Natural Experiment

Natural Experiment Defintion

Natural experiments are essentially experiments that investigate naturally occurring phenomena. The natural experiment definition is a research procedure that occurs in the participant's natural setting that requires no manipulation by the researcher.

In experiments, changes in the independent variable (IV) are observed to identify if these changes affect the dependent variable (DV). However, in natural experiments, the researcher does not manipulate the IV. Instead, they observe the natural changes that occur.

These examples show that it's next to impossible for the researcher to manipulate these.

Natural Experiment: Psychology

Why may researchers choose to use a natural experiment? As we have just discussed, sometimes researchers can't manipulate the IV. But, they may still wish to see how changes in the IV affect the DV, so use a natural experiment.

Sometimes a researcher can manipulate the IV, but it may be unethical or impractical to do so, so they conduct a natural experiment.

In natural experiments, the researcher can see how changes in the IV affect a DV, but unlike in lab experiments, the researcher has to identify how the IV is changing. In contrast, lab experiments pre-determine how the IV will be manipulated.

Natural Experiment: Examples

Natural experiments often take place in real-world settings. An example can be seen in examining the effect of female and male performance in an office environment and if gender plays a role in the retention of customers. Other examples include examining behaviours in schools, and the effect age has on behaviour.

Let's look at a hypothetical study that uses a natural experiment research method.

Natural Experiment vs Field Experiment

The table below summarises the key similarities and differences between natural experiments vs field experiments.

Natural Experiment: Advantages and Disadvantages

In the following section will present the natural experiment's advantages and disadvantages. We will discuss the new research possibilities, causal conclusions, rare opportunities, pre-existing sampling bias and ethical issues.

Fig 2 - Natural experiments have their advantages and disadvantages.

New Research Opportunities

Natural experiments provide opportunities for research that can't be done for ethical and practical reasons.

So, natural experiments are the only ethical way for researchers to investigate the causal relationship of the above topics. Thus, natural experiments open up practical research opportunities to study conditions that cannot be manipulated.

High Ecological Validity

Natural experiments have high ecological validity because natural experiments study real-world problems that occur naturally in real-life settings.

And the advantage of this is that the results are more likely applicable and generalisable to real-life situations.

Rare Opportunities

There are scarce opportunities for researchers to conduct a natural experiment. Most natural events are ‘one-off’ situations. Because natural events are unique, the results have limited generalisability to similar situations.

In addition, it is next to impossible for researchers to replicate natural experiments; therefore, it is difficult to establish the reliability of findings.

Pre-Existing Sampling Bias

In natural experiments, pre-existing sampling bias can be a problem. In natural experiments, researchers cannot randomly assign participants to different conditions because naturally occurring events create them. Therefore, in natural experiments, participant differences may act as confounding variables.

As a result, sample bias in natural experiments can lead to low internal validity and generalisability of the research.

Ethical Issues

Although natural experiments are considered the only ethically acceptable method for studying conditions that can't be manipulated, ethical issues may still arise. Because natural experiments are often conducted after traumatic events, interviewing or observing people after the event could cause psychological harm to participants.

Researchers should prepare for potential ethical issues, such as psychological harm, usually dealt with by offering therapy. However, this can be pretty costly. And the ethical issue may lead participants to drop out of the research, which can also affect the quality of the research.