The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

40 Chapter 2

researcher could design a study in which

children in day care are compared to children

at home in terms of the number of days they

are sick in a year. Because the children at day

care will be exposed to more germs, they will

experience more sick days the first year than

children at home. In this case, the experiment-

er’s theory about mothers’ paid employment

being harmful to children will be supported.

However, another experimenter may believe

mothers’ paid employment is beneficial to

children. This experimenter examines the

reading level of kindergartners and finds that

children whose mothers worked outside the

home have higher reading levels than chil-

dren whose mothers did not work outside the

home. The problem here: The mothers who

worked outside the home were more highly

educated than the mothers who worked

inside the home, and this education may have

been transmitted to the children. In both

cases, the experimenter’s preexisting beliefs

influenced the way the study was designed to

answer the question.

Most scientists are very interested in

the phenomenon they study and have expec-

tations about the results of their work. In an

area as controversial as gender, it is difficult

to find a scientist who does not have a belief

about the outcome of the study. It is all right

to have an expectation, or hypothesis, based

on scientific theory, but we must be cautious

Experimenter Effects

Experimenter effectsrefer to the ways the

experimenter, or the person conducting the

research, can influence the results of a study.

A review of studies on sex differences in

leadership style showed that the sex of the

author influenced the results (van Engen &

Willemsen, 2004). It turned out that male au-

thors were more likely than female authors to

report that women used a more conventional

style of leadership that involved monitoring

subordinates and rewarding behavior. How

can this be? One explanation is that people

published studies that fit their expectations.

Another explanation is that women experi-

menters and men experimenters designed

different kinds of studies, with one design

showing a sex difference and one not.

The experimenter can influence the out-

come of a study at many levels. Each of these

is described next and shown in Figure 2.4.

Question Asked and Study Design. First,

the experimenter can influence the outcome

of a study by the nature of the question asked

and the subsequent design of the study. For

example, a researcher could be interested in

determining the effects of women’s paid em-

ployment on children’s well-being. One re-

searcher may believe it is harmful for women

to work outside the home while they have

small children. To test this hypothesis, the

The Topic

or the

Question Asked

Study Design: Data

Collection

Data

Interpretation

Data

Selection Communication

of participants

Variables

manipulated

Variables

measured

FIGURE 2.4 Stages of the research process that can be influenced by the experimenter.

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