An introduction to the application of scientific method to human behavior Knowledge What does knowledge allow us to do Predict Control Understand Beattys unscientific sources of knowledge Intuition ID: 142423
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Slide1
Social science: The basics
An introduction to the application of scientific method to human behaviorSlide2
Knowledge
What does knowledge allow us to do?
Predict
Control
UnderstandSlide3
Beatty’s unscientific sources of knowledge
Intuition
Tenacity
Common sense
Personal experience
Authority
RationalismSlide4
So what are we to do?
Develop ways to reduce the bias and improve our ability to observe
‘Science’ as a means to systematically study the world
First developed in ‘hard’ or ‘natural’ sciences
Human beings were not the object of study
Study moves from description to classification to correlation to ‘causality’Slide5
Science
Draws upon the other sources of knowledge
Systematically tests ideas in the empirical world
Precise
Objective
CumulativeSlide6
Appropriate for some but
not all questions
Are Muslims violent?
Would young children learn more from watching educational videos or from unstructured play?
Do people use the Internet more for entertainment or for social contact?
What is the meaning of life?
Should the government license websites?
Does advertising make us feel ugly?
What colors should I wear together?Slide7
Empiricism
The kind of evidence that we gather in science is ‘empirical’ evidence
Drawn from our interaction with the physical world
Science structures experience in ways that help us to improve on the lessons we learn from the ‘real world’Slide8
Social science
Scientific study applied to human behavior did not really get going till the 1800s
Excitement over the successes of natural sciences
Industrial machinery
Vaccines against disease
Optics
Astronomical discoveries
NavigationSlide9
Development of social science
There was a heated controversy over the appropriateness of the scientific study of people
Religious/ethical concerns over the ethics of trying to study people
Scientific debate over whether humans act according to ‘laws’ of behavior the way inanimate objects do
This debate continuesSlide10
Positivism
From the beginning of the 20
th
century until the latter half of the century, social sciences favored an approach that said that the proper approach to the study of human behavior was to adopt the methods and philosophy dominant in natural sciences.
Empirical
Hypothetico-deductive
“Nomothetic”Slide11
Covering laws
Scholars during the first half of the 20
th
century were concerned with attempting to identify the limited number of laws that explained all human behavior.
Slide12
Over time, their frustration, coupled with an increasing understanding of the uncertainty even of natural sciences led to an abandonment of the attempt by most social scientists.Slide13
More recent developments
An approach that accepts some level of uncertainty in the prediction and understanding of human behavior was adopted (“Post-positivism”)
Note: a ‘probabilistic’ model was adopted (
Trochim
)Slide14
The new view of social science
Social scientists recognize that absolute ‘covering laws’ of human beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are probably not there to be found
Instead, relationships among variables are seen as partial and contingent upon circumstances, personalities, etc.Slide15
How we study human action with social science methods
Social scientists attempt to develop theory by generalizing from a number of individual cases or examples
Induction
They then make predictions from the general rules to a new set of events or cases
Deduction
They test their predictions
With the knowledge gained from the tests, they reconsider the generalizations they made
The process begins again (continuous)Slide16
Social science community
The development of knowledge in a discipline is a community undertaking
The best approximation to truth is attained through multiple researchers applying different theories and methods to the same questions
Scientists act as a profession, policing each other and critiquing each other’s theories and research
Conferences, etc. bring researchers looking at similar problems togetherSlide17
Goals of social science
In modern study of social science topics, the goal, generally speaking, is to develop probabilistic theories by identifying
relationships
among
concepts
Concepts are generalized ideas that refer to
a number of individual cases Slide18
Relationships
The two most common types of relationships in research are
Correlational
—two concepts are related so that variance in one
coincides with
variance in another
Causal—two concepts are related so that variance in one
leads to
variance in the otherSlide19
Examples: Correlation
If you find that people who use illegal drugs at an early age watch druggie movies, it could be either that
kids exposed to druggie movies are more likely to use drugs at an early age or
kids who use drugs at an early age are attracted to druggie moviesSlide20
Examples: Causality
If you find that exposure to pro-abstinence messages
leads to
later onset of sexual behavior but not vice versa, and there is no other plausible explanation for the relationship, then you conclude that you have a causal relationshipSlide21
Representing relationships
Drug movies
Drug use
Exposure to
pro-abstinence
messages
Onset of sexual activity
__
+Slide22
Basic theoretical statement
Gender self-definition
Violent video
game play
DeterminesSlide23
Concepts and variables
Variables are concepts that take more than one value
Otherwise, they are a ‘constant’
E.g., the star that the Earth revolves aroundSlide24
Basic research statement
Gender identity
Violent video
game play
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Relationship
:
DeterminesSlide25
Antecedent variable
Gender
identity
Violent video
game play
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Social construction
of gender
Antecedent VariableSlide26
Mediating variable
Gender identity
Violent video
game play
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Parents’ political
liberalism
Mediating VariableSlide27
Intervening Variable
Gender
identity
Violent video
game play
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Personal
aggressiveness
Intervening VariableSlide28
Confound—“third variable” explanation
Gender
identity
Violent video
game play
Independent Variable
Dependent Variable
Hormonal balance
Antecedent Variable
X
X
XSlide29
It can get quite complicated
Papies
,
Dominik
, and Michel Clement. "Adoption of New Movie Distribution Services on the Internet."
Journal of Media Economics 21.3 (2008): 131-57.Slide30
It can get quite complicated
Papies
,
Dominik
, and Michel Clement. "Adoption of New Movie Distribution Services on the Internet."
Journal of Media Economics 21.3 (2008): 131-57.Slide31
Paek
,
Hye
-Jin. "Mechanisms through Which Adolescents Attend and Respond to Antismoking Media Campaigns."
Journal of Communication 58.1 (2008): 84-105.Slide32
Some variables to
play around with
Gender
Sex
Age
Education
Interest
in technology
Video Game Play
Game genre preference
Game playing skill
Sociability
(Tendency toward interaction with others, friendships)
Enjoyment
of fantasy
Social conservatism
Psychological compulsion
Sports
experience
Income
Film genre preferenceSlide33
Why social science faces
special challenges
The trouble with peopleSlide34
People are hard to study because:
They think
(and we don’t have direct access to their minds)Slide35
People are hard to study because:
They don’t simply react to your stimulus
They try to guess what you’re doing and anticipate what your goal is
They may intentionally help or hinder your goal (as they see it)
They are affected by a wide range of things in their environment
You can’t control all the things that might affect your subjectsSlide36
People are hard to study because:
They are complicated
They are emotional
They forget
They change over time
Individuals are very different
They can be uncooperativeSlide37
People are hard to study because:
Ethics limit what you can do to study them