Learning Objectives
- List several ways in which qualitative research differs from quantitative research in psychology.
- Describe the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research in psychology compared with quantitative research.
- Give examples of qualitative research in psychology.
What Is Qualitative Research?
This textbook is primarily about quantitative research, in part because most studies conducted in psychology are quantitative in nature. Quantitative researchers typically start with a focused research question or hypothesis, collect a small amount of numerical data from a large number of individuals, describe the resulting data using statistical techniques, and draw general conclusions about some large population. Although this method is by far the most common approach to conducting empirical research in psychology, there is an important alternative called qualitative research. Qualitative research originated in the disciplines of anthropology and sociology but is now used to study psychological topics as well. Qualitative researchers generally begin with a less focused research question, collect large amounts of relatively “unfiltered” data from a relatively small number of individuals, and describe their data using nonstatistical techniques, such as grounded theory, thematic analysis, critical discourse analysis, or interpretative phenomenological analysis. They are usually less concerned with drawing general conclusions about human behavior than with understanding in detail the experience of their research participants.
Consider, for example, a study by researcher Per Lindqvist and his colleagues, who wanted to learn how the families of teenage suicide victims cope with their loss (Lindqvist, Johansson, & Karlsson, 2008)[1]. They did not have a specific research question or hypothesis, such as, What percentage of family members join suicide support groups? Instead, they wanted to understand the variety of reactions that families had, with a focus on what it is like from their perspectives. To address this question, they interviewed the families of 10 teenage suicide victims in their homes in rural Sweden. The interviews were relatively unstructured, beginning with a general request for the families to talk about the victim and ending with an invitation to talk about anything else that they wanted to tell the interviewer. One of the most important themes that emerged from these interviews was that even as life returned to “normal,” the families continued to struggle with the question of why their loved one committed suicide. This struggle appeared to be especially difficult for families in which the suicide was most unexpected.
The Purpose of Qualitative Research
Again, this textbook is primarily about quantitative research in psychology. The strength of quantitative research is its ability to provide precise answers to specific research questions and to draw general conclusions about human behavior. This method is how we know that people have a strong tendency to obey authority figures, for example, and that female undergraduate students are not substantially more talkative than male undergraduate students. But while quantitative research is good at providing precise answers to specific research questions, it is not nearly as good at generating novel and interesting research questions. Likewise, while quantitative research is good at drawing general conclusions about human behavior, it is not nearly as good at providing detailed descriptions of the behavior of particular groups in particular situations. And quantitative research is not very good at communicating what it is actually like to be a member of a particular group in a particular situation.
But the relative weaknesses of quantitative research are the relative strengths of qualitative research. Qualitative research can help researchers to generate new and interesting research questions and hypotheses. The research of Lindqvist and colleagues, for example, suggests that there may be a general relationship between how unexpected a suicide is and how consumed the family is with trying to understand why the teen committed suicide. This relationship can now be explored using quantitative research. But it is unclear whether this question would have arisen at all without the researchers sitting down with the families and listening to what they themselves wanted to say about their experience. Qualitative research can also provide rich and detailed descriptions of human behavior in the real-world contexts in which it occurs. Among qualitative researchers, this depth is often referred to as “thick description” (Geertz, 1973)[2]. Similarly, qualitative research can convey a sense of what it is actually like to be a member of a particular group or in a particular situation—what qualitative researchers often refer to as the “lived experience” of the research participants. Lindqvist and colleagues, for example, describe how all the families spontaneously offered to show the interviewer the victim’s bedroom or the place where the suicide occurred—revealing the importance of these physical locations to the families. It seems unlikely that a quantitative study would have discovered this detail.
Table 6.3 Some contrasts between qualitative and quantitative research
Qualitative | Quantitative |
1. In-depth information about relatively few people
|
1. Less depth information with larger samples
|
2. Conclusions are based on interpretations drawn by the investigator
|
2. Conclusions are based on statistical analyses
|
3. Global and exploratory
|
3. Specific and focused
|
Data Collection and Analysis in Qualitative Research
Data collection approaches in qualitative research are quite varied and can involve naturalistic observation, participant observation, archival data, artwork, and many other things. But one of the most common approaches, especially for psychological research, is to conduct interviews. Interviews in qualitative research can be unstructured—consisting of a small number of general questions or prompts that allow participants to talk about what is of interest to them—or structured, where there is a strict script that the interviewer does not deviate from. Most interviews are in between the two and are called semi-structured interviews, where the researcher has a few consistent questions and can follow up by asking more detailed questions about the topics that come up. Such interviews can be lengthy and detailed, but they are usually conducted with a relatively small sample. The unstructured interview was the approach used by Lindqvist and colleagues in their research on the families of suicide victims because the researchers were aware that how much was disclosed about such a sensitive topic should be led by the families, not by the researchers.
