The Experimenting Society

The Experimenting Society
Author: William N. Dunn
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2024-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040278078

An experimenting society is one in which policy-relevant knowledge is created. It is then critically assessed and communicated in real-life or natural settings, with the aim of discovering new forms of public action to improve the problem-solving capacities of society. This latest volume of the distinguished Policy Studies Review Annual series probes, evaluates, and augments the work of Donald T. Campbell on an experimental societies. A basic assumption of this volume is that Campbell's perspective supplies a useful way to address increasingly complex and seemingly unmanageable problems facing the United States and other postindustrial societies. This volume is also the fourteenth festschrift to be issued by Transaction. The focus is on theoretical as well as practical options for creating an experimenting society. The rationale for this focus is the belief, increasingly -shared in the social science and policy-making communities alike, that researchers are essentially ignorant about how to solve many of the most pressing larger problems of this epoch. This frank recognition of ignorance is a prerequisite of genuine scientific and professional curiosity, without which knowledge gains are next to impossible to achieve, and a'precondition of an experimenting society. Contributors to this original volume include: Steve-Fuller, Duncan MacRae, Jr., Anthony S. Bryk, Robert A. Beauregard, Rita Mae Kelly, Peter Gregware, Burkart Holzner, B. Guy Peters, C. West Churchman, and Ian I. Mitroff. Their multidisciplinary competencies are at once philosophical, methodological, and substantive. They address such questions as: What new or bold policies are available in domains such as education, science, and urban development? In what ways can theoretical knowledge and practical action be fused so as to illuminate or alleviate policy problems? What should be done? Included are excerpts from Campbell's foundational paper "The Experimenting Society," as well as a recent article entitled "Methods for the Experimenting Society," which circulated in unpublished form for many years. An unusual feature of the book is Campbell's responses to those who have addressed his work with candor and intelligence. It will be of interest to policy studies scholars, sociologists, and social scientists.

Experimenting with Social Norms

Experimenting with Social Norms
Author: Jean Ensminger
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2014-10-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1610448405

Questions about the origins of human cooperation have long puzzled and divided scientists. Social norms that foster fair-minded behavior, altruism and collective action undergird the foundations of large-scale human societies, but we know little about how these norms develop or spread, or why the intensity and breadth of human cooperation varies among different populations. What is the connection between social norms that encourage fair dealing and economic growth? How are these social norms related to the emergence of centralized institutions? Informed by a pioneering set of cross-cultural data, Experimenting with Social Norms advances our understanding of the evolution of human cooperation and the expansion of complex societies. Editors Jean Ensminger and Joseph Henrich present evidence from an exciting collaboration between anthropologists and economists. Using experimental economics games, researchers examined levels of fairness, cooperation, and norms for punishing those who violate expectations of equality across a diverse swath of societies, from hunter-gatherers in Tanzania to a small town in rural Missouri. These experiments tested individuals’ willingness to conduct mutually beneficial transactions with strangers that reap rewards only at the expense of taking a risk on the cooperation of others. The results show a robust relationship between exposure to market economies and social norms that benefit the group over narrow economic self-interest. Levels of fairness and generosity are generally higher among individuals in communities with more integrated markets. Religion also plays a powerful role. Individuals practicing either Islam or Christianity exhibited a stronger sense of fairness, possibly because religions with high moralizing deities, equipped with ample powers to reward and punish, encourage greater prosociality. The size of the settlement also had an impact. People in larger communities were more willing to punish unfairness compared to those in smaller societies. Taken together, the volume supports the hypothesis that social norms evolved over thousands of years to allow strangers in more complex and large settlements to coexist, trade and prosper. Innovative and ambitious, Experimenting with Social Norms synthesizes an unprecedented analysis of social behavior from an immense range of human societies. The fifteen case studies analyzed in this volume, which include field experiments in Africa, South America, New Guinea, Siberia and the United States, are available for free download on the Foundation’s website:www.russellsage.org.

Methodology and Epistemology for Social Sciences

Methodology and Epistemology for Social Sciences
Author: Donald T. Campbell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 644
Release: 1988-10-27
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780226092485

Selections from the work of an influential contributor to the methodology of the social sciences. He treats: measurement, experimental design, epistemology, and sociology of science each section introduced by the editor, Samuel Overman. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

The Democratic Experiment

The Democratic Experiment
Author: Meg Jacobs
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2009-01-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400825822

In a series of fascinating essays that explore topics in American politics from the nation's founding to the present day , The Democratic Experiment opens up exciting new avenues for historical research while offering bold claims about the tensions that have animated American public life. Revealing the fierce struggles that have taken place over the role of the federal government and the character of representative democracy, the authors trace the contested and dynamic evolution of the national polity. The contributors, who represent the leading new voices in the revitalized field of American political history, offer original interpretations of the nation's political past by blending methodological insights from the new institutionalism in the social sciences and studies of political culture. They tackle topics as wide-ranging as the role of personal character of political elites in the Early Republic, to the importance of courts in building a modern regulatory state, to the centrality of local political institutions in the late twentieth century. Placing these essays side by side encourages the asking of new questions about the forces that have shaped American politics over time. An unparalleled example of the new political history in action, this book will be vastly influential in the field. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Brian Balogh, Sven Beckert, Rebecca Edwards, Joanne B. Freeman, Richard R. John, Ira Katznelson, James T. Kloppenberg, Matthew D. Lassiter, Thomas J. Sugrue, Michael Vorenberg, and Michael Willrich.

