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+SOC 332 > Chapter 1-5 Review > Flashcards

Chapter 1-5 Review Flashcards

1
Q

to be scientific, a question must be…

A

description, explanation, prediction, understanding

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2
Q

knowledge as description

A

we must describe ojects and events before we can understand and explain the relationships between them

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3
Q

what is the difference between scientific concepts and scientific hypotheses/theories?

A

concepts describe what is being studied, hypotheses/theories explain how and why patterned events occur

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4
Q

True or false? Scientific hypotheses and theories provide a sense of understanding by describing particular outcomes of a situation.

A

False. Scientific hypotheses and theories provide a sense of understanding by describing the underlying causes of phenomena.

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5
Q

According to B F Skinner, science is a cumulative process. What characteristic of science explains/supports this statement?

A

The tentative nature of science. Science will never and can never explain everything. Science is a process. It is a never-ending journey towards understanding.

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6
Q

Describe the scientific process ~~the wheel of science~~~

A

Empirical generalizations > Theories > Hypotheses > Observations

Deduction = empirical generalizations --> hypotheses 
Induction = hypotheses --> empirical generalizations
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7
Q

deductive vs inductive reasoning

A 
deductive = conclusion is absolutely certain if the evidence is true 
inductive = the conclusion is uncertain even if the evidence is true because its content goes beyond the evidence
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8
Q

Which statement is inductive?

(1) Hubert, Walter, Joan, who are union members, are Democrats; therefore, all union members are Democrats.
(2) All union members are Democrats, and Joan belongs to a union; therefore, Joan is a Democrat.

A

Statement 1 is inductive. (Statement 2 is deductive.)

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9
Q

Which type of reasoning (deductive or inductive) is top-down and which is bottom-up?

A 
deductive = top-down 
inductive = bottom-up
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10
Q

True or false: deductive reasoning, as as when generalizing from specific observations, is either valid or invalid.

A

False. Deductive reasoning derives a hypothesis from a theory. Inductive reasoning generalizes from specific observations.

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11
Q

What are the three key principles to which scientists adhere in fathering and evaluating evidence?

A

Empiricism, objectivity, and control.

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12
Q

True or false? How sound inductive reasoning is depends on the scope of the observations.

A

True. Unlike deductive reasoning, which is true as long as the evidence examined is true, inductive reasoning can be wrong even if all the evidence examined is true.

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13
Q

Define empiricism

A

a way of knowing or understanding the world that relies directly or indirectly on what we experience through our senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch

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14
Q

intersubjective testability

A

aka objectivity: agreement on the results of a given observation.

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15
Q

How do scientists try to achieve objectivity?

A

By describing their research in detail, outling their logic and methods of observation in such a way that other scientists may evaluate and repeat the investigation. In this way, others can decide for themselves whether a researcher’s subjectivity has distorted the conclusions.

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16
Q

What is the following statement an example of?

A

It must be possible for two or more independent observers working under the same conditions to agree that they are observing the same thing.

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17
Q

Define control

A

ruling out biases and confounding explanations of the events being studied

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18
Q

True or false? Good scientists do not allow their personal values to influence what they choose to study, how they conduct their research, and how they interpret evidence.

A

False. Personal values may influence these things. It is arguable whether it is possible to remove personal values, or whether it is even necessary/desirable to remove personal values.

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19
Q

Criticism of the scientific conception of sociology from critical theory perspective

A

science reflects an investment in the status quo and fails to promote economic and social change that could transform social relations and empower the powerless

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20
Q

Criticism of the scientific conception of sociology from historicism perspective

A

denies the possibility of general laws insofar as observed regularities are always tied to time and place

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21
Q

Criticism of the scientific conception of sociology from “discourse” school

A

emphasizes the ways that language structures and limits knowledge

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22
Q

Criticism of the scientific conception of sociology from postmodernism perspective

A

there is no possibility of abstract explanation. Challenge to systematic empiricism; one description of reality is no more valid than the other.

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23
Q

serendipity pattern

A

when unanticipated findings occur that cannot be interpreted meaningfully in terms of prevailing theories and that give rise to new theories

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24
Q

Is the following statement inductive or deductive?