Another approach used in qualitative research involves small groups of people who participate together in interviews focused on a particular topic or issue, known as focus groups. The interaction among participants in a focus group can sometimes bring out more information than can be learned in a one-on-one interview. The use of focus groups has become a standard technique in business and industry among those who want to understand consumer tastes and preferences. The content of all focus group interviews is usually recorded and transcribed to facilitate later analyses. However, we know from social psychology that group dynamics are often at play in any group, including focus groups, and it is useful to be aware of those possibilities. For example, the desire to be liked by others can lead participants to provide inaccurate answers that they believe will be perceived favorably by the other participants. The same may be said for personality characteristics. For example, highly extraverted participants can sometimes dominate discussions within focus groups.
Data Analysis in Qualitative Research
Although quantitative and qualitative research generally differ along several important dimensions (e.g., the specificity of the research question, the type of data collected), it is the method of data analysis that distinguishes them more clearly than anything else. To illustrate this idea, imagine a team of researchers that conducts a series of unstructured interviews with people recovering from alcohol use disorder to learn about the role of their religious faith in their recovery. Although this project sounds like qualitative research, imagine further that once they collect the data, they code the data in terms of how often each participant mentions God (or a “higher power”), and they then use descriptive and inferential statistics to find out whether those who mention God more often are more successful in abstaining from alcohol. Now it sounds like quantitative research. In other words, the quantitative-qualitative distinction depends more on what researchers do with the data they have collected than with why or how they collected the data.
But what does qualitative data analysis look like? Just as there are many ways to collect data in qualitative research, there are many ways to analyze data. Here we focus on one general approach called grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967)[3]. This approach was developed within the field of sociology in the 1960s and has gradually gained popularity in psychology. Remember that in quantitative research, it is typical for the researcher to start with a theory, derive a hypothesis from that theory, and then collect data to test that specific hypothesis. In qualitative research using grounded theory, researchers start with the data and develop a theory or an interpretation that is “grounded in” those data. They do this analysis in stages. First, they identify ideas that are repeated throughout the data. Then they organize these ideas into a smaller number of broader themes. Finally, they write a theoretical narrative—an interpretation of the data in terms of the themes that they have identified. This theoretical narrative focuses on the subjective experience of the participants and is usually supported by many direct quotations from the participants themselves.
As an example, consider a study by researchers Laura Abrams and Laura Curran, who used the grounded theory approach to study the experience of postpartum depression symptoms among low-income mothers (Abrams & Curran, 2009)[4]. Their data were the result of unstructured interviews with 19 participants. Table 6.4 shows the five broad themes the researchers identified and the more specific repeating ideas that made up each of those themes. In their research report, they provide numerous quotations from their participants, such as this one from “Destiny:”
Well, just recently my apartment was broken into and the fact that his Medicaid for some reason was cancelled so a lot of things was happening within the last two weeks all at one time. So that in itself I don’t want to say almost drove me mad but it put me in a funk.…Like I really was depressed. (p. 357)
Their theoretical narrative focused on the participants’ experience of their symptoms, not as an abstract “affective disorder” but as closely tied to the daily struggle of raising children alone under often difficult circumstances.
Theme | Repeating ideas |
Ambivalence | “I wasn’t prepared for this baby,” “I didn’t want to have any more children.” |
Caregiving overload | “Please stop crying,” “I need a break,” “I can’t do this anymore.” |
Juggling | “No time to breathe,” “Everyone depends on me,” “Navigating the maze.” |
Mothering alone | “I really don’t have any help,” “My baby has no father.” |
Real-life worry | “I don’t have any money,” “Will my baby be OK?” “It’s not safe here.” |
The Quantitative-Qualitative “Debate”
Given their differences, it may come as no surprise that quantitative and qualitative research in psychology and related fields do not coexist in complete harmony. Some quantitative researchers criticize qualitative methods on the grounds that they lack objectivity, are difficult to evaluate in terms of reliability and validity, and do not allow generalization to people or situations other than those actually studied. At the same time, some qualitative researchers criticize quantitative methods on the grounds that they overlook the richness of human behavior and experience and instead answer simple questions about easily quantifiable variables.
