What did Stanley Milgram seek to test in his experiments at Yale University?

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Choose one of the following questions: 

1.  What did Stanley Milgram seek to test in his experiments at Yale University?  What were the results?  Do you think that the findings would be similar today?  Why or why not?  Thinking about the information shared in Chapter 2 regarding ethics in research, what are the ethical concerns of the study?

2.  Do you agree with Emile Durkheim that deviance provides certain functions for society? What functions might deviance provide?  In your answer be sure to describe Durkheim’s main thesis regarding deviance and provide examples or evidence to support your position.

 

The Week 3 Forum meets the following course objectives:

· Apply a sociological perspective to the social world.

· Analyze contemporary social issues using the sociological imagination and use sociological theories and concepts to analyze everyday life.

· Identify and describe bureaucracies and formal organizations.

· Describe deviance and social control from a sociological perspective.

 

 

Instructions for all Forums:

Each week, learners will post one initial post per week.  This post must demonstrate comprehension of the course materials, the ability to apply that knowledge in the real world.  Learners will engage with the instructor and peers throughout the learning week.  To motivate engaged discussion, posts are expected to be on time with regular interaction throughout the week.  All posts should demonstrate college level writing skills. To promote vibrant discussion as we would in a face to face classroom, formatted citations and references are not required.  Quotes should not be used at all, or used sparingly.  If you quote a source quotation marks should be used and an APA formatted citation and reference provided.

 

Points	Exemplary (100%)	Accomplished (85%)	Developing (75%)	Beginning (65%)	Not Participating (0%)
Comprehension of course materials   4	Initial post demonstrates rich comprehension of course materials.  Detailed use of terminology or examples learned in class.  If post includes opinion, it is supported with evaluated evidence.	Initial post demonstrates clear comprehension of course materials.  Use of terminology or examples learned in class. If post includes opinion, it is supported with evaluated evidence.	Initial post demonstrates some comprehension of course materials.  Specific terminology or examples learned in class may be incorrect or incomplete.  Post may include some opinion without evaluated evidence.	Initial post does not demonstrate comprehension of course materials.  Specific terminology or examples learned in class are not included.  Post is opinion based without evaluated evidence.	No posting, post is off topic, post does not meet minimum criteria for demonstrating beginning level of comprehension. Post may be plagiarized, or use a high percentage of quotes that prevent demonstration of student’s comprehension.
Real world application of knowledge   2	Initial post demonstrates that the learner can creatively and uniquely apply the concepts and examples learned in class to a personal or professional experience from their life or to a current event.	Initial post demonstrates that the learner can apply the concepts and examples learned in class to a  personal or professional experience from their life or to a current event.	Initial post does not clearly demonstrate that the learner can apply the concepts and examples learned in class. Unclear link between the concepts and examples learned in class to personal or professional experience or to a current event.	Initial post does not demonstrate that the learner can apply the concepts and examples learned in class. No link to a personal or professional experience or to a current event is made in the post.	No posting, post is off topic, post does not meet minimum criteria for demonstrating beginning level of application. Post may be plagiarized, or use a high percentage of quotes that prevent demonstration of student’s ability to apply comprehension.
Active Forum Engagement and Presence  3	Learner posts 4+ different days in the learning week.   Replies to at least one response from a classmate or instructor on the learner’s initial post to demonstrate the learner is reading and considering classmate responses to their ideas.   Posts two or more 100+ word responses to initial posts of classmates.  Posts motivate group discussion and contributes to the learning community by doing 2+ of the following: · offering advice or strategy · posing a question, · providing an alternative point-of-view, · acknowledging similar experiences · sharing a resource	Learner posts 3 different days in the learning week.   Posts two 100+ word responses to initial posts of classmates.  Posts motivate group discussion and contribute to the learning community by doing  2+ of the following:   · offering advice or strategy · posing a question, · providing an alternative point-of-view, · acknowledging similar experiences · sharing a resource	Learner posts 2 different days in the learning week.   Posts one 100+ word response to initial post of classmate.  Post motivates group discussion and contributes to the learning community by doing 1 of the following:   · offering advice or strategy · posing a question, · providing an alternative point-of-view, · acknowledging similar experiences · sharing a resource	Learner posts 1 day in the learning week.   Posts one 100+ word response to initial post of classmate.  Post does not clearly motivate group discussion or clearly contribute to the learning community.   Responses do not: · offering advice or strategy · posing a question, · providing an alternative point-of-view, · acknowledging similar experiences · sharing a resource	Learner posts 1 day in the learning week, or posts are not made during the learning week and therefore do not contribute to or enrich the weekly conversation.   No peer responses are made.  One or more peer responses of low quality (“good job, I agree”) may be made.
Writing skills  1	Post is 250+ words.  All posts reflect widely accepted academic writing protocols like using capital letters, cohesive sentences, and no texting language. Dialogue is also polite and respectful of different points of view.	Post is 250+ words.  The majority of posts reflect widely-accepted academic writing protocols like using capital letters, cohesive sentences, and no texting language. Dialogue is polite and respectful of different points of view.	Post is 175+ words.  The majority of posts reflect widely-accepted academic writing protocols like using capital letters (“I am” not “i am”), cohesive sentences, and no texting language. Dialogue may not be respectful of different points of view.	Post is 150+ words.  The majority of the forum communication ignores widely-accepted academic writing protocols like capital letters, cohesive sentences, and texting; Dialogue may not be respectful of different points of view.	No posting, post is off topic and does not meet minimum criteria for demonstrating beginning level of comprehension.

 

 

READING CHAPTER 2

2	DISCOVER SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

 

© Marianna Day Massey/ZUMA/Corbis

Media Library

CHAPTER 2 Media Library

AUDIO    

Fallout from a contemporary experiment based on the Milgram study.

Facebook’s Newsfeed Study

VIDEO    

Milgram’s Experiment

Qualitative v. Quantitative Research Methods

Steven Colbert on Validity Research

Asch Conformity Experiment

Ethnography in Context

The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

CQ RESEARCHER    

Sentencing Reform for Drugs

PACIFIC STANDARD MAGAZINE    

Survey v. Public Opinion

The Organ Detective

JOURNAL    

Validity and Reliability homicide studies

Field Work Methods

Unobtrusive Research in Criminal Justice

Participatory Research Methods in Skid Row Los Angeles

 

 

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IN THIS CHAPTER

Sociology and Common Sense

Research and the Scientific Method

Doing Sociological Research

Doing Sociology: A Student’s Guide to Research

Sociology and You: Why Learn to Do Sociological Research?

 

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

1.   What kinds of research questions could one pose in order to gain a better understanding of sociological issues like bullying, long-term poverty, gang violence, or the high dropout rate in some high schools? What kinds of research methods would be appropriate for studying these issues?

2.   What factors do you think affect the honesty of people’s responses to survey questions?

3.   What makes a sociological research project ethical or unethical?

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RESEARCHING THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE U.S. PRISON BOOM

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

 

The United States imprisons more of its people than any other modern country on the planet. About 3% of U.S. adults are in the correctional system: “2.2 million people in prisons and jails, and an additional 4.8 million on probation or parole” (Goffman, 2014, p. xi). Data show that the climb in the prison population began in the 1970s and rose steeply in the 1980s, with significant numbers of poor men and women of color pulled into the criminal justice system, many for minor drug crimes and other nonviolent offenses. The effects of this “prison boom” are not only individual; mass incarceration has also had consequences for already struggling neighborhoods in urban America (see Figures 2.1a and 2.1b).

In On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City (2014), sociologist Alice Goffman writes that her work is an on-the-ground account of the U.S. prison boom: a close-up look at young men and women living in one poor and segregated Black community transformed by unprecedented levels of imprisonment and by the more hidden systems of policing and supervision that have accompanied them. Because the fear of capture and confinement has seeped into community members’ basic activities of daily living—work, family, romance, friendship, and even much-needed medical care—it is an account of a community on the run (p. xii).

Goffman explores the norms and practices that govern life in a neighborhood ravaged by economic and social marginality and the pervasive effects of the reality and threat of imprisonment. For example, in the absence of opportunities for legitimate employment, she notes the birth of a shadow economy that caters to the “fugitive life” she describes: Some wily entrepreneurs peddle “clean” urine to neighbors who are on parole and subject to drug testing. Goffman’s work is significant because it carefully examines the effects of the mass incarceration phenomenon on personal lives and relationships and the daily life of a community.

