Psychologists' response to criticisms about research based on undergraduate participants: A developmental perspective

Historically, psychologists have expressed concern about the overreliance o n undergraduates as research participants in the discipline. Moreover, the last 25 years have witnessed a boom in research on adolescence as a time of continuing developmental change in a variety of domains and significant li fe transitions, Given the above criticism and new prolific area of research , the present study examines whether employing undergraduates as a surrogat e adult sample has decreased in he psychology literature since the mid-1970 s. All articles published in six prestigious journals (representing five su bdivisions of psychology) were investigated for 1975, 1985, and 1995. Of th e 1,719 articles coded, 68.31 % were found to employ undergraduates exclusi vely as subjects. There were no significant decreases in the use of undergr aduate research participants from 1975 to 1995. Other methodological proble ms, including reports of descriptive statistics for age, recruiting techniq ues, and statements referring to the limited generalizability of the findin gs, are also examined.