In general, however, qualitative researchers are well aware of the issues of objectivity, reliability, validity, and generalizability. In fact, they have developed a number of frameworks for addressing these issues (which are beyond the scope of our discussion). And in general, quantitative researchers are well aware of the issue of oversimplification. They do not believe that all human behavior and experience can be adequately described in terms of a small number of variables and the statistical relationships among them. Instead, they use simplification as a strategy for uncovering general principles of human behavior.
Many researchers from both the quantitative and qualitative camps now agree that the two approaches can and should be combined into what has come to be called mixed-methods research (Todd, Nerlich, McKeown, & Clarke, 2004)[5]. (In fact, the studies by Lindqvist and colleagues and by Abrams and Curran both combined quantitative and qualitative approaches.) One approach to combining quantitative and qualitative research is to use qualitative research for hypothesis generation and quantitative research for hypothesis testing. Again, while a qualitative study might suggest that families who experience an unexpected suicide have more difficulty resolving the question of why, a well-designed quantitative study could test a hypothesis by measuring these specific variables in a large sample. A second approach to combining quantitative and qualitative research is referred to as triangulation. The idea is to use both quantitative and qualitative methods simultaneously to study the same general questions and to compare the results. If the results of the quantitative and qualitative methods converge on the same general conclusion, they reinforce and enrich each other. If the results diverge, then they suggest an interesting new question: Why do the results diverge and how can they be reconciled?
Using qualitative research can often help clarify quantitative results via triangulation. Trenor, Yu, Waight, Zerda, and Sha (2008)[6] investigated the experience of female engineering students at a university. In the first phase, female engineering students were asked to complete a survey, where they rated a number of their perceptions, including their sense of belonging. Their results were compared across the student ethnicities, and statistically, the various ethnic groups showed no differences in their ratings of their sense of belonging. One might look at that result and conclude that ethnicity does not have anything to do with one’s sense of belonging. However, in the second phase, the authors also conducted interviews with the students, and in those interviews, many minority students reported how the diversity of cultures at the university enhanced their sense of belonging. Without the qualitative component, we might have drawn the wrong conclusion about the quantitative results.
This example shows how qualitative and quantitative research work together to help us understand human behavior. Some researchers have characterized qualitative research as best for identifying behaviors or the phenomenon whereas quantitative research is best for understanding meaning or identifying the mechanism. However, Bryman (2012)[7] argues for breaking down the divide between these arbitrarily different ways of investigating the same questions.
- Lindqvist, P., Johansson, L., & Karlsson, U. (2008). In the aftermath of teenage suicide: A qualitative study of the psychosocial consequences for the surviving family members. BMC Psychiatry, 8, 26. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/8/26 ↵
- Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books. ↵
- Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine. ↵
- Abrams, L. S., & Curran, L. (2009). “And you’re telling me not to stress?” A grounded theory study of postpartum depression symptoms among low-income mothers. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33, 351–362. ↵
- Todd, Z., Nerlich, B., McKeown, S., & Clarke, D. D. (2004) Mixing methods in psychology: The integration of qualitative and quantitative methods in theory and practice. London, UK: Psychology Press. ↵
- Trenor, J.M., Yu, S.L., Waight, C.L., Zerda. K.S & Sha T.-L. (2008). The relations of ethnicity to female engineering students’ educational experiences and college and career plans in an ethnically diverse learning environment. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(4), 449-465. ↵
- Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods, 4th ed. Oxford: OUP. ↵
Research that typically starts with a focused research question or hypothesis, collects a small amount of numerical data from a large number of individuals, describes the resulting data using statistical techniques, and draws general conclusions about some large population.
Chapter I
American Psychological Association. (2011). About APA. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/about
Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 724–731.
Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn’t so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York, NY: Free Press.
Gladwell, M. E. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking (9th ed.). New York: Little, Brown & Co.
Hines, T. M. (1998). Comprehensive review of biorhythm theory. Psychological Reports, 83, 19–64.
Johnson, D. J., Cheung, F., & Donnellan, M. B. (2013). Does cleanliness influence moral judgments? A direct replication of Schnall, Benton, and Harvey (2008). Social Psychology, 45(3), 209-215. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000186
Kassin, S. M., & Gudjonsson, G. H. (2004). The psychology of confession evidence: A review of the literature and issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 33–67.