A survey researcher interviews 2500 people from a random sample of American adults and finds that 69% are in favour of capital punishment. He concludes that 69% of American adults favour capital punishment.

A

Inductive

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25
Is the following statement inductive or deductive? People will perform better in the presence of an audience than when they perform alone. Therefore, good pool players will make a higher percentage of their shots when an audience is watching them play vs. when they play alone.
Deductive
26
Which part of the wheel of science is deductive?
empirical generalizations --> hypotheses
27
Which part of the wheel of science is inductive?
hypotheses --> empirical generalizations
28
Women, Asians, and students living at home are less likely to smoke marijuana than men, non-Asians, and students not living at home. Noting that each of the former groups has more to lose (e.g. is likely to experience more disapproval) from smoking marijuana, the researcher concluded that the more social constraints a student has, the less likely he or she will smoke marijuana
Inductive
29
the three broad areas of ethical concern in scientific research are...
the ethics of data collection and analysis, the ethics of treatment of participants, and the ethics of responsibility to society
30
Define fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (clearly unethical actions i.e. kinds of research misconduct).
fabrication: making up data and reporting them. falsification: most commonly, manipulating data so the recorded results do not accurately represent actual findings. plagiarism: appropriating another person's ideas, results, or words without giving proper credit.
31
The four problem areas in ethical treatment of human subjects are...
potential harm, lack of informed consent, deception, privacy invasion
32
True or false: Harm is defined as physical damage to the research subject.
False, harm can be physical, social (being humiliated/embarrassed), psychological (losing self-esteem), social (losing trust in others)
33
Define minimal risk
Risks that are no greater than those ordinarily encountered in daily life
34
What are some of the difficulties of informed consent?
- hard to inform bc all of the risks of the research are not always known - consent does not remove the researcher's responsibility to minimize danger to subject - consent forms can reduce chances that people participate - consent forms make people more likely to give socially acceptable (vs truthful) answers - in lab experiments, fullly informed consent may interfere with the validity of the observations
35
when is written consent required on a survey?
(1) if the information collected is recorded so that the respondent could be identified (2) if disclosure of the information could put respondents at risk for criminal or civil liability or damage respondents' reputation (e.g. questions about drug use, violence, sexual behaviour)
36
Usefulness of debriefing
- can provide valuable information about subject's interpretations of research procedures - subjects gain greater appreciation for their research experience - if subject was deceiving during experiment, debriefing can alleviate negative feelings toward researcher/research
37
Explain some techniques of successful debriefing in the case of research that involved deception of the participant
- debrief as soon after their participation, esp if revelation of deception is likely to cause discomfort - debrief slowly and deliberately, eliciting subjects' reactions and then explaining the nature of the experiment - being smug is obviously a bad idea and just rubs salt on the wound. Expressing discomfort about the necessity of deception can help relieve participants' discomfort - point out that everyone gets fooled - researchers should follow Kelman's guideline that a subject ought not to leave the lab with greater anxiety or lower self-esteem than when they came in
38
define the participant's right to privacy
right to decide when, where, to whom and to what extent their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour will be revealed
39
define deontological and teleological. which one reflects most social scientists today?
deontological: basic moral principles should allow no exceptions, no matter what the consequences teleological (most social scientists today): the morality of acts should be judged in relation to the ends they produce
40
What are the three broad, unifying ethical principles of the Belmont Report?
(1) Respect for persons: researchers must treat individuals as autonomous agents who have the freedom and capacity to decide what happens to them. Those with diminished autonomy (e.g. children, mentally disabled, etc) are entitled to protection. (2) Beneficence: consideration of the welfare of participants so that they maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms. includes long-term benefits/harms to humankind. (3) Justice: fair distribution of benefits and harms.
41
What does IRB stand for and what is it?
Institutional review board. Required for all human subjects research, weather funded or not, conducted at institutions that receive federal funding.
42
What are the two main reasons that value-free ideology is no longer tenable?
(1) values have substantial influence on the research process bc they affect how scientists select/conceptualize problems and how they interpret findings. (2) if researchers are value-neutral, they are basically in service of other people's values. This can be a problem if, for example, your sponsor is a white-supremacist who uses your research findings to justify their eugenics programs.
