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= Ecological validity = From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search For the ecological validity of a cue in perception, see ecological validity (perception).

In research, the ecological validity of a study is the extent to which the materials and setting of the study approximate the real-world that is being examined. Unlike internal and external validity, ecological validity is not necessary to the overall validity of a study.[not specific enough to verify]

The original meaning of 'ecological validity' defines it narrowly as a property of stimuli in perceptual experiments.

Vs. Realism and external validity[ edit | edit source]
The term "ecological validity" is now widely used by researchers unfamiliar with the origins and technical meaning of the term to be broadly equivalent to what Aronson and Carlsmith (1968) called "mundane realism." Mundane realism references the extent to which the experimental situation is similar to situations people are likely to encounter outside of the laboratory. For example, mock-jury research is designed to study how people might act if they were jurors during a trial, but many mock-jury studies simply provide written transcripts or summaries of trials, and do so in classroom or office settings. Such experiments do not approximate the actual look, feel and procedure of a real courtroom trial, and therefore lack mundane realism. The better recognized concern is that of external validity: if the results from such a mock-jury study are reproduced in and generalize across trials where these stimulus materials, settings and other background characteristics vary, then the measurement process may be deemed externally valid.

Animal Experimentation
Ecological validity in animal studies refers to testing animals in conditions that are similar to their natural habitat. The purpose of ecological validity in animal studies is to create behaviors in the animals that are more natural in order to increase the external validity from animal to human studies. Currently, the majority of animal studies do not place an emphasis on ecological validity, and as a result of this many of the drugs which are tested in animals do not function in humans. For example, over 200 different treatments for Alzheimer’s in animal models have shown to be effective for treating Alzheimer’s, however, none of them have shown to be effective in humans. Presumably, this is because animal models of Alzheimer’s disease do not properly model Alzheimer’s in humans. Instead of measuring individual differences in behavior, animal models focus on the average response, however, this is not representative of disorders in humans.

Therefore, increasing ecological validity in animal studies could help solve this problem as it would allow the animals to show their full range of behaviors, as well as individual differences, ultimately allowing them to better model the disorder being studied. For example, in experiments studying fear and anxiety, the traditional procedure is to place a rodent inside a small metal cage and subject them to foot shocks, and as a result of this all of the rats freeze. But, when rats are in their natural environment, they do not freeze when they are scared. Therefore, the freezing behavior does not accurately represent fear in the wild, so it lacks ecological validity, as well as internal validity as it is not measuring what fear truly looks like. In order to increase ecological validity, the environment and stimulus would need to be more realistic and researchers would need to study individual differences in behavior instead of average responses. Together, these two changes to testing conditions would help increase ecological validity in animal studies.

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