Why conduct social research? Objectives Understanding Sociological Mindfulness Introduction to the significance of Social Research Grasping the difference between perception and research data Understanding the fundamentals of social science The most ancient questions What is real? How is one to know? Wo/man on the street takes reality for granted Philosopher - differentiates between valid and invalid assertions about the world Sociologist – acknowledges alternative/multiple realities in different contexts https://www.popularsociology.net/freevideos/thecrisisofreproducibilityinscie nce?rq=research Sociological Mindfulness Not discovering the best rules for deciding what is true – there are no best rules To better understand 1. how social reality is constructed 2. how people decide what is real and true 3. who has the power to decide what is real and true 4. how concepts can be redefined Discussion Unit Discuss news stories from the weeks following recent mass shootings in the United States. What claims are made in these stories about the causes of mass shootings? What calls for change are made by victims’ families, politicians, experts, or others? What policies are suggested to address mass shootings? The focus on mass shootings obscures over 99 percent of homicide victims and offenders in the United States leads to unproductive arguments about whether imposing sensible gun controls would have deterred the undeterrable obscures the real progress made in reducing the high rates of violence in the United States exaggerates the relatively modest correlation between mental illness and violence Gun Violence Our perception is that they are increasing and we are all potential victims. Our mythology of gun violence is that it is random. The reality is that gun violence victimization is socially structured. Gun homicides have fallen between 39 and 49 percent since 1993 and non-fatal crimes with guns have fallen 70 percent. America’s pattern of gun deaths is split across black and white, with the vast majority of whites dying from suicide and a similar proportion of blacks dying from homicide. Teen Pregnancy Research Shows: Teen pregnancy was much higher during the “good-old days” of the 1950s. Pregnant teens in the 1950s, though, were more likely to be (or become) married than pregnant teens today. According to the Guttmacher Institute, teen pregnancy rates began creeping up during the 1980s and peaked at 116.9 pregnancies for every 1,000 women aged 15-19 in 1990 before declining again. Teen pregnancy increased again in 2006, but has declined to 71.5 pregnancies for every 1,000 women aged 15-19. The birth rate is even lower today and stands at 26.5 for every 1,000 women aged 15-19. Media Portrayals Teen pregnancy is the subject of at least two popular shows on MTV (Teen Moms and 16 and Pregnant are in their third seasons) and is a major plot in the popular show, Glee. Teenage girls in Massachusetts allegedly made a pregnancy pact so that they could raise their children together. Teenage celebrities are having babies (e.g., Jamie Lynn Spears and Bristol Palin). Movies focusing on pregnant teens are also popular (e.g., Juno, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I) Even individuals who carry out jihadist attacks, however, are sometimes American citizens or longtime residents. Commonsense? 1. Social factors have no effect on suicide. 2. Since there was a steady increase in the number of births in the United States between 1976 and 1982, the number of college students preparing to be teachers has increased in anticipation of a teacher shortage in the 1990s. 3. Men engaging in occasional homosexual acts in the bathroom of a public park belong to a highly visible homosexual subculture. 4. When a number of people observe an emergency, they are more likely to go to the aid of the victim than when only one person is a witness (the "safety in numbers" principle) 5. Stress leads to higher IQ scores in children, since it stimulates them to live by their wits. 6. Religious beliefs are less important to Americans than they are to Europeans. (Everyone knows Europeans are more traditional than Americans.) Looking for Reality Knowledge from Agreement Reality Assertions must be both logical and empirical. Agreement reality – those things we “know” as part and parcel of the culture we share with those around us. ontology – What is reality? epistemology – How do you know something? methodology – How do you go about finding it out? What is social research? Pause before we say "everyone knows that...." Instead, we should ask: "What evidence do we have for believing that to be true?" Social research is concerned with how evidence is gathered and evaluated. Social theory and research deal with what is and why it is that way in social life, not with what should be. Social theory and research assume there are patterns in social life. Methodology rules, principles, and practices that guide the collection of evidence and the conclusions drawn from it Bias refers to the way the personal values and attitudes of scientists may influence their observations or conclusions. Objectivity refers to the efforts researchers make to minimize distortions in observation or interpretation due to personal or social values. Uses of Social Research whether a school should be closed in a particular neighborhood whether a university should be decentralized into mini colleges how teachers should be trained where a new manufacturing plant should be located what type of work organization will maximize productivity and minimize absenteeism what new products should be developed how services can be most effectively distributed doctors