ePrints

A test of the experimental method in the spirit of Popper

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Daniel ZizzoORCiD

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

Do the insights into human behavior generated by laboratory experiments hold outside the lab? This is a crucial question that naturally troubles both experimentalists and their critics. We address this question by adopting Popper's injunction that hypotheses should be tested, not by seeking instances of confirmation, but through exposure to conditions where falsification is a serious possibility. We test the hypothesis ‘that experimental insights hold outside the lab’ by selecting a population where the non-experimental evidence points to behavior that is quite unlike what is typically found in the laboratory and we examine whether their experimental results track these untypical behaviors. In our case, they do.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Hargreaves-Heap S, Verschoor A, Zizzo DJ

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Economic Methodology

Year: 2012

Volume: 19

Issue: 1

Pages: 63-76

Online publication date: 13/03/2012

ISSN (print): 1350-178X

ISSN (electronic): 1469-9427

Publisher: Routledge

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2012.661068

DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2012.661068

Altmetrics

Share