Goffman conducted research in the city of Philadelphia for six years, combining interviews with individuals working in the criminal justice system, including police and prison guards, and regular interactions with residents of her adopted neighborhood. She utilized participant and nonparticipant observation in gathering information about the social environment. Goffman’s work is a good example of qualitative sociological research, and she recognizes its potential significance to academic and policy debates. Utilizing a scientific approach and rigorous field research, Goffman is able to cast light on how neighborhoods and their residents, whether or not they are involved in criminal activity, understand and experience the powerful consequences of mass imprisonment.

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FIGURE 2.1A Imprisonment Rates in Selected Philadelphia Neighborhoods, 2008

 

SOURCE: Based on data from the The Justice Mapping Center.

 

FIGURE 2.1B Percentage of Non-Whites in Selected Philadelphia Neighborhoods, 2008

 

 

In this chapter, we examine the ways sociologists like Alice Goffman study the social world. First, we distinguish between sociological understanding and common sense. Then we discuss the key steps in the research process itself. We examine how sociologists test their theories using a variety of research methods, and, finally, we consider the ethical implications of doing research on human subjects.

SOCIOLOGY AND COMMON SENSE

Science is a unique way of seeing and investigating the world around us. The essence of the scientific method is straightforward: It is a process of gathering empirical (scientific and specific) data, creating theories, and rigorously testing theories. In sociological research, theories and empirical data exist in a dynamic relationship (Figure 2.2). Some research begins from general theories, which offer “big picture” ideas about social life: Deductive reasoning starts from broad theories but proceeds to break them down into more specific and testable hypotheses. Sociological hypotheses are ideas about the world that describe possible relationships between social phenomena. Some research begins from the ground up: Inductive reasoning starts from specific data, such as interviews or field notes, which may focus on a single community or event, and endeavors to identify larger patterns from which to derive more general theories.

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FIGURE 2.2 The Relationship Between Theory and Research

 

 

 

Sociologists employ the scientific method in both quantitative and qualitative research. Quantitative research, which is often done through methods such as large-scale surveys, gathers data that can be quantified and offers insight into broad patterns of social behavior (for example, the percentage of U.S. adults who use corporal punishment with their children) and social attitudes (for example, the percentage of U.S. adults who approve of corporal punishment) without necessarily delving into the meaning of or reasons for the identified phenomena. Qualitative research, such as that conducted by Alice Goffman, is characterized by data that cannot be quantified (or converted into numbers), focusing instead on generating in-depth knowledge of social life, institutions, and processes (for example, why parents in particular social groups are more or less likely to use spanking as a method of punishment). It relies on the gathering of data through methods such as focus groups, participant and nonparticipant observation, interviews, and archival research. Generally, population samples in qualitative research are small because they focus on in-depth understanding.

Personal experience and common sense about the world are often fine starting points for sociological research. They can, however, mislead us. In the 14th century, common sense suggested to people that the earth was flat; after all, it looks flat. Today, influenced by stereotypes and media portrayals of criminal behaviors, many people believe Black high school and college students are more likely than their White counterparts to use illegal drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, crack, and heroin. But common sense misleads on both counts. The earth is not flat (as you know!), and Black high school and college students are slightly less likely than White students to use illegal drugs (Table 2.1).

Consider the following ideas, which many believe to be true, though all are false:

Common Wisdom:

I know women who earn more than their husbands or boyfriends. The gender wage gap is no longer an issue in the United States.

Sociological Research:

Data show that men as a group earn more than women as a group. For example, in the first quarter of 2014, men had a weekly median income of $872 compared to $722 for women for all full-time occupations (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014f). According to statistical data, women earn about 82% of what men earn. This statistic compares all men and all women who work full-time and year-round. Reasons for the gap include worker characteristics (such as experience and education), job characteristics (such as hours required), devaluation of “women’s work” by society, and pay discrimination against female workers (Cabeza, Johnson, & Tyner, 2011; Reskin & Padavic, 2002). So while some women, of course, earn more than some men, the overall pattern of men outearning women remains in place today. This topic is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 10.

Common Wisdom:

Homeless people are poor and lack adequate shelter because they do not work.

Sociological Research:

Some of the homeless cannot find work or are too disabled by mental or physical problems to work. Many, however, do work. Research suggests that about 44% of homeless adults work for pay (National Coalition for the Homeless, 2009b), and the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2011) reports that 15% of the homeless are regularly employed full- or part-time. However, low wages and poor benefits in the service industry, where many less educated people work, as well as a shortage of adequate housing options for low-income families, can make finding permanent shelter a challenge even for those who work for pay. To under stand how declining wages magnify the strain on low-income families, consider this: In many U.S. cities, to make ends meet, a household needs more than one full-time minimum-wage employee to afford the fair market rent price for a two-bedroom apartment (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2009). The contemporary reality is that wages are not keeping up with the rate of inflation, which further adds to the economic hardships that low-income families endure. These topics are discussed in fuller detail in Chapter 7.

 

TABLE 2.1   Annual Prevalence Rate of Drug Use by 12th Graders, 2013.

 

Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., Schulenberg, J. E. & Miech, R.A. (2014). Demographic subgroup trends among adolescents in the use of various licit and illicit drugs, 1975–2013. Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper No. 81. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research.

 

	Milgram’s Experiment CLICK TO SHOW
	Fallout from a contemporary experiment based on the Milgram study. CLICK TO SHOW

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© Bettmann/CORBIS

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments distinguishes between the “permanently supported homeless,” who have housing but are at risk due to extreme poverty and/or disability, and the “chronically homeless,” who are continually homeless for a year or more or at least four times in three years. Do you think that these categories fully encompass the homeless population?

Common Wisdom:

Education is the great equalizer. All children in the United States have the opportunity to get a good education. Low academic achievement is a personal failure.

Sociological Research:

Public education is free and open to all in the United States, but the quality of education can vary dramatically. Consider the fact that in many U.S. states and localities, a major source of public school funding is local property taxes, which constitute an average of about 44% of funding (state and federal allocations make up the rest). As such, communities with high property values have richer sources of funding from which to draw educational resources, while poor communities—even those with high tax rates—have more limited pools. As well, high levels of racial segregation persist in U.S. schools. In fact, Latino and Black students are more likely to be in segregated schools today than were their counterparts in earlier decades. Research shows a relationship between academic performance and class and racial segregation: Students who are not isolated in poor, racially segregated schools perform better on a variety of academic measures than those who are (Condron, 2009; Logan, Minca, & Adar, 2012). The problem of low academic achievement is complex, and no single variable can explain it. At the same time, the magnitude and persistence of this problem suggests that we are looking at a phenomenon that is a public issue rather than just a personal trouble. We discuss issues of class, race, and educational attainment further in Chapter 12.

Even deeply held and widely shared beliefs about society and social groups may be inaccurate—or more nuanced and complex than they appear on the surface. Until it is tested, common sense is merely conjecture. Careful research allows us to test our beliefs to gauge whether they are valid or merely anecdotal. From a sociological standpoint, empirical evidence is granted greater weight than common sense. By basing their decisions on scientific evidence rather than personal beliefs or common wisdom, researchers and students can draw informed conclusions and policy makers can ensure that policies and programs are data driven and maximally effective.

RESEARCH AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

Scientific theories answer questions about how and why scientific observations are as they are. A good scientific theory has the following characteristics:

•    It is logically consistent. One part of the theory does not contradict another part.

•    It can be disproved. If the findings contradict the theory, then we can deduce that the theory is wrong. While we can say that testing has failed to disprove the theory, however, we cannot assume the theory is “true” if testing confirms it. Theories are always subject to further testing, which may point to needed revisions, highlight limitations, or strengthen conclusions.

	Sentencing Reform for Drugs CLICK TO SHOW
	Qualitative v. Quantitative Research Methods CLICK TO SHOW

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© Martin Ruetschi/Keystone/Corbis

Some research on bullying relies on self-reports, while other data come from peer reports. Recent research (Branson & Cornell, 2009) suggests that more than twice as many students (11%) were labeled bullies in peer reports than in self-reports (5%), highlighting the fact that any method of data collection has limitations.

Theories are made up of concepts, ideas that summarize a set of phenomena. Concepts are the building blocks of research and prepare a solid foundation for sociological work. Some of the key concepts in sociology are social stratification, social class, power, inequality, and diversity, which we introduced in the opening chapter.

