Introduction to Sociology

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AN EXPERIMENT IN ACTION

Figure 1. Sociologist Frances Heussenstamm conducted an experiment to explore the correlation between traffic stops and race-based bumper stickers. This issue of racial profiling remains a hot-button topic today. (Photo courtesy of dwightsghost/flickr)

A real-life example will help illustrate the experiment process. In 1971, Frances Heussenstamm, a sociology professor at California State University, Los Angeles, had a theory about police prejudice. To test her theory she conducted an experiment. She chose fifteen students from three ethnic backgrounds: black, white, and Latino. She chose students who routinely drove to and from campus along Los Angeles freeway routes, and who’d had perfect driving records for longer than a year. Those were her control variables—students, good driving records, same commute route. These students signed all had safe, up-to-date cars and signed a pledge to drive safely.

Next, she placed a Black Panther bumper sticker on each car. That sticker, a representation of a social value, was the independent variable. Founded in Oakland, California in 1966, the Black Panthers were a revolutionary African-American group actively fighting racism. Heussenstamm asked the students to follow their normal driving patterns. She wanted to see whether seeming to support the Black Panthers would change how these good drivers were treated by the police patrolling the highways (the dependent variable).
The first citation, for an incorrect lane change, was made two hours after the experiment began. One participant was pulled over three times in three days. He quit the study. After seventeen days, the fifteen drivers had collected a total of thirty-three traffic citations and the funding to pay traffic fines had run out. The experiment was halted (Heussenstamm 1971).

TRY IT

10. 
    A research method that aims to measure the relationship between the independent and dependent variables while controlling for all other variables is known as a(n):
    
    1. 
       Control
       
    2. 
       Experiment
       
    3. 
       Survey
       
    4. 
       Systematic direct observation
       

Check your answers at the end of this document