Glass Ceilings: The Power Of Experiments

Sociology is defined as the systematic study of human societies. It is the foundation for our knowledge, and it determines how we think as a culture as well as how we act. Furthermore, sociology helps us understand how the world works, and it provides a means for us to interpret our lives and social circumstances (6). According to Newman, “the social construction of reality is a process by which human-created ideas become so firmly accepted that to deny them is to deny common sense” (27). However, this “common sense” is different for everyone. This is why sociologists’ job is to determine what is “true” for society as whole. One way sociologists accomplish this is through research. Research can be accomplished through many ways, such as field

Experiments are very valuable because they allow for research on almost everything. This is demonstrated by “From Summer Camps to Glass Ceilings: the Power of Experiments”. This article outlines many different experiments, each giving new insight into how humans behave. One experiment that stood out to me was the Stanford Prison experiment. This experiment studied why guards behaved violently towards prisoners. The results determined that guards behaved violently not because of personal violent tendencies, but because they were given the role of being a guard. This experiment could be tied to the outside world due to the idea that circumstances as well as social status determine how a person behaves towards others. We can further argue that certain people have a larger influence over a culture than others. This theory is supported by Newman: “Powerful social institutions and the people who control them play a significant role in shaping and sustaining perceptions of reality for everybody else” (29). Although experiments are a very useful method of research for sociologists, they are not the only

Researchers may enjoy surveys because they can find answers to many of their questions by a large amount of people. According to the article “Sense and Nonsense about Surveys”, “One remarkable advantage surveys have over some other methods is the ability to identify their own limitations, as illustrated by the development of both probability theory in sampling and experiments in questioning”. However, researchers must be scrupulous when conducting a survey. It is essential for their questions to be clear and concise for others to understand properly. With all of this in mind, it is important to carefully decode the answers given by people when they complete surveys. It is important to note that sometimes researchers make mistakes when determining a correlation between statistics. Correlation does not always mean causation, as proven by the film “Cause and effect”. This short film described how scientists believed that because polio rates went up in the summer and ice cream sales went up in the summer as well, that ice cream somehow caused polio. We know now that this is incorrect, but it is examples such as these that we must be cautious about when conducting surveys and/or