chapter 2: how social psychologists conduct research Flashcards
what is the observational method of research
Researcher observes people (research is based on making observations of other people)
-Used to describe behavior
-Realistic information (why they are good)
two examples of observational research
ethnography and archival analysis
what is ethnography
Description from an “insider’s point of view”
-Try to immerse yourself into the culture of others to gain information about others you might not otherwise be able to get
-Ex. People join cults to learn more about the cult
what is archival analysis
Researcher examines accumulated documents (archives)
-Interested in how the weather impacts voting behavior, looking in previous years to see the weather that day and how people actually vote
what are three limits of the observational method
1) Some behaviors difficult to observe
-Occur rarely
-In private
-Ex. If someone was interested in sexual behavior this is hard to gain access to because most people are not willing to let you see them having sex
2) Archival analysis
-Missing info
-Record keeping is often not done perfectly, incomplete information, could be variables you are interested in that you cannot access
3) does not show causation
what is the correlational method
Two or more variables are systematically measured and the relation between them is assessed
how can you do correlational method with one group
Only one group – measure two things at the same time
what are the two kinds of correlations you can find
positive and negative
what is the correlation coefficient
A statistical technique that assesses how well you can predict one variable from another.
what two things must you consider when looking at a correlation coefficient
- strength: indicated by absolute value
-Absolute value near 1 – strong correlation, good prediction
-Absolute value near 0 – weak correlation, poor prediction - direction: indicated by sign
-Positive – as one variable increases the other increases
-Negative – as one variable increases the other decreases
what is a survey (typically used for in correlations)
-Representative sample of people asked about attitudes or behavior
-Correlations computed using responses to questions
when are surveys the best/ most representative
Best when random selection is used
-Random selection is when each person in a population has the same probability of ending up in your sample
-But you have to be careful
-We almost never have true random selection which can create problems
what can happen if you do not use a representative sample and give the FDR / Landon example
The Perils of using a Nonrepresentative Sample
-Failure to Use Random Selection = Misleading Results
Overwhelmingly the polls showed that Landon would win the election,
-1936 – polled people from phone directory and car registrations and randomly selected people off of the list, showed that Landon was definitely going to win
-Why did this happen? People who had more money had phones and cars and people who have more money tend to vote for republicans, not an accurate sample to pull from (not representative of the population)
-Probably would not happen today because most people have cars and phones nowadays
what is good about correlations
-Realistic
-Can be cheap and easy
-Can investigate things you otherwise could not
Ex. The correlation between smoking and lung cancer showed that smoking can cause lung cancer, never can randomly assign people to a smoking condition because of the IRB
what is bad about correlations
Typically self-report
-People are biased and not always honest when they self-report, various motivations for lying
Cannot demonstrate causation
-You can never know when there is a confounding variable (another variable that is causing the two variables being measured or that explains the relationship between the two of them, ex. Stress and smoking and lung cancer)
-You can never tell which variable is causing the other, which direction the correlation is
explain correlation does not equal causation and the three possible reasons behind a correlational relationship
Three possible causal relations when a correlation is found (e.g., you find that cigarettes smoked is correlated with lung cancer)
-Smoking causes lung cancer
-People with lung cancer smoke more
-Not caring about health leads to…
-Smoking
-Cancer
(direction of relationship or a third variable causing both)
explain the birth control and STD example and another explanation
A study found a correlation between the type of birth control women used and their likelihood of getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI). Those whose partners used condoms were more likely to have an STI than were women who used other forms of birth control. Does this mean that the use of condoms caused the increase in STIs? Not necessarily.
-Could be that: People in committed relationships are less likely to use condoms because they are only sleeping with one person and might use other forms of birth control
what is an experimental design and its three key features
Research design with 3 key features (you need these three things to have a true experiment)
-Manipulation of IV
-Measurement of DV
-Random Assignment of participants to groups (this allows for control of outside variables as well)
Only way to demonstrate that one variable causes another variable
Ex. You flip a coin to determine if people will exercise in a group or by themselves for a week. At the end of the week, you give them a satisfaction with life survey.
internal validity in experiments?
Internal validity is typically high in experiments (if the experiment is measuring what it is supposed to be measuring/ does it demonstrate causation)
-Can control variables
-Randoms assignment
external validity in experiments?
External validity is often low in experiments (whether or not the findings can be generalized to other populations or situations)
-People
-Situations
why is external validity low in experiments
It is low because in real life things are not as controlled as they are in experiments, there are a lot more things going on in life that might impact the results (a lot of experiments do not resemble real life); also is low because of the kinds of people that are participating in the studies (selection bias, the sophomore problem is people who need to participate in studies to get credit)
how can you deal with low external validity (4 ways)
-psychological realism
-replications
-meta-analysis
-field experiments
what is psychological realism and how does it help external validity
Using Psychological Realism (this is the extent to which the variables in which you are interested in are actually operating in your experiment/ the extent to which you are actually manipulating the variables you are interested in studying, ex. If you are interested in studying fear you have to create a situation that is impactful where people actually feel fear); try to create situations as similar to the real world as possible
-Perhaps with a cover story
-Ex. People interested in drinking behavior will set up their lab to look like a bar
explain replications and how they help external validity
No research results rest on one particular study, people study the same thing over and over so we can have more confidence in what we are finding
