week 2 Flashcards
What are the 7 factors of how relationship science works
- developing a question 2. obtaining participants 3. choosing a design 4. selecting a setting 5. the nature of the data 6. ethics 7. interpreting and integrating results
Developing a question: the questions researcher ask emerge from various sources like (4)
personal experience, social problems, previous research, theories
Obtaining participants: Whose relationships are studied. Conveience sample and repersentative sample
Convenience Sample: anyone who is readily available.
Representative Sample: Participants who resemble the
entire population of people who are of interest.
What is volenteer bias?
Of those invited, people who agree to
participate may differ from those who refuse.
What should we make of one study at just one university that only included college students
Caution is warranted
Choosing designs: what are two different research designs are used by relationship science
correctional designs and experimental designs
what is a correlational design
Study naturally occurring events to find associations between them
Experimental designs
manipulate events to delineate the
causal connections between them.
experimental designs illuminate
cause and effect
Dion et al. examined why we tend to like people who are physically attractive. They wondered whether the mere fact that someone is physically
attractive leads to other positive judgments about that person. What was the cause and effect in the study
Cause: physical appearance and effect: favourable judgment
What is a dependent variable
the effect or outcome of the researchers
want to understand.
how was the study conducted/what happened in the study?
- Participants were given 3 photographs of people and asked to
rate their impressions of each one (personality of the person; if they were likely to be happily married; what kinds of jobs they might have)
Indepdendent variable is what?
: the possible cause; what is
manipulated by the researcher.
what was the iv and how was it manipulated
iv: physical attractiveness and the level of physical attractiveness in the photos
what is a control?
holding constant across all conditions
Results of the study
*Compared to the less attractive people, participants rated the
more attractive people as more well adjusted, more likely to have a
satisfying marriage, and more likely to have a prestigious job.
Selecting a setting: ussually two choices
laboratories or natural environments
The nature of data: explain self reports
Ask people about their experiences.
they help us understand people’s personal points of view
potential problems with self-report
Participants may misunderstand some questions, people’s memories may not be accurate, people may not be able to tell the truth
Self reports: what is self-serving bias
: Participants may honestly think that they
are kinder, more competent, and more attentive than they
really are.
what is social desirability bias:
: People may be reluctant to report
anything that makes them look bad.
explain ecological momentary assessment
uses short, intermittent periods of
observation to capture samples of
behaviour that occurs over a longer
periods.
what is reactivity
people changing their behaviour when they know they are being observed
what are physiological measures?
Measures of autonomic and
biochemical responses.
Measures of heart rate, hormone
levels, brain activity, muscle tension,
and genital arousal can provide
information about
How physical states are associated with social behaviour
What does it mean to use archival materials
Inspection of personal
documents, such as photographs
and diaries, and public records,
such as marriage licenses can
also be informative.
What is couples reports:
involve self-reports of one’s own behaviour
and observations of the other’s
behaviour from both members of
a couple.
What is the ethics of intimate relationship studies?
Relationship scientists are cautious about protecting the welfare
of the participants in their research, but people may be
asked about sensitive issues
Interpreting and integrating results: what is paird interdependent data
: partners influence each other, so
their responses are not independent.
what is different levels of analysis?
– researchers can study partners as
individuals or as a couple.
three sources of influence
The two individual partners and the
idiosyncratic partnership they share influence their interactions.