43
define cultural relativity
the idea that cultural values (e.g. standards of truth, morality, beauty, correct behaviour) vary widely and must be judged in relation to a given society
44
True or false? Most researchers select topics suggested by ongoing development of theory and research in their particular fields of study.
True. The structure and state of the discipline casts the framework for topic selection.
45
define unit of analysis
the entities (objects or events) under study in social research. Can include individual people, social roles, positions, relationships, families, organizations, cities, books, documents, buildings, etc.
46
Name and define the fallacy demonstrated below: Sally attends a college whose students have relatively low average SAT scores, therefore Sally has a low SAT score.
ecological fallacy, when relationships between properties of groups of geographic areas are used to make inferences about the individual behaviours of the people within those groups or areas.
47
define variables
characteristics of units that vary, taking on different values, categories, or attributes for different observations
48
Which of the following are variables? male, city of residence, sociology major, Republican, marital status, age, doctor
city of residence, marital status, age | The others are categories of variables.
49
two types of explanatory variables
independent and dependent
50
two types of extraneous variables
antecedent (z --> both x and y) or intervening (x --> z --> y)
51
Facts or data do not speak for themselves; they must be interpreted based on ________________.
anticipated and predicted relationships
52
define non spurious
when an association or correlation between variables cannot be explained by an extraneous variable
53
_____ can clarify the causal connection between variables. a) antecedent variables b) intervening variables c) all of the above d) none of the above
b) intervening variables
54
_____ may create spurious association a) antecedent variables b) intervening variables c) all of the above d) none of the above
a) antecedent variables
55
According to Firebaugh (2008), research questions should meet which of the two fundamental criteria? a) researchable b) interesting c) relevant d) new e) important
A) researchable i.e. not to broad, has identifiable variables and relationships and B) interesting i.e. contributes to ongoing conversations in the field
56
What are the forms of expressing testable hypotheses?
“if-then” conditional statements, mathematical statements, continuous statements, difference statements
57
define conditional statement
A connection between two simple statements, each pointing to a condition or category of a variable. These statements say that if one phenomenon or condition holds, then another will also hold.
58
define mathematical statement
Y = f(X) i.e. “if (and only if) X is this value, then Y is that value”
59
define continuous statement
“the greater the X, the greater (or lesser) is Y” e.g. as education increases, prejudice decreases
60
define difference statements
assertion that one variable differs in terms of categories of another variable. e.g. if education is high, then prejudice is low
61
Hypotheses in science can only have ______ confirmation.
probabilistic (not exact).
62
Hypotheses can only be judged to be probably true or probably false. To make this judgement, we use ________.
Tests of significance
63
define exploratory studies
studies undertaken when relatively little is known about something, perhaps because of its “deviant” character or its newness
64
define descriptive studies
a study that aims to describe a phenomenon. a fact-finding enterprise that focuses on relatively few dimensions of a well-defined entity and measures these dimensions systematically and precisely, usually with numerical data
65
define explanatory studies
Research conducted to test relationships
66
list the stages of social research
1. formulation of the research design 2. preparation of the research design 3. measurement 4. sampling 5. data collection 6. data processing 7. data analysis and interpretation
67
describe stage 1 of research design: formulation of the research question
what does one want to know and for what purpose does one want to know it
68
describe stage 2 of research design: preparation of the research design
what sort of observations are needed to answer the research question and what are the appropriate methods of observation and hypothesis testing? what is the unit of analysis, which variables should be observed and controlled, how should the variables be measured, and how should the data be analyzed
69
describe stage 3 of research design: measurement
the process of assigning numbers or labels to units of analysis in order to represent conceptual properties
70
describe stage 4 of research design: sampling
how many units should be selected and how are they chosen?
71
describe stage 5 of research design: data collection
collect data though experiment, survey, field research, or use of available data
72
describe stage 6 of research design: data processing
transforming or processing the data for analysis/interpretation
73
describe stage 7 of research design: data analysis and interpretation
manipulation of data so that their meaning and bearing on the problems and hypotheses that initiated the inquiry can be extracted
74