In order to gather data and create viable theories, we need to define concepts in ways that are precise and measurable. A study of social class, for example, would need to begin with a working definition of that term. An operational definition of a concept describes the concept in such a way that we can observe and measure it. Many sociologists define social class in terms of dimensions such as income, wealth, education, occupation, and consumption patterns. Each of these aspects of class has the potential to be measurable. We may construct operational definitions in terms of qualities or quantities (Babbie, 1998; Neuman, 2000). In terms of qualities, we might say, for instance, that the “upper-middle class” is composed of those who have completed graduate or professional degrees, even though there may be a broad income spread between those with master’s degrees in English and those with master’s degrees in business administration. This definition is based on an assumption of class as a social position that derives from educational attainment. Alternatively, using quantity as a key measure, we might operationally define “upper class” as households with annual income greater than $150,000 and “lower class” as households with annual income of less than $20,000. This definition takes income as the preeminent determinant of class position, irrespective of education.

Consider a social issue of contemporary interest—bullying. Imagine that you want to conduct a research study of bullying to determine how many female middle schoolers have experienced bullying in the past academic year. You would need to begin with a clear definition of bullying that operationalizes the term. That is, in order to measure how many girls have experienced bullying, you would need to articulate what constitutes bullying. Would you include physical bullying? If so, how many instances of being pushed or punched would constitute bullying? Would you include cyberbullying? What kinds of behaviors would be included in that category? To study a phenomenon like bullying, it is not enough to assume that “we know it when we see it.” Empirical research relies on the careful and specific definition of terms and the recognition of how definitions and methods affect research outcomes.

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN VARIABLES

In studying social relationships, sociologists also need variables. A variable is a concept that can take on two or more possible values. For instance, sex can be male or female, work status can be employed or unemployed, and geographic location can be inner-city, suburbs, or rural area. We can measure variables both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative variables include factors we can count, such as crime rates, unemployment rates, and drug use frequency. Qualitative variables are variables that express qualities and do not have numerical values. Qualitative variables might include physical characteristics, such as gender or eye color, or attitudinal characteristics, such as a parent’s preference for a private or public school or a commuter’s preference for riding public transportation or driving to work.

Sociological research often tries to establish a relationship between two or more variables. Suppose you want to find out whether more education is associated with higher earnings. After asking people about their years of schooling and their annual incomes, both of which are quantitative variables, you could estimate the degree of correlation between the two. Correlation—literally, “co-relationship”—is the degree to which two or more variables are associated with one another. Correlating the two variables “years of education” and “annual income” demonstrates that the greater the education, the higher the income (Figure 2.3). (Do you see the exception to that relationship? How might you explain it?)

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© Ed Kashi/VII/Corbis

Getting enough sleep is one factor that can help students maintain good grades in college. How would you design a research study to examine the question of which factors correlate most strongly with solid grades?

When two variables are correlated, we are often tempted to infer a causal relationship, a relationship between two variables in which one is the cause of the other. However, just because two variables are correlated, we cannot assume that one causes the other. For example, ice cream sales rise significantly during the summer, as does the homicide rate. These two events are correlated in the sense that both increase during the hottest months. However, because the sharp rise in ice cream sales does not cause rates of homicide to increase (nor, clearly, does the rise in homicide rates cause a spike in ice cream consumption), these two phenomena do not have a causal relationship. Correlation does not equal causation.

Sometimes an observed correlation between two variables is the result of a spurious relationship—that is, a correlation between two or more variables caused by another factor that is not being measured. In the example above, the common factor missed in the relationship is, in fact, the temperature. When it’s hot, more people want to eat ice cream. Studies also show that rising temperatures are linked to an increase in violent crimes—though after a certain temperature threshold (about 90 degrees), crimes wane again (Gamble & Hess, 2012). Among the reasons more violent crimes are committed in hot weather is the fact that people spend more time outdoors in social interactions when it is hot, which can lead to confrontations.

 

FIGURE 2.3 Correlation Between Education and Median Weekly Earnings in the United States, 2013

 

SOURCE: Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2013). Education pays. Employment projections. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

 

Let’s take another example that is close to home: Imagine that your school newspaper publishes a study concluding that coffee drinking causes poor test grades. The story is based on a survey of students that found those who reported drinking a lot of coffee the night before an exam scored lower than did their peers who had consumed little or no coffee. Having studied sociology, you wonder whether this relationship might be spurious. What is the “something else” that is not being measured here? Could it be that students who did not study in the days and weeks prior to the test and stayed up late the night before cramming—probably consuming a lot of coffee as they fought sleep—received lower test grades than did peers who studied earlier and got adequate sleep the night before the test? The overlooked variable, then, is the amount of studying students did in the weeks preceding the exam, and we are likely to find a positive correlation and evidence of causation in looking at time spent studying and grade outcomes.

Sociologists attempt to develop theories systematically by offering clear operational definitions, collecting unbiased data, and identifying evidence-based relationships between variables. Sociological research methods usually yield credible and useful data, but we must always critically analyze the results to ensure their validity and reliability and to check that hypothesized relationships are not spurious.

TESTING THEORIES AND HYPOTHESES

Once we have defined concepts and variables with which to work, we can endeavor to test a theory by positing a hypothesis. Hypotheses enable scientists to check the accuracy of their theories. For example, consider state-level data on obesity and poverty (Figures 2.4 and 2.5). Data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2012 show that some positive correlation exists between obesity and poverty rates at the state level. A positive correlation is a relationship showing that as one variable rises or falls, the other does as well. The variables’ common trajectory suggests a possible relationship between poverty and obesity (Table 2.2), although, as we noted above, sociologists are quick to point out that correlation does not equal causation. Researchers are interested in creating and testing hypotheses to explain cases of positive correlation—they are also interested in explaining exceptions to the pattern of correlation between two (or more) variables.

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FIGURE 2.4 Self-Reported Obesity Rates by State, 2012

 

SOURCE: Centers for Disease Control. (2011). Prevalence of self-reported obesity among U.S. adults. Behavior risk factor surveillance system. Washington, DC.

 

In fact, researchers have explored and hypothesized the relationship between poverty and obesity. Among the conclusions they have drawn is that living in poverty—and particularly living in poor neighborhoods—puts people at higher risk of obesity, though the risk is greater for women than for men (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012d; Hedwig, 2011; Smith, 2009). Among the factors that researchers have identified as contributing to a causal path between poverty and obesity are the lack of access to healthy food choices, the lack of access to safe and nearby spaces for physical exercise, and a deficit of time to cook healthy foods and exercise. They have also cited the stress induced by poverty. While the data cannot lead us to conclude decisively that poverty is a cause of obesity, research can help us to gather evidence that supports or refutes a hypothesis about the relationship between these two variables. We look at this issue in greater depth in Chapter 16.

In the case of a negative correlation, one variable increases as the other decreases. As we discuss later in Chapter 11, which focuses on the family and society, researchers have found a negative correlation between male unemployment and rates of marriage. That is, as rates of male unemployment in a community rise, rates of marriage in the community fall. Observing this relationship, sociologists have conducted research to test explanations for it (Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Wilson, 2010).

 

FIGURE 2.5 Poverty Rates by State, 2012

 

SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, “American FactFinder,” 2010 American Community Survey.

 

Keep in mind that we can never prove theories to be decisively right—we can only prove them wrong. Proving a theory right would require the scientific testing of absolutely every possible hypothesis based on that theory—a fundamental impossibility. In fact, good theories are constructed in a way that makes it logically possible to prove them wrong. This is Karl Popper’s (1959) famous principle of falsification, or falsifiability, which holds that to be scientific, a theory must lead to testable hypotheses that can be disproved if they are wrong.

VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY

For theories and hypotheses to be testable, both the concepts used to construct them and the measurements used to test them must be accurate. When our observations adequately reflect the real world, our findings have validity—that is, the concepts and measurements accurately represent what they claim to represent. For example, suppose you want to know whether the crime rate in the United States has gone up or down. For years sociologists depended on police reports to measure crime. However, researchers could assess the validity of these tallies only if subsequent surveys were administered nationally to victims of crime. If the victim tallies matched those of the police reports, then researchers could say the police reports were a valid measure of crime in the United States. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) enables researchers to assess validity because it offers data on victimization, even for crimes that have not been reported to authorities.

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TABLE 2.2   Top 10 States: Obesity and Poverty, 2012

 

SOURCES: U.S. Census Bureau. (2013). Poverty: 2000 to 2012, American Community Survey Briefs; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). Prevalence of self-reported obesity among U.S. adults, 2012.

