110: Good Psychological Questions
Brief and positively:
1. Describe
2. What is
3. Parts
4. Their experience, not compare
5. Specific, recent examples
1. What before why – describe before explain
2. What is before what should be:
See Spinoza quote on page 1:
“I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule,
not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to
understand them.”
3. Not the whole experience at once
4. Not comparison with experiences they haven’t had.
5.
Don’t start with psychological explanation:
You’re doing this because…
Get angry, speak Korean…
1. Explain: Ok to get details, circumstances,
Don’t start with psychological explanation:
You’re doing this because…
Good secondary questions:
When did you learn? When did you feel transition?
Not much response to them.
Mother Father Deaf: Living between Sound and
Silence. Paul Preston. Harvard U. Press,
Cambridge MA, 1994
p.45
What do you ask first?
The experience of being asked outside in, not inside
out: you may want the experience, but you get the
interpretation of the experience, the response to
others’ views of the experience
Terry’s example is a good one : his mom’s response to
being tested about her memory impacted the whole
memory process - you need to deal with that before you can
deal with the actual memory loss.
Why? Key theme: we are sense-making beings,
probably 1st and foremost
pages 53-55 - stigma management
Who are you in relation to the participant?
Insider / Outsider: Each has it’s issues
and from 49/50
note: there was no place where talking would help.
Hearing people kept making us feel different.
The experience of difference is early, and needs to be
understood and related to before we can get to
experiences of deafness.
Reason identity (difference) is not articulated
highly personal
No one to talk to?
With those who understood - no need to
With those who didn’t - not possible
Quote:
Accountability
Considering the contemporary Western
(particularly American) propensity to probe and
analyze one’s family of origin, several informants
wondered at their lack of questioning about their
childhoods. Eileen shook her head as she asked why
she had never talked about this with her how siblings
or with other hearing children of deaf parents: “You’d
think we would’ve talked about all this, but we never
did…It never occurred to me.
As children, many informants felt their situation was
unique - even if they had hearing siblings or knew
other hearing children of deaf parents. They describe
a highly personal sense of deafness - despite
situations and environments that were frequently
parallel to those of other hearing children of deaf
parents. Only as adults did many informants feel that
they were motivated to examine their experiences, to
learn about deafness, or to talk with other hearing
children of deaf parents. Gloria explained:
When we were at the Deaf club, or when it was
just me and my sister, we didn’t need to talk
about our deaf parents. I mean, that’s just the
way it was. And we certainly didn’t want to talk
about it with hearing people. They were the ones
who kept making us feel different.
Good secondary questions:
When did you learn? When di dyou feel transition?
Not much response to them.
What are good examples of better questions?
ADHD
Not: Why can’t you concentrate?
Not: do they distract easily
Parts: Talk about a specific project they attempted
Comparison:
Don’t start with, where is it worse, where is it better?
Think of different places – e.g. tell me about the last time
you went shopping with him?
Tell me about a task where they wanted to learn?
(sometimes I start from the end)
What did s/he get done?
What else did they notice?
What did s/he start intending to do?
Not just what rules, but how to enforce theme – it’s not just
yes/no
Language : bi-lingual
Not: what’s it like? (overall, not parts)
Not: how’s it different than being monolingual?
Do you have people you speak one language to, the other,
both?
Do you experience those relationships differently?
(comparison)
Didn’t go anywhere
But she mentioned –
(1)
I don’t notice when I say word in Korean (to
English friend)
(2)
How other responds …. And how that affects the
relationship
Do you dream in both languages?
Begin to build set of questions –
The process of negotiating with
It’s not “should we or shouldn’t we”, it’s “how does it work
well?” or “what kinds of things go together (this package or
that package)? New thing: How do we integrate with what
we already have? E.g. podcasting lectures,
Not “do you believe in respect?”
What does respect look like?
The deaf experience one. (?)
Not which personality is better (e.g. healthier, more
successful, has happier & longer marriages), but how do
you do each style well?
Not which coping method is best, but how to choose the
right one for the right situation, or what is the right mix?
Can deaf people infer emotions from TV shows with sound
turned off better than hearing people? Good question comparing regular sit com with cartoon makes it interesting
(it’s an experiment)
Not - what are the list of symptoms
How are symptoms an answer to other problems?
Not - how much can we change a person’s behavior
through operant conditioning, but How does each change
the other? What else happens in good application of
conditioning?