Sample Sizes and Representativeness in Psychology and the Social Sciences

One of the biggest issues in psychology and the various social sciences (e.g., sociology) is that they involve people, and people are not always easy to work with. To apply the scientific method correctly requires devotion to both adequate repetition and adequate samples.

Consider a coin. If we assume that a coin is unbiased, then flipping it should result in heads coming up 50% of the time and tails coming up the other 50% of the time. Coin flipping is also an excellent way to illustrate the...