The Power of Experiments

The Power of Experiments
Author: Michael Luca
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0262542277

How tech companies like Google, Airbnb, StubHub, and Facebook learn from experiments in our data-driven world—an excellent primer on experimental and behavioral economics Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you've probably been an unwitting participant in a variety of experiments—also known as randomized controlled trials—designed to test the impact of different online experiences. Once an esoteric tool for academic research, the randomized controlled trial has gone mainstream. No tech company worth its salt (or its share price) would dare make major changes to its platform without first running experiments to understand how they would influence user behavior. In this book, Michael Luca and Max Bazerman explain the importance of experiments for decision making in a data-driven world. Luca and Bazerman describe the central role experiments play in the tech sector, drawing lessons and best practices from the experiences of such companies as StubHub, Alibaba, and Uber. Successful experiments can save companies money—eBay, for example, discovered how to cut $50 million from its yearly advertising budget—or bring to light something previously ignored, as when Airbnb was forced to confront rampant discrimination by its hosts. Moving beyond tech, Luca and Bazerman consider experimenting for the social good—different ways that governments are using experiments to influence or “nudge” behavior ranging from voter apathy to school absenteeism. Experiments, they argue, are part of any leader's toolkit. With this book, readers can become part of “the experimental revolution.”

The Experimenting Society

The Experimenting Society
Author: William N. Dunn
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Total Pages: 260
Release:
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781412836791

Offers a collection of essays probing, evaluating, and augmenting the work of Donald T. Campbell on experimental societies. A basic assumption is that Campbell's perspective supplies a useful way to address increasingly complex and seemingly unmanageable problems facing the US and other postindustrial countries. Of interest to policy studies scholars, sociologists, and social scientists. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Experiments in Democracy

Experiments in Democracy
Author: Benjamin J. Hurlbut
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2017-01-31
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0231542917

Human embryo research touches upon strongly felt moral convictions, and it raises such deep questions about the promise and perils of scientific progress that debate over its development has become a moral and political imperative. From in vitro fertilization to embryonic stem cell research, cloning, and gene editing, Americans have repeatedly struggled with how to define the moral status of the human embryo, whether to limit its experimental uses, and how to contend with sharply divided public moral perspectives on governing science. Experiments in Democracy presents a history of American debates over human embryo research from the late 1960s to the present, exploring their crucial role in shaping norms, practices, and institutions of deliberation governing the ethical challenges of modern bioscience. J. Benjamin Hurlbut details how scientists, bioethicists, policymakers, and other public figures have attempted to answer a question of great consequence: how should the public reason about aspects of science and technology that effect fundamental dimensions of human life? Through a study of one of the most significant science policy controversies in the history of the United States, Experiments in Democracy paints a portrait of the complex relationship between science and democracy, and of U.S. society's evolving approaches to evaluating and governing science's most challenging breakthroughs.

Experimental Thinking

Experimental Thinking
Author: James N. Druckman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2022-05-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108997988

Experiments are a central methodology in the social sciences. Scholars from every discipline regularly turn to experiments. Practitioners rely on experimental evidence in evaluating social programs, policies, and institutions. This book is about how to “think” about experiments. It argues that designing a good experiment is a slow moving process (given the host of considerations) which is counter to the current fast moving temptations available in the social sciences. The book includes discussion of the place of experiments in the social science process, the assumptions underlying different types of experiments, the validity of experiments, the application of different designs, how to arrive at experimental questions, the role of replications in experimental research, and the steps involved in designing and conducting “good” experiments. The goal is to ensure social science research remains driven by important substantive questions and fully exploits the potential of experiments in a thoughtful manner.

The Stone Soup Experiment

The Stone Soup Experiment
Author: Deborah Downing
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2015-10-26
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 022628994X

The Stone Soup Experiment is a remarkable story of cultural difference, of in-groups, out-groups, and how quickly and strongly the lines between them are drawn. It is also a story about simulation and reality, and how quickly the lines between them can be dismantled. In a compulsively readable account, Deborah Downing Wilson details a ten-week project in which forty university students were split into two different simulated cultures: the carefree Stoners, and the market-driven Traders. Through their eyes we are granted intimate access to the very foundations of human society: how group identities are formed and what happens when opposing ones come into contact. The experience of the Stoners and Traders is a profound testament to human sociality. Even in the form of simulation, even as a game, the participants found themselves quickly—and with real conviction—bound to the ideologies and practices of their in-group. The Stoners enjoyed their days lounging, chatting, and making crafts, while the Traders—through a complex market of playing cards—competed for the highest bankrolls. When they came into contact, misunderstanding, competition, and even manipulation prevailed, to the point that each group became so convinced of its own superiority that even after the simulation’s end the students could not reconcile. Throughout her riveting narrative, Downing Wilson interweaves fascinating discussions on the importance of play, emotions, and intergroup interaction in the formation and maintenance of group identities, as well as on the dynamic social processes at work when different cultural groups interact. A fascinating account of social experimentation, the book paints a vivid portrait of our deepest social tendencies and the powers they have over how we make friends and enemies alike.

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research

Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research
Author: Donald T. Campbell
Publisher: Ravenio Books
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2015-09-03
Genre: Psychology
ISBN:

We shall examine the validity of 16 experimental designs against 12 common threats to valid inference. By experiment we refer to that portion of research in which variables are manipulated and their effects upon other variables observed. It is well to distinguish the particular role of this chapter. It is not a chapter on experimental design in the Fisher (1925, 1935) tradition, in which an experimenter having complete mastery can schedule treatments and measurements for optimal statistical efficiency, with complexity of design emerging only from that goal of efficiency. Insofar as the designs discussed in the present chapter become complex, it is because of the intransigency of the environment: because, that is, of the experimenter’s lack of complete control.