Klein, R. A., Ratliff, K. A., Vianello, M., Adams, R. B., Bahník, S., Bernstein, M. J., . . . Nosek, B. A. (2013). Investigating variation in replicability: A “many labs” replication project. Social Psychology, 45(3), 142-152. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000178
Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J., & Beyerstein, B. L. (2010). 50 great myths of popular psychology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Mann, T., Tomiyama, A. J., Westling, E., Lew, A., Samuels, B., & Chatman, J. (2007). Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. American Psychologist, 62, 220–233.
Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men? Science, 317, 82.
Norcross, J. C., Beutler, L. E., & Levant, R. F. (Eds.). (2005). Evidence-based practices in mental health: Debate and dialogue on the fundamental questions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Popper, K. R. (2002). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge.
Schnall, S., Benton, J., & Harvey, S. (2008). With a clean conscience: Cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1219-1222. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02227.x
Sexton, M., Cuttler, C., Finnell, J., & Mischley, L (2016). A cross-sectional survey of medical cannabis users: Patterns of use and perceived efficacy. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, 1, 131-138. doi: 10.1089/can.2016.0007.
Stanovich, K. E. (2010). How to think straight about psychology (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Chapter II
Adair, J. G., & Vohra, N. (2003). The explosion of knowledge, references, and citations: Psychology’s unique response to a crisis. American Psychologist, 58, 15–23.
Collet, C., Guillot, A., & Petit, C. (2010). Phoning while driving I: A review of epidemiological, psychological, behavioral and physiological studies. Ergonomics, 53, 589–601.
Drews, F. A., Pasupathi, M., & Strayer, D. L. (2004). Passenger and cell-phone conversations in simulated driving. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 48, 2210–2212.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.
Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168.
Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195–202.
Weisberg, R. W. (1993). Creativity: Beyond the myth of genius. New York, NY: Freeman.
Zajonc, R. B., Heingartner, A., & Herman, E. M. (1969). Social enhancement and impairment of performance in the cockroach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 13, 83–92.
Zajonc, R. B. (1965). Social facilitation. Science, 149, 269–274
Zajonc, R.B. & Sales, S.M. (1966). Social facilitation of dominant and subordinate responses. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 160-168.
Chapter III
Baumrind, D. (1985). Research using intentional deception: Ethical issues revisited. American Psychologist, 40, 165–174.
Bowd, A. D., & Shapiro, K. J. (1993). The case against animal laboratory research in psychology. Journal of Social Issues, 49, 133–142.
Burger, J. M. (2009). Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today? American Psychologist, 64, 1–11.
Burns, J. F. (2010, May 24). British medical council bars doctor who linked vaccine to autism. The New York Times. Retrieved from:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/health/policy/25autism.html
Haidt, J., Koller, S. and Dias, M. (1993) Affect, culture, and morality, or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 613-628. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.4.613
Koocher, G. P. (1977). Bathroom behavior and human dignity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 120–121.
Mann, T. (1994). Informed consent for psychological research: Do subjects comprehend consent forms and understand their legal rights? Psychological Science, 5, 140–143.
Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S., & Matter, C. F. (1976). Personal space invasions in the lavatory: Suggestive evidence for arousal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 541–546.
Middlemist, R. D., Knowles, E. S., & Matter, C. F. (1977). What to do and what to report: A reply to Koocher. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 122–125.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.
Miller, N. E. (1985). The value of behavioral research on animals. American Psychologist, 40, 423–440.
Reverby, S. M. (2009). Examining Tuskegee: The infamous syphilis study and its legacy. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Rosenthal, R. M. (1994). Science and ethics in conducting, analyzing, and reporting psychological research. Psychological Science, 5, 127–133.
Sieber, J. E., Iannuzzo, R., & Rodriguez, B. (1995). Deception methods in psychology: Have they changed in 23 years? Ethics & Behavior, 5, 67–85.
Chapter IV
Amir, N., Freshman, M., & Foa, E. (2002). Enhanced Stroop interference for threat in social phobia. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 16, 1–9.
Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575–582.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116–131.
Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., & Mermelstein, R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24, 386-396.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Normal personality assessment in clinical practice: The NEO Personality Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 4, 5–13.
Delongis, A., Coyne, J. C., Dakof, G., Folkman, S., & Lazarus, R. S. (1982). Relationships of daily hassles, uplifts, and major life events to health status. Health Psychology, 1(2), 119-136.
Gosling, S. D., Rentfrow, P. J., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). A very brief measure of the Big Five personality domains. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 504–528.
Holmes, T. H., & Rahe, R. H. (1967). The Social Readjustment Rating Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 11(2), 213-218.
