Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Control Group

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

  • 63 Accesses

Definition

A control group is one of multiple groups in an experimental treatment study, used as a baseline for the estimation of the effect of interest in the other groups.

Introduction

Experimental treatment studies are designed to estimate the effect of a particular treatment on one or more variables. Typically, the variables of interest are observed before and after treatment to detect changes that occurred in between. The two observations of the variables are called pretest and posttest to indicate their temporal position before and after the treatment. However, any differences between pre- and posttest need not be caused by the treatment. Therefore, experimental treatment studies use at least two groups: the experimental group receives the treatment while the control group does not. The effect of the treatment can be estimated by comparing the change observed in the treatment group with the change observed in the control group.

Treatment Groups as Independent Variables in an...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Psychological Methods and Assessment, München, Leopoldstraße 13, 80802, Germany

    Sven Hilbert

  2. Faculty of Psychology, Educational Science, and Sport Science, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, 93053, Germany

    Sven Hilbert

Authors
  1. Sven Hilbert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sven Hilbert .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Humboldt University, Germany, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias Ziegler

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Hilbert, S. (2017). Control Group. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1290-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1290-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation