Social science: The basics

Social science: The basicsAn introduction to the application of scientific method to human behaviorKnowledgeWhat does knowledge allow us to do?PredictControlUnderstandBeattys unscientific sources of knowledgeIntuitionTenacityCommon sensePersonal experienceAuthorityRationalismSo what are we to do?Develop ways to reduce the bias and improve our ability to observeScience as a means to systematically study the worldFirst developed in hard or natural sciencesHuman beings were not the object of studyStudy moves from description to classification to correlation to causalityScienceDraws upon the other sources of knowledgeSystematically tests ideas in the empirical worldPreciseObjectiveCumulativeAppropriate for some but not all questionsAre 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?EmpiricismThe kind of evidence that we gather in science is empirical evidenceDrawn from our interaction with the physical worldScience structures experience in ways that help us to improve on the lessons we learn from the real worldSocial scienceScientific study applied to human behavior did not really get going till the 1800sExcitement over the successes of natural sciencesIndustrial machineryVaccines against diseaseOpticsAstronomical discoveriesNavigationDevelopment of social scienceThere was a heated controversy over the appropriateness of the scientific study of peopleReligious/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 doThis debate continues

PositivismFrom the beginning of the 20th 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.EmpiricalHypothetico-deductiveNomotheticCovering lawsScholars during the first half of the 20th century were concerned with attempting to identify the limited number of laws that explained all human behavior. 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.More recent developmentsAn 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)Trochim:Things have changed in our views of science since the middle part of the 20th century. Probably the most important has been our shift away from positivism into what we term post-positivism. By post-positivism, I don't mean a slight adjustment to or revision of the positivist position -- post-positivism is a wholesale rejection of the central tenets of positivism.

A post-positivist might begin by recognizing that the way scientists think and work and the way we think in our everyday life are not distinctly different. Scientific reasoning and common sense reasoning are essentially the same process. There is no difference in kind between the two, only a difference in degree.

Scientists, for example, follow specific procedures to assure that observations are verifiable, accurate and consistent. In everyday reasoning, we don't always proceed so carefully (although, if you think about it, when the stakes are high, even in everyday life we become much more cautious about measurement. Think of the way most responsible parents keep continuous watch over their infants, noticing details that non-parents would never detect).

One of the most common forms of post-positivism is a philosophy called critical realism. A critical realist believes that there is a reality independent of our thinking about it that science can study. . . . . the post-positivist critical realist recognizes that all observation is fallible and has error and that all theory is revisable. In other words, the critical realist is critical of our ability to know reality with certainty.

. . . .Because all measurement is fallible, the post-positivist emphasizes the importance of multiple measures and observations, each of which may possess different types of error, and the need to use triangulation across these multiple errorful sources to try to get a better bead on what's happening in reality. The post-positivist also believes that all observations are theory-laden and that scientists (and everyone else, for that matter) are inherently biased by their cultural experiences, world views, and so on.

. . . So what is meant by objectivity in a post-positivist world? Positivists believed that objectivity was a characteristic that resided in the individual scientist. Scientists are responsible for putting aside their biases and beliefs and seeing the world as it 'really' is.

Post-positivists reject the idea that any individual can see the world perfectly as it really is. We are all biased and all of our observations are affected (theory-laden). Our best hope for achieving objectivity is to triangulate across multiple fallible perspectives! Thus, objectivity is not the characteristic of an individual, it is inherently a social phenomenon. It is what multiple individuals are trying to achieve when they criticize each other's work. We never achieve objectivity perfectly, but we can approach it.

13The new view of social scienceSocial scientists recognize that absolute covering laws of human beliefs, attitudes and behaviors are probably not there to be foundInstead, relationships among variables are seen as partial and contingent upon circumstances, personalities, etc.How we study human action with social science methodsSocial scientists attempt to develop theory by generalizing from a number of individual cases or examplesInductionThey then make predictions from the general rules to a new set of events or casesDeductionThey test their predictionsWith the knowledge gained from the tests, they reconsider the generalizations they made The process begins again (continuous)Social science communityThe development of knowledge in a discipline is a community undertakingThe best approximation to truth is attained through multiple researchers applying different theories and methods to the same questionsScientists act as a profession, policing each other and critiquing each others theories and researchConferences, etc. bring researchers looking at similar problems togetherGoals of social scienceIn modern study of social science topics, the goal, generally speaking, is to develop probabilistic theories by identifying relationships among conceptsConcepts are generalized ideas that refer to a number of individual cases RelationshipsThe two most common types of relationships in research are Correlationaltwo concepts are related so that variance in one coincides with variance in anotherCausaltwo concepts are related so that variance in one leads to variance in the otherExamples: CorrelationIf 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 orkids who use drugs at an early age are attracted to druggie moviesExamples: CausalityIf 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 relationshipRepresenting relationshipsDrug moviesDrug useExposure topro-abstinence messagesOnset of sexual activity__+Basic theoretical statementGender self-definitionViolent video game playDeterminesConcepts and variablesVariables are concepts that take more than one valueOtherwise, they are a constantE.g., the star that the Earth revolves aroundBasic research statementGender identityViolent video game playIndependent VariableDependent VariableRelationship:DeterminesAntecedent variableGenderidentityViolent video game playIndependent VariableDependent VariableSocial constructionof genderAntecedent VariableMediating variableGender identityViolent video game playIndependent VariableDependent VariableParents politicalliberalismMediating VariableIntervening VariableGender identityViolent video game playIndependent VariableDependent VariablePersonal aggressivenessIntervening VariableConfoundthird variable explanationGenderidentityViolent video game playIndependent VariableDependent VariableHormonal balanceAntecedent VariableX X XIt 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.It can get quite complicatedPapies, Dominik, and Michel Clement. "Adoption of New Movie Distribution Services on the Internet." Journal of Media Economics 21.3 (2008): 131-57.

Paek, Hye-Jin. "Mechanisms through Which Adolescents Attend and Respond to Antismoking Media Campaigns." Journal of Communication 58.1 (2008): 84-105.

Some variables to play around withGenderSexAgeEducationInterest in technologyVideo Game PlayGame genre preferenceGame playing skillSociability (Tendency toward interaction with others, friendships)Enjoyment of fantasySocial conservatismPsychological compulsionSports experienceIncomeFilm genre preferenceWhy social science faces special challengesThe trouble with peoplePeople are hard to study because:They think(and we dont have direct access to their minds)People are hard to study because:They dont simply react to your stimulus They try to guess what youre doing and anticipate what your goal isThey may intentionally help or hinder your goal (as they see it)They are affected by a wide range of things in their environmentYou cant control all the things that might affect your subjectsPeople are hard to study because:They are complicatedThey are emotionalThey forgetThey change over timeIndividuals are very differentThey can be uncooperativePeople are hard to study because:Ethics limit what you can do to study them