2 - The Development of Experimental Sociology

Summary

The first sociological experiments have been conducted in the second and third decades of the twentieth century, accompanied by a fierce debate about the possibilities and limits of the approach, which anticipated many of the critiques currently raised against the method. The chapter traces the development of experimental research in sociology from these beginning to modern perspectives. One of the reasons for the marginal position of experimentation in sociology has been the reluctance to give up full control of potentially intervening variables (called the ex post facto method) in favor of randomization. Inspirations from social psychology and, later, economics, have finally resulted in the experimental designs that are currently used in sociology.