The past, present, and future of experimental methods in the social sciences.

In the midst of the current causal revolution, experimental methods are increasingly embraced across the social sciences. We first document the growth in the use of the experimental method and then overview the current state of the field along with suggestions for future research. Our review covers the core features of experiments that facilitate causal inference, and we offer numerous examples of different experimental designs and the types of research questions they are well-suited to test. We then harmonize popular but differing perspectives on validity in regard to experiments focused on theoretical considerations. Next, we detail a new framework of purposive sampling for social science experiments, suggesting researchers could benefit from moving beyond only two stock choices of representativeness or convenience. We then discuss issues of analysis unique to experimental data before ending with a critical discussion of null findings, open-science practices, social desirability, and other open debates in the experimental methods literature.

The status and stigma consequences of mental illness labels, deviant behavior, and fear.

Despite the breadth of research on mental illness, there remains some ambivalence about the distinct and combined effects of mental illness labels and deviant behavior for stigma and status. To examine the effects of mental illness labels and deviant behavior on stigma and status, we use experimental methods. Because fear is tightly linked with understandings of mental illness, we also consider the role of fear in these processes. We find that absent behavioral descriptions, mental illness labels do not affect status; however, deviant behavior that is and is not labeled as a mental illness decreases status. Neither deviant behavior nor mental illness labels independently affect stigma; however, compared to unlabeled deviant behavior, deviant behavior that is labeled as a mental illness either increases or decreases stigma for fear-inducing and fear-neutral behavior, respectively. In summary, the effects of mental illness labels appear to depend on behavioral connotations, including fear.

Organizational policies, workplace culture, and perceived job commitment of mothers and fathers who take parental leave.

Americans do not always fully utilize available parental leave policies due (in part) to fear of a commitment penalty - where taking leave (or taking longer periods of leave) lowers perceptions of job commitment. Using a survey experiment (N = 1713) to identify whether organizational leave policies affect perceived job commitment, we find that leave-taking (and taking longer periods of leave) is negatively associated with perceived commitment. However, perceived commitment is higher when workers take leave under more favorable policies, and the effect of favorable policies on perceived commitment is greater for fathers than mothers. Overall, these results can help organizations design parental leave policies that increase the likelihood that workers can take needed leave without damaging their careers.

Profiles in health: Multiple roles and health lifestyles in early adulthood.

RATIONALE: Despite theoretical work suggesting that health behaviors should be considered in tandem rather than as individual and disconnected practices, little quantitative work has examined different lifestyles of health behavior practices. In addition, while a significant body of work has examined the association of holding multiple social roles and health outcomes, little work has examined how acquiring multiple roles in early adulthood influences health behavior. OBJECTIVE: This article (a) illustrates the utility of examining health lifestyles-defined as constellations of individual health behavior practices-and (b) contributes to the literature on how accumulating multiple social roles is associated with health. METHODS: Using two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 12,098) a structural equation modeling approach is used to both (a) model latent health lifestyles from observed health behavior indicators, and (b) to predict health lifestyle membership based on changes in role-occupancy during the transition to early adulthood. RESULTS: Results suggest that the type of social role matters, with intensive obligatory roles associated with lifestyles of less tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana use but also with physical inactivity. In contrast, voluntary roles are associated with more active lifestyles but increased alcohol use. CONCLUSION: The results illustrate the importance of modeling overall health lifestyles rather than focusing only on individual health behaviors. The results also advance our understanding of how holding multiple roles is associated with health by extending the framework to an examination of health behavior.