Appropriate Control Groups in Feminist Research

Abstract

Control groups in psychological research reveal the outlines of the investigator's theoretical framework. They identify variables which are assumed to affect the causal relationship between independent and dependent variable and, by implication, those which are not. This role of control groups is implicitly denied when they are discussed simply as a methodological issue. Feminist psychologists can use the inevitable interpenetration of methodological and theoretical issues to promote new theoretical perspectives under the guise of sounder methodology. One result may be to move the psychology of women outside (beyond-?) a conceptualization of science in which the notions of experimentation and control are central.