USEFULNESS OF EXPERIMENTS FOR THE STUDY OF THE FAMILY

Demonstrating that family variables are interrelated is reaching a point of diminishing returns. The experimental method can make significant contributions toward explaining the bases for associations between variables, the direction of effects, and the causal relations, but may be underutilized in family research. Concerns about the practicality and ethics of experiments in family research, and guidelines for the appropriate use of the experiment, are discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of the experiment in relation to other methods for the study of causality are examined. Examples are described of the appropriate use of experiments for the investigation of issues of causality, the process relations between family variables, and the exploration of new questions.