Many call experiments the gold standard of scientific inquiry due to their high internal validity. In the social sciences, however, the generalizability of experimental results to the "real world" has been questioned. In doubt of external validity rejection of the experimental approach is particularly widespread among sociologists. This special issue gives a rationale for the use of experiments and illustrates a variety of applications in different subfields of sociology. It presents sorely needed methodological research on the use of laboratory, field, natural, and factorial survey experiments in the social sciences. The compendium promotes the use of experimental designs and equally addresses students, lecturers, and researchers. With contributions by: Martin Abraham, Katrin Auspurg, Gerrit Bauer, Rolf Becker, Johann Behrens, Roger Berger, Christiane Bozoyan, Andreas Diekmann, Axel Franzen, Stefan Friedhoff, Thomas Hinz, Marc Keuschnigg, Bernhard Kittel, Ulf Liebe, Stefan Liebig, Sonja Pointner, Carsten Sauer, Manuela Vieth, Thomas Voss, Tobias Wolbring, Christoph Zangger, Ekkart Zimmermann