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The experimental method is usually taken to be the most scientific of all methods, the 'method of choice'. The main problem with all the Psychodynamic Method is lack of control over the situation. The experimental method is a means of trying to overcome this problem. The experiment is sometimes described as the cornerstone of psychology: This is partly due to the central role Experimental method play in many of the physical sciences and also to psychology's historical view of itself as a science. A considerable amount of psychological research uses the experimental method. An experiment is a study of cause and effect. It differs from Psychodynamic Method; in that it involves the deliberate manipulation of one variable, while trying to keep all other variables constant.
Psychodynamic psychology, although still practiced clinically, is not one of the current major approaches to personality psychology. During the 1950's and 1960's, numerous attempts to test experimentally the claims of psychodynamic psychology failed to show any positive results. As a consequence, the field of personality psychology mostly abandoned the core theories of psychodynamics and turned to trait theoretic, humanistic, or social learning theories of personality.(Margaret, 1996)
Experimental methods are the only means by which cause and effect can be established. An experiment differs from Psychodynamic methods in that it enables us to study cause and effect because it involves the deliberate manipulation of one variable, while trying to keep all other variables constant. Sometimes the independent variable (IV) is thought of as the cause and the dependent variable (DV) as the effect. The Experimental method allows for precise control of variables. The purpose of control is to enable the experimenter to isolate the one key variable which has been selected (the IV), in order to observe its effect on some other variable (the DV); control is intended to allow us to conclude that it is the IV, and nothing else, which is influencing the DV. In the Psychodynamic method no such control is possible.
The Experimental method can be replicated. We cannot generalize from the results of a single experiment. The more often an experiment is repeated, with the same results obtained, the more confidant we can be that the theory being tested is valid. The experimental method consists of standardized procedures and measures, which allow it to be easily repeated. It is also worth noting that an experiment yields quantitative data (numerical amounts of something), which can be analyzed using inferential statistical tests. These tests permit statements to be made about how likely the results are to have occurred through chance. (Roger et all.1998)
However the experiment is not typical of real life situations. Most Experimental method is conducted in laboratories - strange and contrived environments in which people are asked to perform unusual or even bizarre tasks. The artificiality of the lab, together with the 'unnatural' things that the subjects may be asked to do, jointly produces a distortion of behavior.
Therefore it should be difficult to generalize findings from Experimental method because they are not ecologically valid (true to real life). Behavior in the laboratory is very narrow in its range. By controlling the situation so precisely, behavior may be very limited.
The Major difficulty with the experimental method is demand characteristics. Some of the many confounding variables in a psychology experiment stem from the fact that a psychology experiment is a social situation in which neither the Subjects nor the Experimenters are passive, inanimate objects but are active, thinking human beings. Imagine you've been asked to take part in a psychology experiment. Even if you didn't study psychology, you would be trying to work out what the experimenter expected to find out. Experimenters too have expectations about what their results are likely to be. Demand characteristics are all the cues, which convey to the participant the purpose of the experiment.
However it must also be noted that it is not possible to completely control all variables. There may be other variables at work, which the experimenter is unaware of. In particular, it is impossible to completely control the mental world of people taking part in a study.
A very major problem with the experimental method concerns ethics. For example, Experimental method nearly always involves deceiving participants to some extent and the very term 'subject' implies that the participant is being treated as something less than a person. Recently the use of the experimental method has come under considerable criticism for the way that researchers often break ethical guidelines.
It is also important to recognize that there are very many areas...
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