Theory-Oriented Research in Natural Settings: The Best of Both Worlds for Social Psychology

This chapter reemphasizes a general methodological approach that has been neglected in social psychology during the past decade or two, namely, the conduct of basic research in natural settings. It outlines some recent methodological advances that make basic research in natural settings not only an attractive, but an increasingly feasible and powerful technique in social psychology. The chapter suggests that one response we might make with a minimum loss of essentials is to continue to do basic, theory-oriented research, but to carry out our tests of predictions somewhat more often in natural settings, rather than in contrived laboratory situations. There is one distinction having to do with the critical, hypothesis-testing aspect of research that needs mentioning, which is, between correlational and manipulational research. The chapter suggests that researchers are tending to look elsewhere than to laboratory manipulational studies because of certain moral qualms about such laboratory research.