Levels of Measurement. (2016, August 26). Retrieved from http://wikieducator.org/Introduction_to_Research_Methods_In_Psychology/Theories_and_Measurement/Levels_of_Measurement
MacDonald, T. K., & Martineau, A. M. (2002). Self-esteem, mood, and intentions to use condoms: When does low self-esteem lead to risky health behaviors? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 299–306.
Petty, R. E, Briñol, P., Loersch, C., & McCaslin, M. J. (2009). The need for cognition. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 318–329). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
Rosenberg, M. (1989). Society and the adolescent self-image (rev. ed.). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Segerstrom, S. E., & Miller, G. E. (2004). Psychological stress and the human immune system: A meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 601–630.
Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103, 677–680.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643–662.
Chapter V
Bauman, C.W., McGraw, A.P., Bartels, D.M., & Warren, C. (2014). Revisiting external validity: Concerns about trolley problems and other sacrificial dilemmas in moral psychology. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8/9, 536-554.
Birnbaum, M.H. (1999). How to show that 9>221: Collect judgments in a between-subjects design. Psychological Methods, 4(3), 243-249.
Cialdini, R. (2005, April). Don’t throw in the towel: Use social influence research. APS Observer. Retrieved fromhttp://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2005/april-05/dont-throw-in-the-towel-use-social-influence-research.html
Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 377–383.
Fredrickson, B. L., Roberts, T.-A., Noll, S. M., Quinn, D. M., & Twenge, J. M. (1998). The swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 269–284.
Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). A room with a viewpoint: Using social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels. Journal of Consumer Research, 35, 472–482.
Guéguen, N., & de Gail, Marie-Agnès. (2003). The effect of smiling on helping behavior: Smiling and good Samaritan behavior. Communication Reports, 16, 133–140.
Ibolya, K., Brake, A., & Voss, U. (2004). The effect of experimenter characteristics on pain reports in women and men. Pain, 112, 142–147.
Judd, C.M. & Kenny, D.A. (1981). Estimating the effects of social interventions. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Knecht, S., Dräger, B., Deppe, M., Bobe, L., Lohmann, H., Flöel, A., . . . Henningsen, H. (2000). Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 123(12), 2512-2518.http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/brain/123.12.2512
Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62, 555–562.
Morling, B. (2014, April). Teach your students to be better consumers. APS Observer. Retrieved fromhttp://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2014/april-14/teach-your-students-to-be-better-consumers.html
Moseley, J. B., O’Malley, K., Petersen, N. J., Menke, T. J., Brody, B. A., Kuykendall, D. H., … Wray, N. P. (2002). A controlled trial of arthroscopic surgery for osteoarthritis of the knee. The New England Journal of Medicine, 347, 81–88.
Price, D. D., Finniss, D. G., & Benedetti, F. (2008). A comprehensive review of the placebo effect: Recent advances and current thought. Annual Review of Psychology, 59, 565–590.
Rosenthal, R., & Fode, K. (1963). The effect of experimenter bias on performance of the albino rat. Behavioral Science, 8, 183-189.
Rosenthal, R., & Rosnow, R. L. (1976). The volunteer subject. New York, NY: Wiley.
Rosenthal, R. (1976). Experimenter effects in behavioral research (enlarged ed.). New York, NY: Wiley.
Shapiro, A. K., & Shapiro, E. (1999). The powerful placebo: From ancient priest to modern physician. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Chapter VI
Abrams, L. S., & Curran, L. (2009). “And you’re telling me not to stress?” A grounded theory study of postpartum depression symptoms among low-income mothers. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 33, 351–362.
Bryman, A. (2012). Social Research Methods (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2001). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.), Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223–254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116–131.
Cohen, D., Nisbett, R. E., Bowdle, B. F., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: An "experimental ethnography." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70(5), 945-960.
Diener, E. (2000). Subjective well-being: The science of happiness, and a proposal for a national index. American Psychologist, 55, 34–43.
Festinger, L., Riecken, H., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails: A social and psychological study of a modern group that predicted the destruction of the world. University of Minnesota Press.
Freud, S. (1961). Five lectures on psycho-analysis. New York, NY: Norton.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Jouriles, E. N., Garrido, E., Rosenfield, D., & McDonald, R. (2009). Experiences of psychological and physical aggression in adolescent romantic relationships: Links to psychological distress. Child Abuse & Neglect, 33(7), 451–460.
Kraut, R. E., & Johnston, R. E. (1979). Social and emotional messages of smiling: An ethological approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 1539–1553.
Levine, R. V., & Norenzayan, A. (1999). The pace of life in 31 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 30, 178–205.
