Ecological validity is the extent to which psychological research and experiments mirror the events of real world situations. This essay will present examples in historical and recent psychological research and evaluate the role of ecological validity in each. In doing so, other key elements to psychological research will also be approached. Firstly, this essay will look at the experiments of Bandura et al. who sought to investigate the effect of social learning and aggressive behaviour in children. This first topic will demonstrate the difficulties in achieving high ecological validity, and following this will look at the ethical concerns surrounding this research. Continuing with the topic of learning, this essay will consider the topic of
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However, it would be ethically questionable to seek a more real life demonstration of aggression. In fact, useful as the experiments were in demonstrating the potential dangerous effects of subjecting children to violent media, ethically speaking the experiments themselves could have had a detrimental effect for their future lives. After all, participants were subjected to manufactured events which were far removed from their everyday experiences. (Oates, 2012) Since such experiments, ethical templates such as the Nuremberg code ensure psychological research adhere to strict ethical standards (The Open University, 2015). This highlights the need for a balance with regard to achieving high ecological validity. Ethics are a fundamental aspect of safe psychological research and cannot be compromised in place of achieving results which are more representative of …show more content…
Starting with research on exposure to violence, experiments carried out by Bandura et al. were successful in highlighting the effect aggressive behaviour in media can have on children. Although the main concern here is the questionable ethics involved, the fact that the experiments were further criticised over how the laboratory conditions can be transferred to real world demonstrates the importance of ecological validity. Moving on to early behaviourist research, insights into animal learning are applied to human nature. In fact, the application to human understanding is the fundamental goal of the research. In this way such studies actually go further with the concept of ecological validity in that implications for the way we operate on a very basic level are proposed. Yet, even in cases where high ecological validity has been achieved, such as the live crime experiments of Loftus and Palmer, other factors have been shown to contribute to the successfulness and reliability of results. In summary, given that Psychology involves the study of human nature, ecological validity is shown be a cornerstone of reliable and valid psychological research. That being said, ethics in particular has just as important a role in successful research, and therefore a good piece of psychological research can never be judged solely on its transferability to an
However, it would be ethically questionable to seek a more real life demonstration of aggression. In fact, useful as the experiments were in demonstrating the potential dangerous effects of subjecting children to violent media, ethically speaking the experiments themselves could have had a detrimental effect for their future lives. After all, participants were subjected to manufactured events which were far removed from their everyday experiences. (Oates, 2012) Since such experiments, ethical templates such as the Nuremberg code ensure psychological research adhere to strict ethical standards (The Open University, 2015). This highlights the need for a balance with regard to achieving high ecological validity. Ethics are a fundamental aspect of safe psychological research and cannot be compromised in place of achieving results which are more representative of …show more content…
Starting with research on exposure to violence, experiments carried out by Bandura et al. were successful in highlighting the effect aggressive behaviour in media can have on children. Although the main concern here is the questionable ethics involved, the fact that the experiments were further criticised over how the laboratory conditions can be transferred to real world demonstrates the importance of ecological validity. Moving on to early behaviourist research, insights into animal learning are applied to human nature. In fact, the application to human understanding is the fundamental goal of the research. In this way such studies actually go further with the concept of ecological validity in that implications for the way we operate on a very basic level are proposed. Yet, even in cases where high ecological validity has been achieved, such as the live crime experiments of Loftus and Palmer, other factors have been shown to contribute to the successfulness and reliability of results. In summary, given that Psychology involves the study of human nature, ecological validity is shown be a cornerstone of reliable and valid psychological research. That being said, ethics in particular has just as important a role in successful research, and therefore a good piece of psychological research can never be judged solely on its transferability to an