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Related Concept Videos

Blind Procedures02:07

Blind Procedures

Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
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The most basic experimental design involves two groups: the experimental group and the control group. The two groups are designed to be the same except for one difference— experimental manipulation. The experimental group gets the experimental manipulation—that is, the treatment or variable being tested—and the control group does not. Since experimental manipulation is the only difference between the experimental and control groups, we can be sure that any differences between the two are due to...
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Blinding is a commonly used method of not telling participants which treatment a subject is receiving. Blinding is a critical part of a randomized control trial or RCT. It reduces the bias that affects the results. In an RCT, blinding is used in the form of a placebo. A placebo effect occurs when untreated subjects falsely believe they have received the treatment and report improved symptoms. A placebo or a dummy treatment is administered to subjects to negate the bias caused by such an effect.
What is an Experiment?01:12

What is an Experiment?

An experiment is a planned activity carried out under controlled conditions. The purpose of an experiment is to investigate the relationship between two variables. When one variable causes change in another, we call the first variable the explanatory or independent variable. The affected variable is called the response or dependent variable. In a randomized experiment, the researcher manipulates values of the explanatory variable and measures the resulting changes in the response variable. The...
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Bioequivalence experimental study designs play a pivotal role in testing the effectiveness of various treatments. Key among these are the repeated measures, cross-over, carry-over, and Latin square designs. In the repeated measures design, each subject receives all treatments, allowing for temporal comparisons. This type of design is useful in reducing variability but requires careful planning to avoid bias.The cross-over design, an economical method, involves sequential administration of...
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A Within-Subject Experimental Design using an Object Location Task in Rats
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Experimental subjects are not different.

Filippos Exadaktylos1, Antonio M Espín, Pablo Brañas-Garza

  • 1BELIS, Murat Sertel Center for Advanced Economic Studies, İstanbul Bilgi University, Santral Campus, İstanbul 34060, Turkey.

Scientific Reports
|February 23, 2013
PubMed
Summary

University students participating in economic games are a suitable subject pool for studying human social behavior, according to this research. Findings indicate their behavior aligns with the general population.

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Area of Science:

  • Behavioral Economics
  • Social Psychology
  • Experimental Economics

Background:

  • Economic games are increasingly used to study human social behavior.
  • Concerns exist regarding potential biases from using exclusively university student volunteers in these studies.
  • This research addresses the representativeness of student subject pools in social behavior experiments.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether university students are a representative subject pool for economic game experiments.
  • To analyze the impact of student status and voluntary participation on social preferences.
  • To compare the behavior of self-selected students with a representative population sample.

Main Methods:

  • Conducted a survey-experiment with a representative city population sample (N=765).
  • Collected behavioral data from five decisions across dictator, ultimatum, and trust games.
  • Analyzed data to differentiate the effects of being a student versus a volunteer.

Main Results:

  • Self-selected students (students who volunteered) did not significantly differ in behavior from the representative population when controlling for other factors.
  • Student status alone did not systematically bias social preference results compared to non-students.
  • Voluntary participation did not introduce significant bias in the studied social behaviors.

Conclusions:

  • The study suggests that university students, often used in economic games, are an appropriate subject pool for research on social behavior.
  • Findings support the validity of using self-selected student samples in many social science experiments.
  • The representativeness of student volunteers is validated under specific experimental conditions.