 

Sociologists are also concerned with the reliability of their findings. Reliability is the extent to which the findings are consistent with the findings of different studies of the same phenomenon, or with the findings of the same study over time. Sociological research may suffer from problems of validity and reliability because of bias, a characteristic of results that systematically misrepresent the full dimensions of what is being studied. Bias can creep into research due to the use of inappropriate measurement instruments. For example, suppose the administrator of a city wants to know whether homelessness has risen in recent years. She operationally defines “the homeless” as those who sleep in the street or in shelters and dispatches her team of researchers to city shelters to count the number of people occupying shelter beds or sleeping on street corners or park benches. A sociologist reviewing the research team’s results might question the administrator’s operational definition of what it means to be homeless and, by extension, her findings. Are the homeless solely those spending nights in shelters or on the streets? What about those who stay with friends after eviction or camp out in their cars? In this instance, a sociologist might suggest that the city’s measure is biased because it misrepresents (and undercounts) the homeless population by failing to define the concept in a way that captures the broad manifestations of homelessness.

Bias can also occur in research when respondents do not tell the truth (see Table 2.3). A good example of this is a study in which respondents were asked whether they used illegal drugs or had driven while impaired. All were asked the same questions, but some were wired to a machine they were told was a lie detector. The subjects who thought their truthfulness was being monitored by a lie detector reported higher rates of illegal drug use than did subjects who did not. Based on the assumption that actual drug use would be about the same for both groups, the researchers concluded that the subjects who were not connected to the device were underreporting their actual illegal drug use and that simply asking people about drug use would lead to biased findings because respondents would not tell the truth. Do you think truthfulness of respondents is a general problem, or is it one researchers are likely to encounter only where sensitive issues such as drug use or racism are at issue?

OBJECTIVITY IN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Even if sociologists develop theories based on good operational definitions and collect valid and reliable data, like all human beings they have passions and biases that may color their research. For example, criminologists long ignored the criminality of women because they assumed that women were not disposed toward criminal behavior. Researchers therefore did not have an accurate picture of women and crime until this bias was recognized and rectified.

Steven Colbert on Validity Research CLICK TO SHOW

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INEQUALITY MATTERS

 

HOW MANY PEOPLE SUFFER FROM HOMELESSNESS?

 

The Washington Post/Contributor/Getty Images

Understanding of research methods will help you recognize the challenges in gathering reliable statistics on populations that are outside the mainstream. In this photo, a volunteer conducts an interview with a homeless man, which helps local authorities assess how many homeless people are in the city and why they lack shelter.

Homelessness is a social problem in the United States. But how extensive is it? The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (2012) estimates that more than 3 million people experience homelessness over the course of a year across the United States. Of these, 1.3 million are children; more than one-third of the entire homeless population is made up of families. While the majority of the homeless have access to transitional housing or emergency shelters, approximately 4 out of 10 are unsheltered, living in improvised conditions that are not suited for human habitation. Despite a decrease in the homeless population nationally, the rates for 24 individual states and the District of Columbia increased between 2009 and 2011 (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2012).

Statistics vary, however, depending on the definitions and counting methodologies employed. In the early 1980s, the U.S. government was under pressure to provide services and assistance to a population of homeless that some claimed was large and growing. In response, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) conducted a study to determine the number of homeless people in cities and towns across the country. After analyzing all existing studies, government researchers called providers of services to the homeless and other experts in 60 cities and asked them to estimate the numbers of homeless people in their communities. Based on this research, the government concluded there were 250,000 to 350,000 homeless people in the United States. This figure was considerably lower than the estimate of 2 million that came from other sources outside the government (Burt, 1992).

Politicians used the HUD figures extensively, although some sociologists were skeptical (Appelbaum, 1986; Appelbaum, Dolny, Dreier, & Gilderbloom, 1991). First, HUD’s operational definition of homelessness included only people sleeping on the streets and in shelters; it effectively excluded homeless people living in cars or abandoned buildings or taking temporary shelter with friends. Second, HUD based its figures on the estimates of shelter providers, police officers, and other local experts who admitted they were often only guessing. Finally, the HUD figures were based almost entirely on estimates of the homeless in the downtown areas of big cities, a methodological bias that excluded the numerous homeless people who lived in surrounding towns and suburbs. As a result of these problems, HUD’s estimate of the national homeless population lacked validity.

THINK IT THROUGH

Subsequent research has confirmed that by the early 1990s there were as many as 1 million homeless in the United States—three to four times the estimate produced by the government study. An axiom of sociological research is that it is not what you think you know that matters, but how you came to know it. The homeless represent a transient population that is challenging to count. The homeless have no fixed addresses, no consistent billing statements, and no easy way for researchers to locate them. What methods might you employ to attempt to systematically count the homeless people in your community? What kinds of resources do you think you would need?

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TABLE 2.3   How Truthful Are Survey Respondents? (in percentages)

 

SOURCE: Adams, J., Parkinson, L., Sanson-Fisher, R. W., & Walsh, R. A. (2008). Enhancing self-report of adolescent smoking: The effects of bogus pipeline and anonymity. Addictive Behaviors, 33(10), 1291–1296.

 

Personal values and beliefs may affect a researcher’s objectivity, or ability to represent the object of study accurately. In the 19th century, sociologist Max Weber argued that in order for scientific research to be objective it has to have value neutrality—that is, the course of the research must be free of the influence of personal beliefs and opinions. The sociologist should acknowledge personal biases and assumptions, make them explicit, and prevent them from getting in the way of observation and reporting.

How can we best achieve objectivity? First, recall Karl Popper’s principle of falsification, which proposes that the goal of research is not to prove our ideas correct but to find out whether they are wrong. To accomplish this, researchers must be willing to accept that the data they collect might contradict their most passionate convictions. Research should deepen human understanding, not prove a particular point of view.

A second way we can ensure objectivity is to invite others to draw their own conclusions about the validity of our data through replication, the repetition of a previous study using a different sample or population to verify or refute the original findings. For research to be replicated, the original study must spell out in detail the research methods employed. If potential replicators cannot conduct their studies exactly as the original study was performed, they might accidentally introduce unwanted variables. To ensure the most accurate replication of their work, researchers should archive original materials such as questionnaires and field notes and allow replicators access to them.

Popper (1959) described scientific discovery as an ongoing process of “confrontation and refutation.” Sociologists usually subject their work to this process by publishing their results in scholarly journals. Submitted research undergoes a rigorous process of peer review, in which other experts in the field of study examine the work before the results are finalized and published. Once research has been published in a reputable journal such as the American Sociological Review or the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, other scholars read it with a critical eye. The study may then be replicated in different settings.

DOING SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Sociological research requires careful preparation and a clear plan that guides the work. The purpose of a sociological research project may be to obtain preliminary knowledge that will help formulate a theory or to evaluate an existing theory about society and social life. As part of the strategy, the researcher selects from a variety of research methods—specific techniques for systematically gathering data. In the following sections, we look at a range of research methods and examine their advantages and disadvantages. We also discuss how you might prepare a sociological research project of your own.

SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS

Sociologists employ a variety of methods to learn about the social world (Table 2.4). Since each has strengths and weaknesses, a good research strategy may be to use several different methods. If they all yield similar findings, the researcher is more likely to have confidence in the results. The principal methods are the survey, fieldwork (either participant observation or detached observation), experimentation, working with existing information, and participatory research.

Validity and Reliability homicide studies CLICK TO SHOW

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TABLE 2.4   Key Sociological Research Methods

 

 

SURVEY RESEARCH

A survey relies on a questionnaire or interviews with a group of people in person or by telephone or e-mail to determine their characteristics, opinions, and behaviors. Surveys are versatile, and sociologists often use them to test theories or simply to gather data. Some survey instruments, such as National Opinion Research Center questionnaires, consist of closed-ended questions that respondents answer by choosing from among the responses presented. Others, such as the University of Chicago’s Social Opportunity Survey, consist of open-ended questions that permit respondents to answer in their own words.

An example of survey research conducted for data collection is the largest survey in the nation, the U.S. Census, which is conducted every 10 years. The census is not designed to test any particular theory. Rather, it gathers voluminous data about U.S. residents that researchers, including sociologists, use to test and develop a variety of theories.

Usually, a survey is conducted on a relatively small number of people, a sample, selected to represent a population, the whole group of people to be studied. The first step in designing a survey is to identify the population of interest. Imagine that you are doing a study of behavioral factors that affect grades in college. Who would you survey? Members of a certain age group only? People in the airline industry? Pet owners? To conduct a study well, we need to identify clearly the survey population that will most effectively help us answer the research question. In your study you would most likely choose to survey students now in college, because they offer the best opportunity to correlate grades with particular behaviors.