nurses, and other health professionals can gain from research showing ethnic differences in responses to pain and medication or research linking social experience and disease Human Inquiry Prediction vs understanding Sources of knowledge –observation (first hand) vs. tradition and authority (second hand) Errors in Inquiry Errors Inaccurate Observations Overgeneralization Solutions Simple and complex measurement devices Selective Observation Large sample and Replication Illogical reasoning Specified number or type of observations Conscious, logical reasoning Foundations of Social Science “obvious” truths? Probabilistic patterns Cultivation Theory - the more you watch the news, the more you have a tendency to overestimate the crime rate https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyu8RQW8CdU What’s Really Real? The Premodern View – Things are as they seem. The Modern View – Acknowledgement of human subjectivity. The Postmodern View – There is no objective reality. What’s Really Real In modernist theory ‘truth’ is an essence Positivism is an approach to the social that maintains knowledge can only be acquired through value-free observations and the use of proper scientific or mathematical methodologies. It is possible to distinguish objectively between truth and falsity such that we can demonstrate that something is ‘true for all time’. Postmodern anti-essentialism, however, sees ‘truth’ as a socially constructed category – Nothing in the social world ‘exists’ outside of ideology and social construction. In other words, ‘truth’ is both ideological(defined from a particular viewpoint) and relative; my truth may not necessarily be your truth Foundations of Social Science Theory not philosophy/beliefs Finding patterns Probabilistic predictions Aggregates not individuals Variables and Attributes Independent and dependent variables Figure 1.5 Quiz 1. Study examining if t.v. violence increases aggression in children. 2. Study predicting that alcohol drinking will decrease people's reaction time while driving. 3. Study examining if perspective taking improves with age. 4. Study predicting that high school sports build character. 5. How do changes in work space affect employee reaction? 6. Study predicting that pedestrians will walk faster on hot days versus cold days. 7. Are younger siblings treated better by their parents than older siblings? Answers 1. IV: tv violence DV: children's aggression 2. IV: alcohol drinking DV: people's reaction time while driving 3. IV: age DV: perspective taking 4. IV: high school sports DV: character 5. IV: changes in work space DV: employee reaction 6. IV: temperature (hot vs. cold) DV: tempo of pedestrian walking 7. IV: Sibling status (younger/older) DV: treatment by parents Purposes of Social Research Exploratory – Mapping out a topic that may warrant further study later dispel misconceptions and focus research Descriptive – empirical instead of speculation or impressions Explanatory – providing reasons for a phenomenon, causal relationships Inductive and Deductive Theory Inductive- particular to general Deductive – general to specific Deductive Study • In a study of US law enforcement responses to hate crimes, Ryan King and colleagues (King, Messner, & Baller, 2009)King, R. D., Messner, S. F., & Baller, R. D. (2009). Contemporary hate crimes, law enforcement, and the legacy of racial violence. American Sociological Review, 74, 291–315. hypothesized that law enforcement’s response would be less vigorous in areas of the country that had a stronger history of racial violence. • The authors developed their hypothesis from their reading of prior research and theories on the topic. Next, they tested the hypothesis by analyzing data on states’ lynching histories and hate crime responses. Overall, the authors found support for their hypothesis. Katherine Allen, Christine Kaestle, and Abbie Goldberg’s study (2011)Allen, K. R., Kaestle, C. E., & Goldberg, A. E. (2011). More than just a punctuation mark: How boys and young men learn about menstruation. Journal of Family Issues, 32, 129–156. of how boys and young men learn about menstruation. To understand this process, Allen and her colleagues analyzed the written narratives of 23 young men in which the men described how they learned about menstruation, what they thought of it when they first learned about it, and what they think of it now. • By looking for patterns across all 23 men’s narratives, the researchers were able to develop a general theory of how boys and young men learn about this aspect of girls’ and women’s biology. They conclude that sisters play an important role in boys’ early understanding of menstruation, that menstruation makes boys feel somewhat separated from girls, and that as they enter young adulthood and form romantic relationships, young men develop more mature attitudes about menstruation. • Dialectics of Social Research Idiographic Explain one unique case Many explanatory factors Full explanation Nomothetic Explain a class of events rather than a single one Few explanatory factors Partial Explanation Personality Nomothetic small number of traits that account for the basic structure of all personalities and that individual differences can be measured along these dimensions. The “big 5” are considered to be extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to experience. Experiments. correlation, psychometric testing and other quantitative methods Idiographic unique dispositions based on life experiences peculiar to ourselves. These cannot be effectively studied using standardized tests Case studies, informal interviews, unstructured observation and other qualitative methods