often set up what they hope will be situations more strongly reflective of the expected results than might be typical in order to demonstrate that a relationship does exist, perhaps then leading to further, more involved study reflective of typical populations.
I remember reading about one in Italy that attempted to see if people will be biased against other people based SOLELY on the SIZE of the group they belong to, all the imaginary people in the two groups otherwise being exactly the same. Definite bias against those in the smaller group was demonstrated, but they had weighted the study to demonstrate the anticipated bias by only studying strong conservatives they expected would be more inclined to it than the average. More accurate analysis of people in general was for later studies, if funding was obtained, etc.
The results were fascinating, btw. Almost everyone demonstrated some bias against people in the smaller group, but to widely varying degrees. A few actually developed serious antipathy toward imaginary people in the smaller group.
Edit history
= new reply since forum marked as read