Once we have identified a population of interest, we will usually select a sample, as we seldom have the time or money to talk to all the members of a given population, especially if it is a large one. Other things being equal, larger samples better represent the population than smaller ones. However, with proper sampling techniques, sociologists can use relatively small (and therefore inexpensive) samples to represent large populations. For instance, a well-chosen sample of 1,000 U.S. voters can be used to represent 100,000 U.S. voters with a fair degree of accuracy, enabling surveys to make election predictions with reasonable confidence. Sampling is also used for looking at social phenomena such as drug or alcohol use in a population: CNN reported recently that 17% of high schoolers drink, smoke, or use drugs during the school day, based on a 1,000-student sample polled by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (Azuz, 2012).

Survey v. Public Opinion CLICK TO SHOW

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© James Marshall/Corbis

Since it is often impossible to sample every person in a target population, being well versed in research methodology enables a researcher to produce empirically rigorous data with a representative population sample.

Ideally, a sample should reflect the composition of the population we are studying. For instance, if you want to be able to use your research data about college students to generalize about the entire college student population of the United States, you would need to collect proportional samples from 2-year colleges, 4-year colleges, large universities, community colleges, online schools, and so on. It would not be adequate to survey only students at online colleges or only female students at private 4-year schools.

To avoid bias in surveys, sociologists may use random sampling, whereby everyone in the population of interest has an equal chance of being chosen for the study. Typically, they make or obtain a list of everyone in the population of interest. Then they draw names or phone numbers, for instance, by chance until the desired sample size is reached (today, most such work is done by computers). Large-scale random sample surveys permit researchers to draw conclusions about large numbers of people on the basis of relatively small numbers of respondents. This is an advantage in terms of time and money.

In constructing surveys, sociologists must take care to ensure that the questions and their possible responses will capture the respondents’ points of view. The wording of questions is an important factor; poor wording can produce misleading results, as the following example illustrates. In 1993, an American Jewish Committee/Roper poll was taken to examine public attitudes and beliefs about the Holocaust. To the astonishment of many, results indicated that fully 22% of survey respondents expressed a belief the Holocaust had never happened. Not immediately noticed was the fact that the survey contained some very awkward wording, including the question “Does it seem possible or does it seem impossible to you that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened?” Can you see why such a question might produce a questionable result? The question’s compound structure and double-negative wording almost certainly confused many respondents.

The American Jewish Committee released a second survey with different wording: “Does it seem possible to you that the Nazi extermination of the Jews never happened, or do you feel certain that it happened?” The results of the second poll were quite different. Only about 1% of respondents thought it was possible the Holocaust never happened, while 8% were unsure (Kagay, 1994). Despite the follow-up poll that corrected the mistaken perception of the previous poll’s results, the new poll was not as methodologically rigorous as it could have been; a single survey question should ask for only one type of response. The American Jewish Committee’s second survey contained a question that attempted to gauge two different responses simultaneously.

A weakness of surveys is that they may reveal what people say rather than what they do. Responses are sometimes self-serving, intended to make the interviewee look good in the eyes of the researcher. As we saw in an earlier example, a respondent may not wish to reveal his or her drinking or drug habits. A well-constructed survey, however, can overcome these problems. Assuring the respondent of anonymity, assigning interviewers with whom respondents feel comfortable, and building in questions that ask for the same information in different ways can reduce self-serving bias in survey research.

FIELDWORK

Fieldwork is a method of research that uses in-depth and often extended study to describe and analyze a group or community. Sometimes called ethnography, it takes the researcher into the “field,” where he or she directly observes—and sometimes interacts with—subjects in their social environment. Social scientists, including sociologists and anthropologists, have employed fieldwork to study everything from hoboes and working-class gangs in the 1930s (Anderson, 1940; Whyte, 1943) to prostitution and drug use among inner-city women (Maher, 1997) and Vietnam veterans motorcycling across the country to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. (Michalowski & Dubisch, 2001). Alice Goffman’s (2014) work on the underground economy is another example of the use of fieldwork in sociological research.

Field Work Methods CLICK TO SHOW

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Most fieldwork combines several different methods of gathering information. These include interviews, detached observation, and participant observation.

An interview is a detailed conversation designed to obtain in-depth information about a person and his or her activities. When used in surveys, interview questions may be either open-ended or closed-ended. They may also be formal or informal. In fieldwork, the questions are usually open-ended to allow respondents to answer in their own words. Sometimes the interviewer prepares a detailed set of questions; at other times, the best approach is simply to have a list of relevant topics to cover.

Good researchers guard against influencing respondents’ answers. In particular, they avoid the use of leading questions—that is, questions that tend to elicit particular responses. Imagine a question on attitudes toward the marine environment that reads “Do you believe tuna fishing with broad nets, which leads to the violent deaths of dolphins, should be regulated?” The bias in this question is obvious—the stated association of broad nets with violent dolphin deaths creates a bias in favor of a yes answer. Accurate data depend on good questions that do not lead respondents to answer in particular ways.

Sometimes a study requires that researchers in the field keep a distance from the people they are studying and simply observe without getting involved. The people being observed may or may not know they are being observed. This approach is called detached observation. In his study of two delinquent gangs (the “Saints” and the “Roughnecks”), William J. Chambliss, coauthor of this text, spent many hours observing gang members without actually being involved in what they were doing. With the gang members’ permission, he sat in his car with the window rolled down so he could hear them talk and watch their behavior while they hung out on a street corner. At other times, he would observe them playing pool while he played at a nearby table. Chambliss sometimes followed gang members in his car as they drove around in theirs and sat near enough to them in bars and cafés to hear their conversations. Through his observations at a distance, he was able to gather detailed information on the kinds of delinquencies the gang members engaged in. He was also able to unravel some of the social processes that led to their behavior and observe other people’s reactions to it.

Detached observation is particularly useful when the researcher has reason to believe other forms of fieldwork might influence the behavior of the people to be observed. It is also helpful for checking the validity of what the researcher has been told in interviews. A great deal of sociological information about illegal behavior has been gathered through detached observation.

One problem with detached observation is that the information gathered is likely to be incomplete. Without actually talking to people, we are unable to check our impressions against their experiences. For this reason, detached observation is usually supplemented by in-depth interviews. In his study of the delinquent gang members, Chambliss (1973, 2001) periodically interviewed them to complement his findings and check the accuracy of his detached observations.

Another type of fieldwork is participant observation, a mixture of active participation and detached observation. Participant observation can sometimes be dangerous. Chambliss’s (1988b) research on organized crime and police corruption in Seattle, Washington, exposed him to threats from the police and organized crime network members who feared he would reveal their criminal activities. Goffman’s (2014) work also included participant observation; she spent significant amounts of time with the residents of the Philadelphia neighborhood she studied, seeking to carefully document their voices and experiences.

EXPERIMENTATION

Experiments are research techniques for investigating cause and effect under controlled conditions. We construct experiments to measure the effects of independent or experimental variables, variables we change intentionally, on dependent variables, which change as a result of our alterations to the independent variables. To put it another way, researchers modify one controllable variable (such as diet or exposure to violent movie scenes) to see what happens to another variable (such as willingness to socialize or the display of aggression). Some variables, such as sex, ethnicity, and height, do not change in response to stimuli and thus do not make useful dependent variables.

In a typical experiment, researchers select participants who share characteristics such as age, education, social class, or experiences that are relevant to the experiment. The participants are then randomly assigned to two groups. The first, called the experimental group, is exposed to the independent variable—the variable the researchers hypothesize will affect the subjects’ behavior. The second group is assigned to the control group. These subjects are not exposed to the independent variable—they receive no special attention. The researchers then measure both groups for the dependent variable. For example, if a neuroscientist wanted to conduct an experiment on whether listening to classical music affects performance on a math exam, he or she might have an experimental group listen to Mozart, Bach, or Chopin for an hour before taking a test. The control group would take the same test but would not listen to any music beforehand. In this example, exposure to classical music is the independent variable, and the quantifiable results of the math test are the dependent variable.

	The Organ Detective CLICK TO SHOW
	Asch Conformity Experiment CLICK TO SHOW

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Daniel Hurst/Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom

When looking at the relationship between violent video games and violent behaviors, researchers must account for many variables. What variables would you choose to test?

