The human subject in psychological research.

Examines the human S in terms of his changing role in the historical development of psychology, his image and task performance in contemporary psychology, and limitations and weaknesses of his present function. The discussion covers the bias in S selection, preconceptions and suspicions of Ss entering the laboratory, distorted performance in the experimental task, and ethical implications of psychological research. It is suggested that psychology's image of the S as a stimulus-response machine is inadequate and that many studies are based on data supplied by Ss who are neither randomly selected nor assigned, nor representative of the general population, nor naive, and who are suspicious and distrustful of psychological research and researchers. (34 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)