Lindqvist, P., Johansson, L., & Karlsson, U. (2008). In the aftermath of teenage suicide: A qualitative study of the psychosocial consequences for the surviving family members. BMC Psychiatry, 8:26. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/8/26
Loftus, E. F., & Pickrell, J. E. (1995). The formation of false memories. Psychiatric Annals, 25, 720–725.
Messerli, F. H. (2012). Chocolate consumption, cognitive function, and Nobel laureates. New England Journal of Medicine, 367, 1562-1564.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371–378.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York, NY: Harper & Row.
Pelham, B. W., Carvallo, M., & Jones, J. T. (2005). Implicit egotism. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 106–110.
Peterson, C., Seligman, M. E. P., & Vaillant, G. E. (1988). Pessimistic explanatory style is a risk factor for physical illness: A thirty-five year longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 23–27.
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., McClearn, G. E., & McGuffin, P. (2008). Behavioral genetics (5th ed.). New York, NY: Worth.
Radcliffe, N. M., & Klein, W. M. P. (2002). Dispositional, unrealistic, and comparative optimism: Differential relations with knowledge and processing of risk information and beliefs about personal risk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 836–846.
Rentfrow, P. J., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). The do re mi’s of everyday life: The structure and personality correlates of music preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 1236–1256.
Rosenhan, D. L. (1973). On being sane in insane places. Science, 179, 250–258.
Todd, Z., Nerlich, B., McKeown, S., & Clarke, D. D. (2004) Mixing methods in psychology: The integration of qualitative and quantitative methods in theory and practice. London, UK: Psychology Press.
Trenor, J.M., Yu, S.L., Waight, C.L., Zerda. K.S & Sha T.-L. (2008). The relations of ethnicity to female engineering students’ educational experiences and college and career plans in an ethnically diverse learning environment. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(4), 449-465.
Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1–14.
Wilkins, A. (2008). “Happier than Non-Christians”: Collective emotions and symbolic boundaries among evangelical Christians. Social Psychology Quarterly, 71, 281–301.
Chapter VII
Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S.D. (2011). Amazon’s Mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high quality, data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6(1), 3-5.
Chang, L., & Krosnick, J.A. (2003). Measuring the frequency of regular behaviors: Comparing the ‘typical week’ to the ‘past week’. Sociological Methodology, 33, 55-80.
Converse, J. M. (1987). Survey research in the United States: Roots and emergence, 1890–1960. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Gosling, S. D., Vazire, S., Srivastava, S., & John, O. P. (2004). Should we trust web-based studies? A comparative analysis of six preconceptions about internet questionnaires. American Psychologist, 59(2), 93-104.
Groves, R. M., Fowler, F. J., Couper, M. P., Lepkowski, J. M., Singer, E., & Tourangeau, R. (2004). Survey methodology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Krosnick, J.A. & Berent, M.K. (1993). Comparisons of party identification and policy preferences: The impact of survey question format. American Journal of Political Science, 27(3), 941-964.
Lahaut, V. M. H. C. J., Jansen, H. A. M., van de Mheen, D., & Garretsen, H. F. L. (2002). Non-response bias in a sample survey on alcohol consumption. Alcohol and Alcoholism, 37, 256–260.
Lerner, J. S., Gonzalez, R. M., Small, D. A., & Fischhoff, B. (2003). Effects of fear and anger on perceived risks of terrorism: A national field experiment. Psychological Science, 14, 144–150.
Likert, R. (1932). A technique for the measurement of attitudes. Archives of Psychology, 140, 1–55.
Miller, J.M. & Krosnick, J.A. (1998). The impact of candidate name order on election outcomes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 62(3), 291-330.
Natala@aws. (2011, January 26). Re: MTurk CENSUS: About how many workers were on Mechanical Turk in 2010? Message posted to Amazon Web Services Discussion Forums. Retrieved from https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=58891
Peterson, R. A. (2000). Constructing effective questionnaires. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Schwarz, N., & Strack, F. (1990). Context effects in attitude surveys: Applying cognitive theory to social research. In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 31–50). Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Schwarz, N. (1999). Self-reports: How the questions shape the answers. American Psychologist, 54, 93–105.
Strack, F., Martin, L. L., & Schwarz, N. (1988). Priming and communication: The social determinants of information use in judgments of life satisfaction. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 429–442.