To study the relationship between violent video game play and aggression, researchers took a longitudinal approach by examining the sustained violent video game play and aggressive behavior of 1,492 adolescents in grades 9 through 12 (Willoughby, Adachi, & Good, 2012). Their results showed a strong correlation between playing violent video games and being more likely to engage in, or approve of, violence. This body of literature represents another example of the importance of research methodology; the same researchers, in a separate study, found that the level of competitiveness in a video game, and not the violence itself, had the greatest influence on aggressive behavior (Adachi & Willoughby, 2011). More research on this topic may help differentiate between the effects of variables and avoid conclusions based on spurious relationships.

WORKING WITH EXISTING INFORMATION

Sociologists frequently work with existing information and data gathered by other researchers. Why would researchers choose to reinterpret existing data? Perhaps they want to do a secondary analysis of statistical data collected by an agency such as the U.S. Census Bureau, which makes its materials available to researchers studying issues ranging broadly from education to poverty to racial residential segregation. Or they may want to work with archival data to examine the cultural products—posters, films, pamphlets, and such—used by an authoritarian regime in a given period to legitimate its power or disseminated by a social movement like the civil rights movement to spread its message to the masses.

Statistical data include quantitative information obtained from government agencies, businesses, research studies, and other entities that collect data for their own or others’ use. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, for example, maintains a rich storehouse of information on a number of criminal justice social indicators, such as prison populations, incidents of crime, and criminal justice expenditures. Many other government agencies routinely conduct surveys of commerce, manufacturing, agriculture, labor, and housing. International organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank collect annual data on the health, education, population, and economies of nearly all countries in the world. Many businesses publish annual reports that yield basic statistical information about their financial performance.

Document analysis is the examination of written materials or cultural products: previous studies, newspaper reports, court records, campaign posters, digital reports, films, pamphlets, and other forms of text or images produced by individuals, government agencies, private organizations, and others. However, because such documents are not always compiled with accuracy in mind, good researchers exercise caution in using them. People who keep records are often aware that others will see the records and take pains to avoid including anything unflattering. The diaries and memoirs of politicians are good examples of documents that are invaluable sources of data but that must be interpreted with great caution. The expert researcher looks at such materials with a critical eye, double-checking with other sources for accuracy where possible.

This type of research may include historical research, which entails the analysis of historical documents. Often such research is comparative, examining historical events in several different countries for similarities and differences. Unlike historians, sociologists usually identify patterns common to different times and places; historians tend to focus on particular times and places and are less likely to draw broad generalizations from their research. An early master of the sociological approach to historical research was Max Weber (1919/1946, 1921/1979), who contributed to our understanding of—among many other things—the differences between religious traditions in the West and those in East Asia.

Content analysis is the systematic examination of forms of documented communication. A researcher can take a content analysis approach by coding and analyzing patterns in cultural products like music, laws, tweets, blogs, and works of art. An exciting aspect of social science research is that your object of curiosity can become a research question. In 2009, sociologists conducted a content analysis of 403 gangsta rap songs to assess whether rap’s reputation of being misogynistic (hostile to women) was justified (Weitzer & Kubrin, 2009). The analysis found that the songs did contain significant misogynistic undertones, reflecting larger stereotypical views of male and female characteristics.

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TECHNOLOGY & SOCIETY

 

DOES TECHNOLOGY AFFECT STUDYING?

 

© Sam Bloomberg-Rissman/Blend Images/Corbis

Has technology helped or hindered your studying in college? Does it mostly offer research help—or additional distractions?

In 2011, as it has every year since 2000, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) surveyed about 416,000 U.S. students at 673 institutions of higher education, asking about student relationships with faculty, note taking and study habits, and hours spent studying. One of the 2011 findings, consistent with the results of other recent surveys, was that students were spending far fewer hours studying than did their counterparts in previous decades. If in 1961 the average student reported studying about 24 hours per week, by 2011 the average student reported about 14 hours of study time (Babcock & Marks, 2010; NSSE, 2012). Within this figure are variations by major, ranging from about 24 hours per week for architecture majors to 10 for speech majors. Sociology majors reported studying an average of 13.8 hours per week (de Vise, 2012).

This study presents a number of interesting research questions, few of which are answered by the NSSE, which collected quantitative data but did not analyze the results. What factors might be behind the precipitous decline in self-reported hours spent studying?

Some existing hypotheses implicate modern technology for at least two reasons. First, it has been suggested that students study less because they are spending substantial time using social media such as Facebook. One pilot study at Ohio State University concluded that students who used Facebook had poorer grades than those who did not (Karpinski & Duberstein, 2009). These data suggest that another study could profitably look for correlations between social media use and study time.

Second, students may be reporting less study time because technology has cut the hours of work needed for some tasks. While preparing a research paper in the past may have demanded hours in the library stacks or in pursuit of an expert to interview, today an online search engine can bring up a wealth of data earlier generations could not have imagined. Far fewer students consult research librarians or use library databases today. Notably, however, a recent study suggests that the quality of data students have the skills to find in their searches is mixed and often low (Kolowich, 2011).

Technology is only one possible factor in the decline in the time U.S. students spend studying. Two economists, for instance, suggest that studying time has decreased as achievement standards have fallen (Babcock & Marks, 2010). But there is no denying that one of the most dramatic differences between the 1960s and today is the proliferation of technology, which suggests that an explanatory relationship may exist.

THINK IT THROUGH

Imagine that your final paper for this semester involves answering the research question, “What is the impact of technology on studying and learning?” How would you go about answering this question? How would you collect data for your project?

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PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH

While sociologists usually try to avoid having an impact on the people they study, one research method is employed specifically to foster change. Participatory research supports an organization or community trying to improve its situation when it lacks the necessary economic or political power to do so by itself. The researcher fully participates by training the members to conduct research on their own while working with them to enhance their power (Freire, 1972; Park, 1993; Whyte, 1991). Such research might be part of, for instance, empowering a community to act against the threat of HIV/AIDS, as has been done in places like San Francisco and Nairobi, Kenya. Participatory research is an effective way of conducting an empirical study while also furthering a community or organizational goal that will benefit from the results of the study.

DOING SOCIOLOGY: A STUDENT’S GUIDE TO RESEARCH

Sociological research seldom follows a formula that indicates exactly how to proceed. Sociologists often have to feel their way as they go, responding to the challenges that arise during research and adapting new methods to fit the circumstances. Thus, the stages of research can vary even when sociologists agree about the basic sequence. At the same time, for student sociologists, it is useful to understand the key building blocks of good sociological research. As you read through the following descriptions of the stages, think about a topic of interest to you and how you might use that as the basis for an original research project.

FRAME YOUR RESEARCH QUESTION

“Good research,” Thomas Dewey observed, “scratches where it itches.” Sociological research begins with the formulation of a question or questions to be answered. Society offers an endless spectrum of compelling issues to study: Does exposure to violent video games affect the probability of aggressive behavior in adolescents? Does religious faith affect voting behavior? Is family income a good predictor of performance on standardized college entrance tests such as the SAT? Beyond the descriptive aspects of social phenomena, sociologists are also interested in how they can explain relationships between the variables they examine.

Formulating a research question precisely and carefully is one of the most important steps toward ensuring a successful research project. Research questions come from many sources. Some arise from problems that form the foundation of sociology, including an interest in socioeconomic inequalities and their causes and effects, or the desire to understand how power is exercised in social relationships. Sociologists are also mindful that solid empirical data are important to public policies on issues of concern such as poverty, occupational mobility, and domestic violence.

 

FIGURE 2.6 Sociological Research Formula

 

 

Keep in mind that you also need to define your terms. Recall our discussion of operationalizing concepts. For example, if you are studying middle school bullying, you need to make explicit your definition of bullying and how that will be measured. The same holds true if you are studying a topic such as illiteracy or aggressive behavior.

REVIEW EXISTING KNOWLEDGE

Once you identify the question you want to ask, you need to conduct a review of the existing literature on your topic. The literature may include published studies, unpublished papers, books, dissertations, government documents, newspapers and other periodicals, and, increasingly, data disseminated on the Internet. The key focus of the literature review, however, is usually published and peer-reviewed research studies. Your purpose in conducting the literature review is to learn about studies that have already been done on your topic of interest so that you can set your research in the context of existing studies. You will also use the literature review to highlight how your research will contribute to this body of knowledge.

