtained in the experimental study to other social objects.
The use of an experiment in sociological research is associated with a number of difficulties that in some cases do not allow achieving the purity of the experiment, since the influence of additional variables or random factors on the experimental factors is not always taken into account. In addition, a social experiment, to one degree or another, affects the interests of specific people, and therefore certain ethical problems arise in its organization, and this narrows the scope of the experiment and requires increased responsibility from sociologists in its preparation and implementation.
An experiment in sociological research is often organically connected with observation. But if observation is used primarily to formulate hypotheses, then a social experiment is focused on testing the formulated hypotheses, since it allows one to establish cause-and-effect dependencies within the social objects being studied and (or) in their connections with other objects.
The significance of an experiment in sociological research is determined by the fact that, firstly, it allows one to obtain new knowledge about the social objects being studied, and secondly, it makes it possible to confirm or refute the proposed research.
bodies of the hypothesis, thirdly, it allows one to obtain practically significant results that can be implemented in order to increase the efficiency of the functioning of the object being studied; fourthly, it gives researchers the opportunity to study not only previously known, explicit functions of the object being studied, but also latent functions that were not previously manifested or hidden from the attention of specialists, and, finally, fifthly, it opens up a new social space for researchers with its results for the formulation and substantiation of new theoretical concepts for the development of certain spheres, phenomena and processes of social reality.
Questions for self-control and repetition
What is the essence of a sociological experiment?
What are the independent variable (experimental factor) and dependent variable in an experiment?
What is the structure of a social experiment?
What stages does a social experiment involve?
What types of social experiments do you know?
What are the features of a field experiment" 7
What are the features and significance of a thought experiment?
What determines the significance of an experiment in sociological research?
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