4 ms·

It most definitely is a control group is what you are researching is if the amount of money matters. Just not if you try to measure if any amount of money VS no

It most definitely is a control group is what you are researching is if the amount of money matters. Just not if you try to measure if any amount of money VS none matters

dghlsakjg 2y ago
No. A control group is a pretty well agreed upon term. It is the group to which no intervention is given. There was no control group. Read the actual paper linked. You can sort of use an intervention group as a control group in clinical studies when, for example, comparing an old medication against a new one. This works because the original study of the old medication had a control group that you can infer as valid for comparison to the new medication. You are correct that we can infer whether the amount of intervention matters, but there is no way to know the effect of those first $50. Diminishing marginal utility theory from economics tells us that the first $50 is going to be those with the greatest effect, so this study is missing a massive piece of the puzzle.
- carlmr 2y ago
  $50 is more like a placebo control, than a non-placebo control. It's not enough money to be able to afford housing, but it may have an effect of making people feel like somebody cares, i.e. a mental effect, just like a placebo can help patients in other studies.
  - dghlsakjg 2y ago
    READ THE STUDY. Housing attainment is just one thing they were measuring. $50 is not a placebo or a control. Again, those have actual definitions when it comes to science, even social science. There is a damn good reason that the actual paper never called it a control group, or tried to imply it. $50 is real. For a homeless person, $50 cash in your pocket will provide an actual, not perceived effect. I'm not saying that $50/mo can't act as an effective control. I'm saying that there is no evidence available to reach that conclusion. There are economic theories that suggest that the first $50 is more important than subsequent amounts, so it would be important to prove or disprove that in the real world. There is also the mental effect as you pointed out, but if you read the study you would know that all of the people recruited for this study were recruited through relationships at support agencies. Meaning that they were already in touch with agencies that gave the feeling of people caring about them.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      $50 is exactly like a placebo control. It’s there to isolate the effect of the money itself, and exclude the effect of participation in the study versus non-participation in the study. What the study shows is that the extra $950 basically makes no difference in housing attainment. That should be the headline conclusion.
      - dghlsakjg 2y ago
        I’m agreeing that the data says there isn’t a difference between 50 and 1000 for housing attainment. $50/mo is like a control only if there is evidence to support that $50 has the same effect as $0. That evidence does not exist. We can make a guess, but it is a guess that goes against experimentally demonstrated economic theory around marginal utility. I guess we just disagree on what a control group is. I think of it as a group who are not provided any form of effective intervention. A placebo is an intervention where the user does not know they intentionally have been given an ineffective intervention. It is impossible to not know you were given $50, so I don’t know how this could be considered a placebo. A placebo controlled study is when you give a placebo to a control group who do not know if they are receiving a placebo. The argument I think you are making is that $50 is so small as to be irrelevant. But it is neither a control nor a placebo by almost any definition. And there is no data to suggest what you are asserting even though it feels intuitive to make the guess.
        carlmr 2y ago
        I personally would call it a placebo if the group weren't told that others got $950 more for the same goal of housing attainment. They would effectively not know that they're the "placebo" group where the mental/placebo effect seems to be nearly as high as the monetary effect.

It most definitely is a control group is what you are researching is if the amount of money matters. Just not if you try to measure if any amount of money VS none matters

dghlsakjg 2y ago

No. A control group is a pretty well agreed upon term. It is the group to which no intervention is given. There was no control group. Read the actual paper linked. You can sort of use an intervention group as a control group in clinical studies when, for example, comparing an old medication against a new one. This works because the original study of the old medication had a control group that you can infer as valid for comparison to the new medication. You are correct that we can infer whether the amount of intervention matters, but there is no way to know the effect of those first $50. Diminishing marginal utility theory from economics tells us that the first $50 is going to be those with the greatest effect, so this study is missing a massive piece of the puzzle.

carlmr 2y ago
$50 is more like a placebo control, than a non-placebo control. It's not enough money to be able to afford housing, but it may have an effect of making people feel like somebody cares, i.e. a mental effect, just like a placebo can help patients in other studies.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  READ THE STUDY. Housing attainment is just one thing they were measuring. $50 is not a placebo or a control. Again, those have actual definitions when it comes to science, even social science. There is a damn good reason that the actual paper never called it a control group, or tried to imply it. $50 is real. For a homeless person, $50 cash in your pocket will provide an actual, not perceived effect. I'm not saying that $50/mo can't act as an effective control. I'm saying that there is no evidence available to reach that conclusion. There are economic theories that suggest that the first $50 is more important than subsequent amounts, so it would be important to prove or disprove that in the real world. There is also the mental effect as you pointed out, but if you read the study you would know that all of the people recruited for this study were recruited through relationships at support agencies. Meaning that they were already in touch with agencies that gave the feeling of people caring about them.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    $50 is exactly like a placebo control. It’s there to isolate the effect of the money itself, and exclude the effect of participation in the study versus non-participation in the study. What the study shows is that the extra $950 basically makes no difference in housing attainment. That should be the headline conclusion.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      I’m agreeing that the data says there isn’t a difference between 50 and 1000 for housing attainment. $50/mo is like a control only if there is evidence to support that $50 has the same effect as $0. That evidence does not exist. We can make a guess, but it is a guess that goes against experimentally demonstrated economic theory around marginal utility. I guess we just disagree on what a control group is. I think of it as a group who are not provided any form of effective intervention. A placebo is an intervention where the user does not know they intentionally have been given an ineffective intervention. It is impossible to not know you were given $50, so I don’t know how this could be considered a placebo. A placebo controlled study is when you give a placebo to a control group who do not know if they are receiving a placebo. The argument I think you are making is that $50 is so small as to be irrelevant. But it is neither a control nor a placebo by almost any definition. And there is no data to suggest what you are asserting even though it feels intuitive to make the guess.
      - carlmr 2y ago
        I personally would call it a placebo if the group weren't told that others got $950 more for the same goal of housing attainment. They would effectively not know that they're the "placebo" group where the mental/placebo effect seems to be nearly as high as the monetary effect.