occasionally, naturalistic observation is carried out in the laboratory At times it is necessary to compare laboratory findings with behavior in natural settings to confirm the usefulness of the laboratoryEetting for a particular research topic. Because some behaviors may be distorted by bringing them into the laboratory setting, such behaviors are best observed where they occur naturally Naturalistic observation provides a wealth of descriptive informa- tion, but this research method does not lend itself to testing causal antecedents of behavior. We would not know, for example, why the single teacher in Yepezs study treated men somewhat differently than women.