Challenges in bringing the lab into the field(s)
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | In the social sciences, particularly psychology, experimental methods are often considered the gold standard for testing causal relationships. These methods enable researchers to manipulate key variables while carefully controlling for confounding factors. However, the controlled nature of laboratory environments—though useful for ensuring internal validity—often sacrifices ecological validity. Additionally, because labs are typically located in universities, the populations studied using these methods are often narrow and unrepresentative, limiting the generalizability of findings. To address these limitations, many researchers in cognitive science and cultural evolution have begun conducting experiments in the field, applying controlled methods that are sensitive to the cultural contexts they study. While these "lab-in-the-field" approaches enhance ecological validity by grounding research in real-world settings, they simultaneously introduce new challenges, particularly when it comes to making inferences about general causal processes. In this talk, I will illustrate the challenges posed by the lab-in-the-field approach on recent experimental studies on religious beliefs and behaviors that were conducted across cultures and suggest potential strategies that can help reconcile the need for both ecological validity and generalizable causal inferences in future research. |
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