 These examples show that ethnography has a valuable role to play in philosophical theory, but the remainder of this entry will focus primarily on experiments. Paradigmatic experiments involve randomized assignment to varying conditions of objects or people from a random sample, followed by statistical comparison of the outcomes for each condition. The variation in conditions is sometimes called a manipulation. For example, an experimenter might select a random sample of people, randomly assign them either to find or not to find a dime in the coin return of a pay phone, and then measure the degree to which they subsequently help someone they take to be in need (Isen &amp; Levin 1972). Finding or not finding the dime is the condition; degree of helpfulness is the outcome variable.