	Unobtrusive Research in Criminal Justice CLICK TO SHOW
	Ethnography in Context CLICK TO SHOW

 

Participatory Research Methods in Skid Row Los Angeles CLICK TO SHOW

 

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SELECT THE APPROPRIATE METHOD

Now you are ready to think about how your research question can best be answered. Which of the research methods described earlier (1) will give the best results for the project and (2) is most feasible for your research circumstances, experience, and budget?

If you wish to obtain basic information from a relatively large population in a short period of time, then a survey is the best method to use. If you want to obtain detailed information about a smaller group of people, then interviews might be most beneficial. Participant observation and detached observation are ideal research methods for verifying data obtained through interviews, or, for the latter, when the presence of a researcher might alter the research results. Document analysis and historical research are good choices for projects focused on inaccessible subjects and historical sociology. Remember, sociological researchers often use multiple methods.

WEIGH THE ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS

Research conducted on other human beings—as much of sociological research is—poses certain ethical problems. An outpouring of outrage after the discovery of gruesome experiments conducted by the Nazis during World War II prompted the adoption of the Nuremberg Code, a collection of ethical research guidelines developed to help prevent such atrocities from ever happening again (Table 2.5). In addition to these basic guidelines, scientific societies throughout the world have adopted their own codes of ethics to safeguard against the misuse and abuse of human subjects.

Before you begin your research, it is important that you familiarize yourself with the American Sociological Association’s Code of Ethics (www.asanet.org/about/ethics.cfm), as well as the standards of your school, and carefully follow both. Ask yourself whether your research will cause the subjects any emotional or physical harm. How will you guarantee their anonymity? Does the research violate any of your own ethical principles?

Most universities and research institutes require researchers to complete particular forms before undertaking experiments using human subjects, describing the research methods to be used and the groups of subjects who will take part. Depending on the type of research, a researcher may need to obtain written agreement from the subjects for their participation. Today, a study like that conducted by Philip Zimbardo in the 1970s at Stanford University (described in the Private Lives, Public Issues box) would be unlikely to be approved because of the stress put on the experiment’s subjects in the course of the research. Approval of research involving human subjects is granted with an eye to both fostering good research and protecting the interests of those partaking in the study.

 

TABLE 2.5   The Nuremberg Code

 

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

 

COLLECT AND ANALYZE THE DATA

Collecting data is the heart of research. It is time-consuming but exciting. During this phase, you will gather the information that will allow you to make a contribution to the sociological understanding of your topic. If your data set is qualitative—for example, open-ended responses to interview questions or observations of people—you will proceed by carefully reviewing and organizing your field notes, documents, and other sources of information. If your data set is quantitative—for example, completed closed-ended surveys—you will proceed by entering data into spreadsheets, comparing results, and analyzing your findings using statistical software.

	The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment CLICK TO SHOW
	Facebook’s Newsfeed Study CLICK TO SHOW

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Galerie Bilderwelt/Contributor/Getty Images

During the Nuremberg Trials, which brought key figures of the Nazi Party of Germany to justice, the practices of some Nazi medical personnel were found to be unethical and even criminal. The Nuremberg Code, which emerged from these trials, established principles for any type of human experimentation.

Your analysis should offer answers to the research questions with which you began the study. Be mindful in interpreting your data and avoid conclusions that are speculative or not warranted by the actual research results. Do your data support or contradict your initial hypothesis? Or are they simply inconclusive? Report all of your results. Do your findings have implications for larger theories in the discipline? Do they suggest the need for further study of another dimension of the issue at hand? Good research need not have results that unequivocally support your hypothesis. A finding that refutes the hypothesis can be instructive as well.

SHARE THE RESULTS

However fascinating your research may be to you, its benefits are amplified when you take advantage of opportunities to share it with others. You can share your findings with the sociological community by publishing the results in academic journals. Before submitting research for publication, you must learn which journals cover your topic areas and review those journals’ standards for publication. Some colleges and universities sponsor undergraduate journals that offer opportunities for students to publish original research.

Other outlets for publication include books, popular magazines, newspapers, video documentaries, and websites. Another way to communicate your findings is to give a presentation at a professional meeting. Many professional meetings are held each year; at least one will offer a panel suited to your topic. In some cases, high-quality undergraduate papers are selected for presentation. If your paper is one, relevant experts at the meeting will likely help you interpret your findings further.

SOCIOLOGY AND YOU: WHY LEARN TO DO SOCIOLOGICAL RESEARCH?

The news media provide us with an immense amount of round-the-clock information. Some of it is very good; some of it is misleading. Reported “facts” may come from sources that have agendas or are motivated by self-interest, such as political interest groups, lobbying groups, media outlets, and even government agencies. Perhaps the most problematic are “scientific” findings that are agenda driven, not scientifically unbiased. In particular because we live in a time of information saturation, it is important that we learn to be critical consumers of information and to ask questions about the quality of the data presented to us. Carefully gathered and precise data are important not only as sources of information but also as the basis of informed decision making on the part of elected officials and others in positions of power.

Because you now understand how valid and reliable data are gathered, you can better question the veracity and reliability of others’ claims. For example, when a pollster announces that 80% of the “American people” favor Joe Conman for Congress, you can ask, “What was the size of the sample? How representative is it of the population? How was the survey questionnaire prepared? Exactly what questions were asked?” If it turns out that the data are based on the responses of 25 residents of a gated Colorado community or that a random sample was used but the survey included leading questions, you know the results do not give an accurate picture.

Similarly, your grasp of the research process allows you to have greater confidence in research that was conducted properly. You should put more stock in the results of a nationwide Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey of college students’ drug use or safe-sex choices that used carefully prepared questionnaires tested for their validity and reliability and less stock in data gathered by a reporter untrained in scientific methods who interviewed a small, nonrandom sample of students on a single college campus.

You have also taken the first step in learning how to gather and evaluate data yourself. Realizing the value of theories that can be tested and proven false if they are wrong is the first step in developing your own theories and hypotheses. By using the concepts, processes, and definitions introduced in this chapter, you can conduct research that is valid, appropriate, and even publishable.

In short, these research tools will help you be a more critical consumer of information and enhance your understanding of the social world around you. Other benefits of learning sociology will become apparent throughout the following chapters as you discover how the research process is applied to cultures, societies, and the institutions that shape your life.

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PRIVATE LIVES, PUBLIC ISSUES

 

ZIMBARDO’S EXPERIMENT: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIAL ROLE

 

Stanford University archives

Despite questions about the ethics of Philip Zimbardo’s experiment, sociologists still study his work. Is it wrong to use research data gathered by means we now consider unethical? Do the results of research ever justify subjecting human beings to physical or psychological discomfort, invasion of privacy, or deception?

Social psychologist Philip Zimbardo (1974; Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973) wanted to investigate how role expectations shape behavior. He was intrigued by the possibility that the frequently observed cruelty of prison guards was a consequence of the institutional setting and role, not the guards’ personalities.

In an experiment that has since become well known, Zimbardo converted the basement of a Stanford University building into a makeshift prison. A newspaper ad seeking young men to take part in the experiment for pay drew 70 subject candidates, who were given a battery of physical and psychological tests to assess their emotional stability and maturity. The most mature 24 were selected for the experiment and randomly assigned to roles as “guards” or “prisoners.” Those assigned to be prisoners were “arrested,” handcuffed, and taken to the makeshift prison by the Palo Alto police. The behavior of the guards and the prisoners was filmed. Within a week, the prison setting took on many of the characteristics of actual prisons. The guards were often aggressive and seemed to take pleasure in being cruel. The prisoners began planning escapes and expressed hostility and bitterness toward the guards.

The subjects in the experiment so identified with their respective roles that many of them displayed signs of depression and anxiety. As a result, some were released early, and the experiment was canceled before the first week was over. Since the participants had all been screened for psychological and physical problems, Zimbardo concluded that the results could not be attributed to their personalities. Instead, the prison setting itself (the independent variable) appeared to be at the root of the guards’ brutal behavior and the prisoners’ hostility and rebelliousness (the dependent variable). Zimbardo’s research shows how profoundly private lives are shaped by the behavioral expectations of the roles we occupy in social institutions.

THINK IT THROUGH

Zimbardo’s experiment could not be repeated today, as it would violate guidelines for ethical research with human subjects. How might a researcher design an ethical experiment to test the question of the circumstances under which apparently “normal” individuals will engage in violent or cruel acts?

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WHAT CAN I DO WITH A  SOCIOLOGY DEGREE?