Sudman, S., Bradburn, N. M., & Schwarz, N. (1996). Thinking about answers: The application of cognitive processes to survey methodology. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Chapter VIII
Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-experimentation: Design & analysis issues in field settings. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Eysenck, H. J. (1952). The effects of psychotherapy: An evaluation. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 16, 319–324.
Posternak, M. A., & Miller, I. (2001). Untreated short-term course of major depression: A meta-analysis of studies using outcomes from studies using wait-list control groups. Journal of Affective Disorders, 66, 139–146.
Smith, M. L., Glass, G. V., & Miller, T. I. (1980). The benefits of psychotherapy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Chapter IX
Brown, H. D., Kosslyn, S. M., Delamater, B., Fama, A., & Barsky, A. J. (1999). Perceptual and memory biases for health-related information in hypochondriacal individuals. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 47, 67–78.
Gilliland, K. (1980). The interactive effect of introversion-extraversion with caffeine induced arousal on verbal performance. Journal of Research in Personality, 14, 482–492.
MacDonald, T. K., & Martineau, A. M. (2002). Self-esteem, mood, and intentions to use condoms: When does low self-esteem lead to risky health behaviors? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 299–306.
Schnall, S., Benton, J., & Harvey, S. (2008). With a clean conscience: Cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1219-1222. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02227.x
Schnall, S., Haidt, J., Clore, G. L., & Jordan, A. H. (2008). Disgust as embodied moral judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1096–1109.
Chapter X
Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1, 91–97.
Danov, S. E., & Symons, F. E. (2008). A survey evaluation of the reliability of visual inspection and functional analysis graphs. Behavior Modification, 32, 828–839.
Dehaene, S. (2011). The number sense: How the mind creates mathematics (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford.
Fisch, G. S. (2001). Evaluating data from behavioral analysis: Visual inspection or statistical models. Behavioral Processes, 54, 137–154.
Hall, R. V., Lund, D., & Jackson, D. (1968). Effects of teacher attention on study behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1, 1–12.
Kazdin, A. E. (1982). Single-case research designs: Methods for clinical and applied settings. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Ross, S. W., & Horner, R. H. (2009). Bully prevention in positive behavior support. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 42, 747–759.
Scruggs, T. E., & Mastropieri, M. A. (2001). How to summarize single-participant research: Ideas and applications. Exceptionality, 9, 227–244.
Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Sidman, M. (1960). Tactics of scientific research: Evaluating experimental data in psychology. Boston, MA: Authors Cooperative.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Wolf, M. (1976). Social validity: The case for subjective measurement or how applied behavior analysis is finding its heart. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 11, 203–214.
Chapter XI
American Psychological Association, Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Joint Task Force on Guidelines for Psychotherapy With Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients. (2000). Guidelines for psychotherapy with lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/pi/lgbt/resources/guidelines
Bem, D. J. (2003). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. R. Roediger III (Eds.), The complete academic: A practical guide for the beginning social scientist (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Bentley, M., Peerenboom, C. A., Hodge, F. W., Passano, E. B., Warren, H. C., & Washburn, M. F. (1929). Instructions in regard to preparation of manuscript. Psychological Bulletin, 26, 57–63.
Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4, 377–383.
Madigan, R., Johnson, S., & Linton, P. (1995). The language of psychology: APA style as epistemology. American Psychologist, 50, 428–436.
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., Combs, J. P., Slate, J. R., & Frels, R. K. (2010). Editorial: Evidence-based guidelines for avoiding the most common APA errors in journal article submissions. Research in the Schools, 16, ix–xxxvi.
American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Chapter XII
Ollendick, T. H., Öst, L.-G., Reuterskiöld, L., Costa, N., Cederlund, R., Sirbu, C.,…Jarrett, M. A. (2009). One-session treatments of specific phobias in youth: A randomized clinical trial in the United States and Sweden. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 77, 504–516.
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159.
Hyde, J. S. (2007). New directions in the study of gender similarities and differences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 259–263.
Carlson, K. A., & Conard, J. M. (2011). The last name effect: How last name influences acquisition timing. Journal of Consumer Research, 38(2), 300-307. doi: 10.1086/658470
MacDonald, T. K., & Martineau, A. M. (2002). Self-esteem, mood, and intentions to use condoms: When does low self-esteem lead to risky health behaviors? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 299–306.
McCabe, D. P., Roediger, H. L., McDaniel, M. A., Balota, D. A., & Hambrick, D. Z. (2010). The relationship between working memory capacity and executive functioning. Neuropsychology, 24(2), 222–243. doi:10.1037/a0017619
Brown, N. R., & Sinclair, R. C. (1999). Estimating number of lifetime sexual partners: Men and women do it differently. The Journal of Sex Research, 36, 292–297.
