Learn Before
Example

Cialdini's Hotel Towel Field Experiment

Robert Cialdini and his colleagues conducted a field experiment to investigate whether manipulating the message on a card left in hotel rooms would influence guests to reuse their towels. By comparing messages emphasizing environmental respect, hotel donations, or social norms (stating that most guests reuse towels), they found that the social norm message was the most effective. Because the study took place in a naturalistic setting, it achieved high external validity and mundane realism. However, it also serves as an example of prioritizing validities, as its statistical validity was more modest; this discrepancy does not invalidate the study, but rather highlights areas for improvement in future follow-up research.

0

1

Updated 2026-05-06

Contributors are:

Who are from:

Tags

KPU

Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition @ KPU