L'ascesa degli esperimenti di survey : per un uso mirato in sociologia

The use of survey experiments has been expanding remarkably over the last two decades, especially in social psychology and political science, in the fields of public opinion and communication research. By combining - at least potentially - the internal validity of experiments and the external validity of population- based surveys, experimental surveys provide a powerful tool to isolate the causal effects of specific aspects of social and political reality on individual responses. After discussing their epistemological assumptions and methodological features, as well as illustrating a practical application to the study of ethnic prejudice in politics, this article advocates a targeted use of survey experiments in sociological research.