EXAMPLE 3.16

Layoffs and feeling bad. How do layoffs at a workplace affect the workers who remain on the job? To try to answer this question, psychologists asked student subjects to proofread text for extra course credit, then “let go” some of the workers (who were actually accomplices of the experimenters). Some subjects were told that those let go had performed poorly (Treatment 1). Others were told that not all could be kept and that it was just luck that they were kept and others let go (Treatment 2). We can’t be sure that the reactions of the students are the same as those of workers who survive a layoff in which other workers lose their jobs. Many behavioral science experiments use student subjects in a campus setting. Do the conclusions apply to the real world?