Bem, D. J. (2003). Writing the empirical journal article. In J. M. Darley, M. P. Zanna, & H. L. Roediger III (Eds.), The complete academic: A career guide (2nd ed., pp. 185–219). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Schmitt, D. P., & Allik, J. (2005). Simultaneous administration of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale in 53 nations: Exploring the universal and culture-specific features of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 623–642.
Buss, D. M., & Schmitt, D. P. (1993). Sexual strategies theory: A contextual evolutionary analysis of human mating. Psychological Review, 100, 204–232.
Chapter XIII
Aarts, A. A., Anderson, C. J., Anderson, J., van Assen, M. A. L. M., Attridge, P. R., Attwood, A. S., … Zuni, K. (2015, September 21). Reproducibility Project: Psychology. Retrieved from osf.io/ezcuj
Abelson, R. P. (1995). Statistics as principled argument. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Aschwanden, C. (2015, August 19). Science isn't broken: It's just a hell of a lot harder than we give it credit for. Retrieved from http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/science-isnt-broken/
Brandt, M. J., IJzerman, H., Dijksterhuis, A., Farach, F. J., Geller, J., Giner-Sorolla, R., … can’t Veer, A. (2014). The replication recipe: What makes for a convincing replication? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 50, 217-224. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2013.10.005
Cohen, J. (1994). The world is round: p < .05. American Psychologist, 49, 997–1003.
Frank, M. (2015, August 31). The slower, harder ways to increase reproducibility. Retrieved from http://babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.ie/2015/08/the-slower-harder-ways-to-increase.html
Head M. L., Holman, L., Lanfear, R., Kahn, A. T., & Jennions, M. D. (2015). The extent and consequences of p-hacking in science. PLoS Biology, 13(3): e1002106. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002106
Hyde, J. S. (2007). New directions in the study of gender similarities and differences. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16, 259–263.
Kanner, A. D., Coyne, J. C., Schaefer, C., & Lazarus, R. S. (1981). Comparison of two modes of stress measurement: Daily hassles and uplifts versus major life events. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 4, 1–39.
Kerr, N. L. (1998). HARKing: Hypothesizing after the results are known. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(3), 196-217. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0203_4
Lakens, D. (2017, December 25). About p-values: Understanding common misconceptions. [Blog post] Retrieved from https://correlaid.org/en/blog/understand-p-values/
Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men? Science, 317, 82.
Nosek, B. A., Alter, G., Banks, G. C., Borsboom, D., Bowman, S. D., Breckler, S. J., … Yarkoni, T. (2015). Promoting an open research culture. Science, 348(6242), 1422-1425. doi: 10.1126/science.aab2374
Oakes, M. (1986). Statistical inference: A commentary for the social and behavioral sciences. Chichester, UK: Wiley.
Pashler, H., & Harris, C. R. (2012). Is the replicability crisis overblown? Three arguments explained. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(6), 531-536. doi:10.1177/1745691612463401
Rosenthal, R. (1979). The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results. Psychological Bulletin, 83, 638–641.
Scherer, L. (2015, September). Guest post by Laura Scherer. Retrieved from http://sometimesimwrong.typepad.com/wrong/2015/09/guest-post-by-laura-scherer.html
Schnall, S., Benton, J., & Harvey, S. (2008). With a clean conscience: Cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1219-1222. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02227.x
Simonsohn U., Nelson L. D., & Simmons J. P. (2014). P-Curve: a key to the file drawer. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 534–547. doi: 10.1037/a0033242
Tramimow, D. & Marks, M. (2015). Editorial. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 37, 1–2. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2015.1012991
Wilkinson, L., & Task Force on Statistical Inference. (1999). Statistical methods in psychology journals: Guidelines and explanations. American Psychologist, 54, 594–604.
Yong, E. (August 27, 2015). How reliable are psychology studies? Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/08/psychology-studies-reliability-reproducability-nosek/402466/
A qualitative research method to collect lengthy and detailed information from participants using structured, semi-structured, or unstructured sets of open-ended questions.
Used in qualitative research which involves small groups of people who participate together in interviews focused on a particular topic or issue.
Researchers start with the data and develop a theory or an interpretation that is “grounded in” those data.
A qualitative research method that involves an interpretation of the data in terms of the themes a researcher has identified.
Research that combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches.
The idea to use both quantitative and qualitative methods simultaneously to study the same general questions and to compare the results.