Class 3 Flashcards
What is Experimental control?
The degree to which a researcher can determine the environment in which a research question is explored. In general, a “lab study” has high experimental control
What is Psychological realism?
Degree to which a study simulates phenomena as experienced in everyday life. More immersive studies would have higher psychological realism
What is Internal validity?
The degree to which a study can rule out alternative hypotheses. If a study has many alternative hypotheses that could explain the results other than that proposed by the researcher, the study has low internal validity
What is external validity?
The degree to which the results of a study generalize to other contexts, samples, and time periods
What is the goal of a research question?
There is no ‘right’ answer. Each approach has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.
The goal is to maximize correspondence between a study’s research question and it’s methods.
What are Self-report measures?
Assessing attitudes, thoughts or beliefs by presenting a question, several possible responses, and having the participant select the response that they believe to be most of their own attitudes, thoughts, or belief
Ex. -3 to 3 scale (most ppl say 0 (no preference))
What are the two weaknesses of self report?
- Doesn’t account for implicit attitudes you may hold
- Doesn’t account for social desirability
How can we use indirect measures on racial attitudes?
Inferring attitudes, thoughts or beliefs from some type of behavior rather than from self-report..
One example of an ‘indirect’ measure is the Evaluative Priming (EP) procedure
(Sort words as positive or negative then faces)
What are the results of implicit measures?
55% have an implicit bias
What are weaknesses of implicit measures?
- Not fully sure what is causing that result
- Not sure if it applies IRL
How can a ‘physiological monitor’ measure racial attitudes?
System to test sweat / heart rate
(then put in situation with black or white person)
What is a weakness of physiological monitors?
- There are many reasons we get a high heart rate
- Could be positive or negative
How can we use behavioral measures to test racial attitudes? (Club study)
During a lab context!
Ex. Student is assigned to budget at a uni
- Need to cut funding for some clubs
- If higher in self-reported prejudice, they may cut the black students association
What weaknesses do the behavioral measures have? (Club study)
- Unclear what % of budget they are supposed to allocated for them to be unprejudiced (ex. does every club need to loose 5%? If they target specific clubs are they prejudiced?)
- Might not apply IRL (maybe they cut some clubs cuz they know ppl in others)
- Might simply prioritize other clubs (maybe sports bring in money to the school)
Explain how Frank Kachanoff (a McGill alum!) made an immersive behavioral measure?
multi-hour long study where participants join a group, complete computer missions together, and develop an entire culture by selecting a flag and identifying group snacks
Then, Frank uses these ‘maximal group paradigms’ to look at questions related to how experiencing lower or higher status impacts group identity and behavior
What is a potential weakness of Frank Kachanoff’s immersive study?
His gaming groups do not reflect lifelong groups
Explain how there is A Disconnect Between Predicted and Actual Behavior? (Study: Kawakami)
Told: White person is good at the task we need you to do
THEN
One condition: White ppl asked to imagine a white person using racial slur to black person
- Then asked which they would like to work with: (20% of participants said they would choose the White person)
Other condition: WATCH a white person use a slur to a black person IRL (they were confederates)
- Then asked who they would like to work with: (over 60% chose the White person)
Give an example of “Measuring ‘Real’ Behavior”
First-Person Shooter Task
More ppl shoot unarmed black person, and don’t shoot armed white person
What is the weakness of measuring real behaviour? (first person shooter task)
- Time constraint might make ppl focus more on their sterotypes (not reflected of real world bias)
How can we measure “realer” behaviour? (Chair study)
Make ppl think they aren’t in a study
Have 6 chairs available (with white and black confederate sitting on each end)
- Which spot will they sit
More people sit next to the white person
What is a weakness on the chair study?
- White seat could be closer to the door
- Even being in a psyc building could be suspicious to ppl (might know they could be in a study)
What are Archival analyses?
use existing datasets to understand how social forces might influence real-world behavior.
For example, Voigt et al. (2017) coded how police officers spoke to Black versus White drivers following a traffic stop. They found that officers were much more polite and reassuring to White drivers, and more disrespectful to Black driver
What are two explanations on why police officers use different tones with white and black drivers?
- Are cops changing language based on if they’re in white / black neighbourhoods
OR
- Is the police district assigning rude cops to black neighbourhoods
What are weaknesses of the police tone study?
- Don’t know behaviour of the driver
- Depends on where they are
- Lack a control (hard to rule out other interpretations)
- Depends on what info you have access to
Archival Analyses: Cocaine study
In 2011, the US minimum amount of cocaine needed for a felony offense changed from 50g to 280g. Tuttle (2019) investigated how this change in policy impacted racial discrimination in police reports and court sentencing
(Cops might be rounding up with non white offenders)
Archival Analyses: Sunset study
Pierson et al. (2020) analyzed over 100 million traffic stops and found that the percentage of stops that were of Black drivers decreasedafter dusk (when it is presumably harder for officers to identify the race of the driver).
What are Audit Studies?
Attempting to combine the experimental control and internal validity of a lab study while also measuring ‘real-world’ behavior.
(Real world behaviour with random assignment)
- Ex. two actors (one white / one black)
- Same script (try get apartment)
What is a second example of an Audit study? (Politician)
Emailing politician with white vs black name
- Email is more likely to get a response if u used the white name
(But only if your political views are not stated)
Or whitened resumes
What is the Dietrich and Sands (2023) traffic camera study?
used traffic cameras in New York City to look at interpersonal forms of “racial avoidance”. Confederates (either two White men or two Black men) stood in the same spot on the sidewalk and were trained to have a similar conversation for ~ 15 minutes
Results:
On average, pedestrians showed greater deviations in their walking paths towards the Black versus the White confederates. This difference translated into roughly four more inches of space given to Black confederates. Preliminary results that the effect was stronger among women than men.
What are the weaknesses of Audit studies?
- EXPENSIVE
- Can’t see the psychological mechanisms on why ppl acted the way they did
