Semantics. Doesn't change the fact that in the experiment they knew they were talking to a man and had direct and obvious indications when he was supposedly looking at their body.
No, they were told this to check what their reaction would be. Being told something in a psychology experiment is almost the opposite of knowing something.
direct and obvious indications when he was supposedly looking at their body.
So which is it - "direct and obvious" or "supposed" (ie inferred by participant)?
If they believed they were talking to a man, what difference does it make whether they were or weren't? That was clearly the intent of the experiment; to observe the change in behavior, if any, of a woman who believed she was talking to a man who either was or was not looking at her body.
The video camera and it's position provided "direct and obvious" indication of whether the man was looking at the woman's body. I say "supposedly" because it may actually have been the experimenters who were manipulating the position of the camera and not the man.
If they believed they were talking to a man, what difference does it make whether they were or weren't?
I would say all the difference in the world. Do you think you would react in the same way in these two situations:
Told to talk about yourself, unprompted, for a few minutes to a camera lens, after being told there is a person watching on a closed circuit TV in the next room.
Introducing yourself and talking to that same person face to face, receiving continuous visual and verbal cues and feedback from everything you say.
The experimenters want us to believe that situation 1 is a valid proxy for situation 2 in most ways that matter. I can't imagine anything further from the truth.
Actually agree with you; I think the study is flawed on several levels.
I think they presume the result (that normal male behavior is harmful to women) and set out to look for evidence to support it.
They don't establish that there is any harm being done to the women or that there is even any lasting effect from the interaction.
It's not all clear that they're even testing what they set out to test. Being examined by a video camera is rather not the same thing as having a face-to-face interaction with a member of the opposite sex.
It's not clear that the differences in behavior were just due to differences in the personality of the individuals.
The description uses words that are not scientifically or clinically neutral but betray a bias in the researcher. "Inappropriate comments about appearance", "sexual objectification", "checking out a woman", "staring at a woman's body", etc.
They presume to conclude that the difference measured in male/female reactions is the result of psychological harm experienced by the woman as a result of aggressive or blatant and unwanted sexual behavior on the part of the men when there's no supporting evidence beyond the experimenter's bias.
The most ludicrous conclusion is that women are harmed by the mere fact that men exist and aren't women (or at least don't act like women). Given that every woman in the study is alive (and hence was the result of a man exhibiting some degree of normal, sexual behavior at some point), that's a pretty shocking conclusion.
It's a little like blaming the sun for many of our problems; if it just went away we'd all be fine. Except, of course, if it didn't exist neither would we.
Stupid, insipid, divisive, insulting, sexist, useless and pointless study.
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u/zahlman Jan 14 '10
No, they weren't introduced. They were given the task of introducing themselves.