#1 As defined from Chapter 2 of Weiten’s book, sample bias exists when a sample is not representative of the population from which it was draw. When a sample is not representative, generalizing about the population may be inaccurate. In class, we studied three psychological experiments, Milgram’s Obedience research, Zimbardo’s Prison study and the John/Joan case study. Samples used in these studies were biased. In Milgram’s Obedience to Authority research, the study used a size of sample of male participants instead of both male and female and volunteer samples of readers of local newspapers. This means the study is subject to sample bias and therefore the findings may lack generalisability. In the Stanford Prison Study, Zimbardo advertised to students to participate in an experiment about "prison life". Clearly, a large segment of the general population would be repulsed by such a concept which raises questions about anyone attracted to that idea. Thus, all applicants to the Stanford Prison Experiment were preselected for comfort with the idea of "prison life". Moreover twenty four male Stanford students of about the same age are too small and restrictive to be generally applicable to the population at large. In the John/Joan case study, psychologist John Money used David Reimer as sample to raise him up as a girl to prove his theory. He oversaw the case and reported the reassignment as successful evidence that gender identity is primarily learned. In fact, Reimer never identified himself as female. He began living as male at age 15. The sample size is way too small to represent the entire population even if the case was successful. The lack of generalisability in John/Jon’s case may cause many misleading effects on cases that were performed later on following John Money’s procedures and theory.
#2 APA ethical guideline #2 states that if the participants are deceived in any way about the nature of the study, the deception must not be so extreme as to...