A note on the role of laboratory methodologies in applied behavioural research: Don't throw out the baby with the bath water

Will behavioral research on managerial decision making generalize to managers?

“…Issues here include the artificiality of the laboratory setting (Dobbins et al, 1988;Griffin and Kacmar, 19911, the use of students as surrogates for people in the real world (Gordon et al, 1986(Gordon et al, , 1987Dobbins et al, 1988;Hughes and Gibson, 19911, and the reactive effects of the experimental arrangements (Adair, 1982). This paper focuses on whether the experimental results can be generalized (external validity).…”

From the Editors: Student samples in international business research

“…The validity of the use of student participants has been under scrutiny in many social science disciplines, including management (e.g., Dobbins, Lane, & Steiner, 1988), psychology (e.g., Wintre et al, 2001), and legal research (e.g., Bornstein, 1999). The emerging consensus is that for authors who want to publish student-based results, it is incumbent upon them to demonstrate that their results can be generalized to real-life situations on which they intend to shed light.…”

The Appropriateness of Using Laboratories and Student Participants in Gambling Research

“…Such empirical research strives to elucidate the nature and parameters of psychological processes, thereby providing comprehensive explanations at different levels of analysis. However, as Dobbins et al (1988) note, researchers should consider the purpose of laboratory research when making claims about cause and effect relationships between theoretical and real-life settings. Unlike research in the physical sciences, research in the field of humanities and social sciences investigating aspects of human behaviour, emotions and decision-making may be exposed to the influence of factors that operate differently in laboratories compared to other environmental settings.…”