Key Takeaways
- In a double-blind study, neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving the real treatment.
- This type of study helps prevent bias by making sure beliefs about the treatment do not influence the outcome.
- Randomized double-blind placebo studies are considered the “gold standard” for intervention-based research.
A double-blind study is one in which neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is receiving a particular treatment. This procedure is utilized to prevent bias in research results. Double-blind studies are particularly useful for preventing bias due to demand characteristics or the placebo effect.
For example, let’s imagine that researchers are investigating the effects of a new drug. In a double-blind study, the researchers who interact with the participants would not know who was receiving the actual drug and who was receiving a placebo.
Illustration by Emily Roberts, Verywell
A Closer Look at Double-Blind Studies
Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by a double-blind study and how this type of procedure works. As mentioned previously, double-blind indicates that the participants and the experimenters are unaware of who is receiving the real treatment. What exactly do we mean by ‘treatment’? In a psychology experiment, the treatment is the level of the independent variable that the experimenters are manipulating.
This can be contrasted with a single-blind study in which the experimenters are aware of which participants are receiving the treatment while the participants remain unaware.
In such studies, researchers may use what is known as a placebo. A placebo is an inert substance, such as a sugar pill, that has no effect on the individual taking it. The placebo pill is given to participants who are randomly assigned to the control group. A control group is a subset of participants who are not exposed to any levels of the independent variable. This group serves as a baseline to determine if exposure to the independent variable had any significant effects.
Those randomly assigned to the experimental group are given the treatment in question. Data collected from both groups are then compared to determine if the treatment had some impact on the dependent variable.
All participants in the study will take a pill, but only some of them will receive the real drug under investigation. The rest of the subjects will receive an inactive placebo. With a double-blind study, the participants and the experimenters have no idea who is receiving the real drug and who is receiving the sugar pill.
Double-blind experiments are simply not possible in some scenarios. For example, in an experiment looking at which type of psychotherapy is the most effective, it would be impossible to keep participants in the dark about whether or not they actually received therapy.
Reasons to Use a Double-Blind Study
So why would researchers opt for such a procedure? There are a couple of important reasons.
- First, since the participants do not know which group they are in, their beliefs about the treatment are less likely to influence the outcome.
- Second, since researchers are unaware of which subjects are receiving the real treatment, they are less likely to accidentally reveal subtle clues that might influence the outcome of the research.
The double-blind procedure helps minimize the possible effects of experimenter bias. Such biases often involve the researchers unknowingly influencing the results during the administration or data collection stages of the experiment. Researchers sometimes have subjective feelings and biases that might have an influence on how the subjects respond or how the data is collected.
In one research article, randomized double-blind placebo studies were identified as the “gold standard” when it comes to intervention-based studies. One of the reasons for this is the fact that random assignment reduces the influence of confounding variables.
Example
Imagine that researchers want to determine if consuming energy bars before a demanding athletic event leads to an improvement in performance. The researchers might begin by forming a pool of participants that are fairly equivalent regarding athletic ability. Some participants are randomly assigned to a control group while others are randomly assigned to the experimental group.
Participants are then be asked to eat an energy bar. All of the bars are packaged the same, but some are sports bars while others are simply bar-shaped brownies. The real energy bars contain high levels of protein and vitamins, while the placebo bars do not.
Because this is a double-blind study, neither the participants nor the experimenters know who is consuming the real energy bars and who is consuming the placebo bars.
The participants then complete a predetermined athletic task, and researchers collect data performance. Once all the data has been obtained, researchers can then compare the results of each group and determine if the independent variable had any impact on the dependent variable.
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