Analysis phase

Question 1

What are the 3 main activities of the analysis phase?

Answer 1

1. Formulate an outcome variable
2. Gather information (divergent stage)
3. Filter most relevant information (convergent stage)

Question 2

What is the divergent stage in the analysis phase?

Answer 2

The gathering of as much information as you can find

Question 3

What is the convergent stage in the analysis phase?

Answer 3

The filtering of information that is most useful, based on relevance, validity and plausibility

Question 4

What are 3 different types of social psychological variables related to the outcome variable?

Answer 4

1. Behaviors and behavioural intentions
2. Attitudes and cognitions
3. Emotions or affect

Question 5

What are the 4 requirements of a good outcome variable?

Answer 5

1. Behavior/attitude/affect
2. relevance to the problem
3. specificity (specific and concrete)
4. Continuity (should be continuous level e.g., less or more and not yes or no)

Question 6

Why is it important to choose a continuous outcome variable? (2).

Answer 6

1. Make generating explanations and description of the causal model more easy
2. quantifiable variable helps in evaluating the success of an intervention programme

Question 7

What are the 5 strategies used in the divergent phase (e.g., generating explanations)

Answer 7

1. Free association
2. Interviews and observations
3. social psychological theories and literature
4. subjective data
5. semi-objective data

Question 8

What are the different types of association and what do they entail? (3)

Answer 8

1. Problem association = ask yourself why questions related to the problem and come up with 5 possible explanations
2. Concept association = look for phenomena that might be conceptually similar and overarching (e.g., unsafe driving = risk taking)
3. Perspective taking = define which individuals are involved in the problem and put oneself in the shoes of each of them

Question 9

How do problem association and perspective taking contribute to social psychological theories and literature?

Answer 9

They will give clues as to what social psychological theories are relevant to the problem definition of the practitioner

Question 10

What are the 3 different strategies used from social psychological literature to generate explanations?

Answer 10

1. Topical strategy
2. Conceptual strategy
3. General theory strategy

Question 11

What does the topical strategy of scientific literature searching entail?

Answer 11

bottom-up; information that is very close to the concrete concepts of the problem and outcome

Question 12

What does the conceptual strategy of scientific literature searching entail?

Answer 12

bottom-up; working from the problem definition but linking it 1 level up with relevant psychological phenomena and theories

Question 13

What does the general theory strategy of scientific literature searching entail?

Answer 13

Top-down; moving from a generic theory that at first might not seem directly relevant for the problem to potential explanations. Generical theories about human behavior and see if they apply to the problem

Question 14

What are 3 obstacles of using theories within the PATHS model?

Answer 14

1. oversimplification
2. external validity (WEIRD participants, lab vs field studies)
3. Contrasting findings

Question 15

What are the 4 filters used in the convergent stage of the analysis phase?

Answer 15

1. Irrelevant explanations (unsubstantiated)
2. Redundant explanations (overlap)
3. Invalid explanations (generalizability)
4. implausible explanations