Social Psychology Methodology

CHAPTER 2 - METHODOLOGY

Fundamental principle of SP is the many social problems can be studied empirically. It is an empirical and experimental science.

In this chapter we will discuss its methodology. As we mentioned in chapter 1,it is not sufficient to rely on personal beings when answering the questions about human behavior. They may give truth but we need to explain them scientifically. Authoration? must be translated into hypothesis that can be tested scientifically and it is important to discuss to learn how SP do research.

SP asks questions about human behavior by using different types of methods. Three of the methods are important

1) Observational method

2) Correlational method

3) Experimental method

In sociology there is also observational and correlational method but what is different for SP is experimental method. We mostly use experimental method.

* Observational method focus on description. It asks this question"what is the nature of social phenomenon?" For this reason it asks WHAT question.(tanımlama)

* Correlational method focus on prediction. From knowing x can we predict y? or is there any relationship between x and y? For this reason it ask HOW question. How x and y related and by moving x can we predict y?(öngörme)

* Experimental method gives us causality. It asks this variable x is a cause of variable y? It asks WHY question. Why x is the cause of y. (nedensellik)

All researches begins with a hypothesis.

Hypothesis: an unverified statement that the researcher wants to test.

 Let's find an example(any social problem) to investigate,

Our statement is, the more women get independence the more violence against them.

Why it happens? There are some psychological reasons for example men feel themselves insecure.

Every method has weaknesses and strengthens. So we can choose one of them or we may start with an observational method and end with an experimental method. Most of the time social psychologist do not satisfied with one method and try to prove their hypothesis, using many methods.

 Observational method;

Description: a researcher observes people and records impression of their behavior. So researchers try to good at situation. It takes many forms. Most common one is ethnography.

İt is method in which researcher attempt to understand a group or culture by observing it from inside without imposing any emotions they might have. Role of this method is to understand the richness and complexity of the group by observing in its real situation." Participant observation" depend on the situation either you can do overt research (people know your identity as a researcher) or covert research (nobody knows your identity).They all have its own weakness and strengthens. In this kind of method the hypothesis usually comes after observation. For example you may go a neighborhood and do a research and try to verify your hypothesis however after some observation you may say that if women have a work it increases the male violence. You can rebuild your hypothesis. However it is important that the researcher should be systematically looking for particular behaviors that are defined before the observation begins. This means that you shouldn't try to observe everything you should define behaviors which should be observed for verifying hypothesis. For example you should define violence. What kind of violence you should decide? Physical, emotional violence? Define one of violence. Also you should define the independency and then you can start to observe.

* How can we know that our observation is valuable, we are objective?

For this reason we need verification it is called as interjudged asks the question do we know how the observer is.

İnterjudge reliabililty: the level of agreement btw two or more people who independently observe and thought the same set of data. If the other researchers ensure that the observations are not subjective it is accurate.

For example you define violence; independency and you observe and get some results. Then two or more social psychologist should do the same research using your definitions exactly in the same place. If they get the same results your results then you may say that this research is accurate.

* However is it possible in social world to observe the same thing?

It is impossible. For this reason in observational method we also can use archival analysis. Most of the time it can be more reliable than our participant observation method.

Archival analysis examines accumulated documents for archives of a culture.

 So if we want to observe male violence against women how can we look at? What kinds of documents we can use? Police reports, newspapers, diaries, novels, magazines .These are important resources. Because archival analysis tells us a great deals about society's culture but they cannot give the question of why independency of women increase the male violence. It may prove that there is a strong relation btw these two but we cannot find the exact reason. So it will be better to use correlational method.

 If it provides random selection? What might happen?

Biases occur and so we cannot say that there is a strong relationship btw divorce and male violence. And for this reason, also surveys are important to show us the large amount of peoples opinion s about subject they cannot show us the causality. We can say that there is a strong relationship btw divorce and male violence but we cannot say that whether male violence can be the reason of divorce .If we want to learn the causality in other word if you want to say divorce increases male violence we should use our 3rd method; experimental method.

 Experimental method;

The only way to determine causal relationship.

The researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical. For example we can mention identical twins. It should be identical accept for the independent variable.

Independent variable: variable a researcher changes or varies to see if it has an effect on some other variable. So independent var. İs the var. which affects the other one.

Determined