haslam and mcgarty notes

Question 1

Manipulation check

Answer 1

checks the manipulation of the IV has had an effect on a theoretically relevant causal variable.

Question 2

Relevance sensitivity trade-off

Answer 2

Dependent variable is highly relevant to a given issue so it may be less sensitive to changes in the IV
(e.g. measuring road rage with crashes. Not many crashes).

Question 3

Naïve empiricism

Answer 3

directly generalising research findings to other settings and samples, without basing that generalisation on a theory

Question 4

Maturation effects

Answer 4

any changes in the participants that occur as a result of time passing. There are two forms

Question 5

Practice effect

Answer 5

performance on a post-test is improved as a result of the practiced gained from performing a pre-test

Question 6

Fatigue effect

Answer 6

Performance on a post-test deteriorates as a result of boredom or tiredness associated with having already completed a pre-test

Question 7

History effects

Answer 7

changes to the participants’ circumstances that take place over the course of a study

Question 8

Why can history and maturation effects threaten internal validity?

Answer 8

because they can lead to systematic differences between observations at different phases of a study.

Question 9

Testing effects

Answer 9

to do with the situation itself. Participants answering questions a second time already have experience of being questioned. Experimental reactivity

Question 10

Experimental reactivity

Answer 10

participants often react to features of an experiment so that the process of making observations can change observations.

Question 11

Hawthorne effect

Answer 11

arises in any research where responses are affected by participants’ sensitivity to the fact that they are participating in research

Question 12

Order effects

Answer 12

experimental effects that result from the sequencing of experimental treatments or the completion of dependent measures

Question 13

Instrumentation effects

Answer 13

Threats to internal validity arising from changes in dependent variables and materials used to record them

Question 14

Selection effects

Answer 14

participants are assigned to different levels of an independent variable on the basis of some specific criteria.

Question 15

Regression to the mean

Answer 15

The tendency for observations and responses at the extreme end of a scale on one measure to be closer to the mean on another measure. If this problem is not recognised it constitutes a threat to internal validity.

Question 16

Mortality effects

Answer 16

participants withdrawing from a study

Question 17

Demand characteristics

Answer 17

norms participants conform to because they appear to be appropriate guides to behaviour in the situation they confront.

Question 18

Experimenter bias

Answer 18

any behaviour by the researcher that prevents a fair test of the experimental hypothesis (e.g. could nod at some answers).

Question 19

How can you counteract demand characteristics and experimenter bias?

Answer 19

Blind experimenter

Question 20

What can never be methodologically controlled?

Answer 20

Cheating

Question 21

Hermeneutic approach

Answer 21

focusing on the meaning that particular behaviours have for participants themselves

Question 22

Participant involvement

Answer 22

actively involve participants in the research process.

Question 23

Which philosophies does quantitative represent?

Answer 23

Realism and positivism

Question 24

What philosophies does qualitative represent?

Answer 24

Idealism, constructionism, constructivism, relativism

Question 25

What are some tools to collect qualitative data?

Answer 25

Q-sort, verbal protocol, repertory grid

Question 26

What is Q-sort

Answer 26

o Participants sort cards containing statements into piles associated with different points on a response dimension (e.g. ‘not likely of me’ to ‘very likely of me’)

Question 27

What is verbal protocol

Answer 27

o Participants retrospectively comment on a particular topic and their responses are coded using pre-established guidelines. The most common is ‘thinking aloud’

Question 28

What is repertory grid

Answer 28

o Used to gain access to participants’ persona constructs. Participants are first asked to identify similarities and differences between elements that are relevant to an aspect of their life. Regularities in the content of these similarities and differences are then used to gain an understanding of the way in which the participant subjectively organises their world.

Question 29

What is empiricist repertoire?

Answer 29

Presented science as an objective activity

Question 30

What is contingent repertoire?

Answer 30

. A way of accounting for scientific endeavour and progress which draws attention to the role played by subjective, human factors beyond the realm of the empirical phenomena under investigation.

Question 31

What methods does qualitative research fall into?

Answer 31

Constructionist, contextualist, realist

Question 32

What is a constructionist method?

Answer 32

Discourse analysis

Question 33

What is discouse analysis?

Answer 33

Discourse analysis is an example of this as it is used to inspect character of naturally occurring discourse to discover subtle features of it and allows people to reach particular ends. Against literal interpretations of data.

Question 34

Example of contextualist methods

Answer 34

Grounded theory

Question 35

What is grounded theory

Answer 35

Emphasis on the perspective and interests of participants but seek to reconcile this with the scientific goals of the researcher. The clearest example of this is the grounded theory.

Grounded theory is where researchers attempt to develop analyses of psychological topics which are grounded in participants localised experiences of relevant phenomena.

Reflexive journal is kept

Question 36

Examples of realist methods

Answer 36

Repertory grid analysis and content analysis

Question 37

What is repertory grid analysis

Answer 37

Repertory grid analysis shares with discourse analysis and grounded theory a belief that it is important for psychological research in a number of domains to tap into the subjective perspective or personal constructs of participants.

Stages in repertory grid analysis:

a) The various aspects of elements are listed
b) Different combinations of these elements are identified in rows underneath
c) Two blank columns are on the right correspond to each row (these are used to identify constructs)

Question 38

What is content analysis

Answer 38

Content analysis is a method for analysing communication after it has been produced. Records of communication must exist in some concrete form

Question 39

How can descriptive uncertainty be removed?

Answer 39

if all participants obtained an identical score

Question 40

What does inferential uncertainty depend on?

Answer 40

• The amount of information that we have to indicate that something interesting is going on
• Random error
• Sample size

Question 41

What does internal uncertainty relate to?

Answer 41

researchers’ confidence in their ability to interpret the results of a study correctly.

Question 42

Where is internal uncertainty prevalent?

Answer 42

in survey research as well where IVs are not directly manipulated. This is because you cannot draw conclusions about which variables affects which in a research on relationships.

Question 43

Where is internal uncertainty reduced?

Answer 43

in cases where there is no relationship found as a lack of correlation allows the researcher conclusively to rule out certain interpretations.

Question 44

Where does external uncertainty arise?

Answer 44

when we are not sure that the results have obtained in our research can be generalised to the population of interest.

Question 45

When will external uncertainty be high

Answer 45

if we use naïve empiricism to generalise research findings without recourse to theory or if we draw conclusions on the basis of samples that are not representative of the population of interest on theoretically relevant variables.

Question 46

What is used as a compromise between uncertainty and the experiment?

Answer 46

Trade-offs

Question 47

what is the difference between realist and constructionist analysis?

Answer 47

•Constructionist methods
o Reject most assumptions and objectives of quantitative methods

•Contextualist methods
o Emphasises subjective experience and goals of researchers and participants

•Realist methods
o Share the same objectives and assumptions as quantitative methods