# Define the unit of analysis, independent variable, and dependent variable for the following research question: Boys whose parents are divorced or separated have more behaviour problems than boys living with both biological parents.
unit of analysis: boys independent variable: marital status of parents dependent variable: behavioural problems
75
# Define the unit of analysis, independent variable, and dependent variable for the following research question: The number of sexually explicit magazines sold in each of the fifty states is positively correlated with the number of reported rapes.
unit of analysis: states independent variable: number of sexually explicit magazines dependent variable: number of reported rapes
76
# Define the unit of analysis, independent variable, and dependent variable for the following research question: Residents of rural communities are less tolerant of people holding controversial views than urban residents.
unit of analysis: individual people independent variable: rural/urban residence dependent variable: tolerance of controversial views
77
# Define the unit of analysis, independent variable, and dependent variable for the following research question: How does the level of economic development of a country affect the level of human services provided to its people?
unit of analysis: countries independent variable: level of economic development dependent variable: level of human services
78
define conceptualization
the process of formulating and clarifying concepts
79
Broh (2002) uses social capital to refer to “the ability to accrue benefits through membership in social network.” What is this an example of?
conceptualization
80
True or false: conceptualization is the clarification of a single category within a value.
False: conceptualization can signify a single category (such as “male”) or it may imply to several categories (such as “gender”)
81
True or false: social science concepts are not directly observable.
False (but in many cases true)
82
Once the meaning of a concept has been clarified and the concept is construed as a variable, the researcher begins the process of _______.
operationalization
83
define operational definition
the operational definition describes the research operations that specify the values or categories of a variable. e.g. for Broh (2002), the operational definition of participation in interscholastic sports is “whether a student participated in interscholastic sports during both the 10th and 12th grades (1 = participated in both years, 0 = did not participate in both years)”
84
Imagine your friend gives you a cake, and it is so delicious that you ask your friend for the recipe. They say “puts some flour, sugar, eggs, chocolate, and whatever, mix it in a bowl and bake it!” It is unlikely that you could follow these instructions and bake an identical cake. However if they give step-by-step instructions that includes the amount of each ingredient, describes the process of mixing the ingredients, and specifies oven temperature and baking time, you will likely be able to reproduce the cake. What is this an analogy for?
operational definitions
85
Measurement begins with _________, the clarification of the meaning of a concept, and ends with ______, a procedure detailing the observational categories or values representing a concept.
conceptualization, operationalization
86
define indicator
a single observable measure, such as a single questionaire item in a survey
87
Why do researchers often chose to rely on more than one indicator when operationalizing a concept?
because of the imperfect correspondence between indicators and concepts. e.g. the concept "religiosity" cannot be fully represented by the indicator "what religious group do you belong to?" Other indicators such as "how often do you attend religious services" can be used to capture other facets of religiosity.
88
______ is synonymous with consistency, ______ is synonymous with accuracy.
reliability, validity
89
define systematic measurement error
error that results from factors that systematically influence either the process of measurement or the concept being measured
90
define random measurement error
error that is unrelated to true differences in the concept being measurement. The result of temporary, chance factors. e.g. up/downswings in mood/health of research subjects, etc.
91
define test-retest reliability
simplest method for assessing reliability, involves measuring the same units on two separate occasions.
92
what are some problems with the test-retest method
- people may remember/repeat the answers they gave the first time around - real change may happen in the concept between the two tests e.g. if someone had a positive experience that raised their self-esteem between the test and the retest, there will be a difference in their self-esteem measures that is interpreted as error - the first measurement may create change in the concept e.g. if someone was tested on their racial biases, they may start reflecting on their biases in between the test and retest and by the time the retest rolls around, their score on a racial biases scale may have changed
93
define split-half reliability
a scale is applied once to a sample of cases, after which the items of the scale are divided into halves by random selection. Each half is then treated as a subtest with the results of the two subtests correlated to obtain an estimate of the reliability
94
True or false: split-half reliability and internal consistency are forms of equivalence estimates
True

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