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FRAMEWORKS AND APPROACHES 413

WHO ARE PSYCHOLOGY'S SUBJECTS?

SEARS, D.a. (1986). College sophomores in the laboratory:
Influences of a narrow data base on psychology's view of
human nature.
Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology, 51,513-30.

INTRODUCTION

Psychology is regarded as the scientific study of human behaviour and

experience. It attempts to make generalisations about how people
behave, what influences that behaviour, and how people make sense of
their experience. However, in their studi es, who do psychologists use to
test their theories? There is considerable diversity in human behaviour
and experience, so is this diversity taken into account when studies are
designed and conducted?
When a study is designed, it is important to state the target popula-
tion of people under investigation which, for example, might be 'resi-
dents of Nottingham', or 'young people between the ages of 16 and 19 '.
Once we have stated the target population, we can set about selecting a
sample by whatever, usually haphazard, means we choose. A consid-
eration of our choice of sample will tell us how confident we can be
about generalising our results from the sample back to the population.
The study by Sears looks at the samples that are used in social psychol-
ogy studies, and assesses how much we can generalise about people on
the basis of these studies.

Sears reports that immediately after the Second World War (1939-45),
social psychology used a wide range of subjects in its studies and a vari-
ety of locations. The prevailing feeling was that it was important to con-
duct studies both in the field and the laboratory. However, from the
:1960s onwards, a trend developed for laboratory experiments which
sed the most available subjects - college students. Sears looked at the
major journals in social psychology for the years 1980 and 1985 to dis-
.cover what were the cha sen samples and chosen locations of the puh--
lished research. The results are shown in Table 21.4 and Figure 21.3.
414 INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH FRAMEWORKS AND APPROACHES 415

Table 21.4 Subject populations and research sites in social The table shows that the bulk of psychologicai research has been
psychology articles in 1980 and 1985 (data shown
carried out on a very narrow subject base of students, and, in particu-
in percentages)
lar, psychology students. One explanation for this might be that the
prestigious journals that Sears studied have a particular policy towards
publications that encourages authors to send in laboratory based stu-
dies. To test for this, Sears looked at other publications by the same
authors in different journals. The 1980 Psychologicai Abstracts pro-
vided 237 entries by the same authors from a wide variety of journals.
The analysis of these articles showed very few differences from the ori-
ginal analysis, and suggested that the results were not peculiar to the
mainstream journals.
Another feature to consider might be whether these types of studies
are very important in psychology. It might be that the work that has
the greatest imp act is not presented in these journals. However, Sears
describes a study by Findley & Cooper (1981) who coded the articles
cited in the most commonly used textbooks in social psychology. They
found that the overall proportion of studies that used students as sub-
jects was 73 per cent which was very similar to the publication bias
(see Table 21.4). So the curriculum of psychology courses contains the
same subject bias as the literature as a whole. Sears goes on to look at
other data which suggest that up to 1960, psychologists used adults
who were not students in about half of their studies, but since then
there has been a consistent dependence on data from students.
Sears considers whether this subject bias presents any problems for
social psychology. He notes that one of the potential hazards is the
need to test concepts that have been developed in the laboratory in a
real life setting to see if they apply. An example of this is provided by
the study of Piliavin et al., (1969, described in Chapter 1), who found
that the laboratory-developed concept of diffusion of responsibility did
not apply to their studies of bystander intervention on a New York com-
muter train.
College students are not very representative of the general popula-
tion. They come from a narrow age range and are predominantly at the
upper levels of educational background and family income. The 17 to
19-year-old young people who make up the majority of subjects in psy-
chology studies have be en shown to have a number of unique charac-
teristics which Sears summarises as follows:

(a) their self-concept is unlikely to be fully formed;

Figure 21.3 Subject populations and research sites in social psychology articles in 1980 (b) social and political attitudes are less crystallised than in later life;
416 INTRODUCING PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH FRAMEWORKS AND APPROACH ES 417

(c) theyare more egocentric than older adults; in isolation in an academic setting on academic tasks, present the
(d) they have a stronger need for peer approval; human race as composed of lone. bland, compliant wimps who spe-
(e) they have unstable peer relationships. cialise in pencil and paper tes ts. The human beillg of strong and
irrational passions, of intractable prejudices, who is solidly
AIso, college students differ systematically from other people of
embedded in tightly knit family and ethnic groups, who develops
same age:
and matures with age, is not that of contemporary psychology; it
(f) they are pre~selected for competence at cognitive skills; does not provide much room for Buch as Palestinian guerillas,
(g) theyare selected for compliance to authority; . southern Italian peasants, Winston Churchill, Idi Amin, Florence
(h) their social and geographicaI mobility leads to enhanced Nightingale. Archie Bunke1.', Ma Joad, Cla1.'ence Da1.'1.'ow;
or Martin
in peer relationships. Luther King.
(p.528)
It is difficult to disentangle the effects of the choice of subjects from
choice of Iocation. Laboratory studies seem llkeIy to have [urther
including: DISCUSSION

(1) creating a cognitive 'set' in the subjects, sioce they are often The study produced adamaging criticism of modern psychology. Not
ducted as part of the student course; surprisingly, it does not get a citation in many introductory psychoIogy
(j) creating a 'set' to comply with the authority; texts. The question it leaves us with is. 'What value are the data and the~
(k) most studies remove the student from the support of his or her ories of modern psychology?' A cynic might be incIined to dismiss much
to minimise 'contaminatiorr of the individual's responses. of psychology after reading this paper, but, on the other hand, you
might be motivated to try and evaluate the biases in the studies and
Sears provides an extensive review of modern psychology mentally adjust for them. It might also be worth speculating on the
shows how its concerns and findings have largely been led by the effects of changing the location or the subjects for a number of impo1.'~
liar features of the US undergraduate. (He comments on several of tant studies.
studies included in this text, including Schachter & Singer. 1962;
1974: Nisbett et al., 1973; Asch. 1955; and Milgram, 1963.) He
there are four main consequences for psychology:
(1) Psychology tends to view people as having a weak sense of
own preferences, emotions and abilities; they are compliant,
self-esteem is easily damaged, their attitudes are easily changed,
and they are relatively unreflective.
(2) Material self~interest, group norms, social support and re ference
grouIJ identification play little roIe in current research in the
(though some European psychology is addressing these issues).
(3) Psychology views people as dominated by cognitive processes rather
than emotional ones.
(4) Psychological theories treat people as highly egocentric.
He writes:

To caricature the point, contemporary social psychology, on the

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