 

 

 

 

 

CAREER DEVELOPMENT: GETTING STARTED AND ASSESSING YOUR INTERESTS, VALUES, AND SKILLS

The skills and knowledge of career development and your job search are learned, practiced, and mastered over time. You will learn about yourself, make career decisions, manage workplace expectations, and pursue new opportunities throughout your professional life. Your career success starts with self-reflection, exploration, the effective implementation of career and job search action plans, and a personal and professional commitment to your career. The basic activities linked to these processes are shown in the career development wheel.

In this chapter, we focus on your assessment of career interests and preferences and your exploration of career and job options.

Assessment of Individual Career Interests and Preferences

Self-knowledge is an important element of career assessment and development. Learning about your career identity—the values, aspirations, interests, talents, skills, and preferences related to careers—is fundamental to your career success.

Careful self-assessment will help you determine what you do well and enjoy, what skills and talents you possess, how you prefer to work, what interests you actively pursue, what values drive your choices, and where your strengths and weaknesses lie. By matching your characteristics to careers and occupations, you will establish a basis for identifying your career options and a guide to further research and exploration.

Assessments may be completed individually, online, in a group setting, and/or with a career professional. Assessments often include information linking your career interests to potential academic majors. You may want to access the following online assessment resources to research your career identity:

•    www.jobhuntersbible.com (What Color Is Your Parachute?)

•    www.focuscareer.com (Focus 2 Online Career Planning System)

•    www.humanesources.com/products /program/do-what-you-are (Do What You Are)

•    www.careerinfonet.org/occupations (CareerOneStop)

THINK ABOUT CAREERS

Consider the components of a career identity noted above. What characteristics of your career identity can you identify at this point? How will you begin to establish the key aspects of your career identity?

 

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SUMMARY

•    Unlike commonsense beliefs, sociological understanding puts our biases, assumptions, and conclusions to the test.

•    As a science, sociology combines logically constructed theory and systematic observation in order to explain human social relations.

•    Inductive reasoning generalizes from specific observations; deductive reasoning consists of logically deducing the empirical implications of a particular theory or set of ideas.

•    A good theory is logically consistent, testable, and valid. The principle of falsification holds that if theories are to be scientific, they must be formulated in such a way that they can be disproved if wrong.

•    Sociological concepts must be operationally defined to yield measurable or observable variables. Often, sociologists operationally define variables so they can measure these in quantifiable values and assess validity and reliability, to eliminate bias in their research.

•    Quantitative analysis permits us to measure correlations between variables and identify causal relationships. Researchers must be careful not to infer causation from correlation.

•    Qualitative analysis is often better suited than quantitative research to producing a deep understanding of how the people being studied view the social world. On the other hand, it is sometimes difficult to measure the reliability and validity of qualitative research.

•    Sociologists seek objectivity when conducting their research. One way to help ensure objectivity is through the replication of research.

•    Research strategies are carefully thought-out plans that guide the gathering of information about the social world. They also suggest the choice of appropriate research methods.

•    Research methods in sociology include survey research (which often relies on random sampling), fieldwork (including participant observation and detached observation), experiments, working with existing information, and participatory research.

•    Sociological research typically follows seven steps: framing the research question, reviewing the existing knowledge, selecting appropriate methods, weighing the ethical implications of the research, collecting data, analyzing data, and sharing the results.

•    To be ethical, researchers must be sure their research protects the privacy of subjects and does not cause them unwarranted stress. Scientific societies throughout the world have adopted codes of ethics to safeguard against the misuse and abuse of human subjects.

KEY TERMS

scientific method, 31

deductive reasoning, 31

hypotheses, 31

inductive reasoning, 31

quantitative research, 32

qualitative research, 32

scientific theories, 33

concepts, 34

operational definition, 34

variable, 34

quantitative variables, 34

qualitative variables, 34

correlation, 34

causal relationship, 35

spurious relationship, 35

negative correlation, 36

principle of falsification, 36

falsifiability, 36

validity, 37

reliability, 37

bias, 37

objectivity, 39

value neutrality, 39

replication, 39

research methods, 39

survey, 40

sample, 40

population, 40

random sampling, 41

fieldwork, 41

interview, 42

leading questions, 42

experiments, 42

independent or experimental variables, 42

dependent variables, 42

statistical data, 43

document analysis, 43

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1.   Think about a topic of contemporary relevance in which you may be interested (for example, poverty, juvenile delinquency, teen births, or racial neighborhood segregation). Using what you learned in this chapter, create a simple research question about the topic. Match your research question to an appropriate research method. Share your ideas with classmates.

2.   What is the difference between quantitative and qualitative research? Give an example of each from the chapter. In what kinds of cases might one choose one or the other research method in order to effectively address an issue of interest?

3.   Sociologists often use interviews and surveys as methods for collecting data. What are potential problems with these methods of which researchers need to be aware? What steps can researchers take to ensure that the data they are collecting are of good quality?

4.   Imagine that your school has recently documented a dramatic rise in plagiarism reported by teachers. Your sociology class has been invited to study this issue. Consider what you learned in this chapter about survey research and design a project to assess the problem.

5.   In this chapter, you learned about the issue of ethics in research and read about the Zimbardo prison experiment. How should knowledge collected under unethical conditions (whether it is sociological, medical, psychological, or other scientific knowledge) be treated? Should it be used just like data collected under ethically rigorous conditions?

 

 

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CHAPTER 4

4	SOCIALIZATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION

 

Will & Deni McIntyre/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Media Library

CHAPTER 4 Media Library

AUDIO    

Careers & Self-Identity

Gender and Self-Talk

VIDEO    

Wild Child: The Story Of Feral Children

South park and Gender Socialization

Teen Shaming

Advertising Invades the Classroom

Virtual Identities

CQ RESEARCHER    

Deprivation of Social Interaction

Socialization and Education

PACIFIC STANDARD MAGAZINE    

Socialization and Men

Parenting and Empathy

JOURNAL    

Socialization and Teenage Activism

Media Socialization, Kids and Food

Social Roles in Total Institutions

REFERENCE    

Total Institutions

 

 

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IN THIS CHAPTER

The Birth of the Social Self

Agents of Socialization

Socialization and Aging

Total Institutions and Resocialization

Social Interaction

Why Study Socialization and Social interaction?

 

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

1.   Is the personality of an individual determined at birth?

2.   Are the media today as important in a child’s socialization as the child’s family? Might the media be more important?

3.   Do people adjust the presentation of their personalities in interactions in order to leave particular impressions? Might we say that we have different “social selves” that we present in different settings?

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GIRLS, BOYS, AND TOYS

REUTERS/Aly Song

 

We can find a box (or several boxes) of toys in most U.S. homes with children. Many of us can look back on our childhoods—whether they are a recent or distant memory—and recall a favorite toy. It might have been a smiling doll, a stuffed animal, a hardy truck or tank, or a set of colorful blocks. If we were lucky, we had an array of toys from which to choose our fun. In this chapter, we talk about agents of socialization, that is, the entities (like families, peers, and schools) that teach us the norms, rules, and roles of society. From a sociological perspective, toys are not just toys—rather, they too are agents of socialization, contributing to children’s early ideas of who they are and who they can be in society.

Like other key agents of socialization—families, peers, the media, school, and organized sports, among others—toys may contribute to a child’s sense of socially accepted roles, aspirations for the future, and perceptions of opportunities and limitations. If we as social beings are made not born, as sociologists argue, then toys contribute to the construction of boys and girls in ways that can be both predictable and surprising.

In 2014, two researchers at Oregon State University published a study with some attention-getting results. In this research, 37 girls ages 4 to 7 were each given one of three toys with which to play: a Mrs. Potato Head, a glamorous Barbie doll, or a doctor Barbie doll. After a short period of play, each subject was shown pictures depicting 10 female- and male-dominated professions, like librarian, teacher, and flight attendant (“female” jobs) and pilot, doctor, and firefighter (“male” jobs). With each picture, the subject was asked, “Could you do this job when you grow up?” and “Could a boy do this job when he grows up?” (see Figure 4.1). Notably, girls who played with either of the Barbie dolls identified fewer jobs that they could do than did the girls who played with Mrs. Potato Head—and all of the girls in the study thought that a boy would be able to do a greater number of both the male- and female-dominated jobs (Sherman & Zurbriggen, 2014). Other research has shown that young girls exposed to Barbies express a stronger desire to be thin and have lower body self-esteem than do girls exposed to dolls with more realistic body proportions (Dittmar, Halliwell, & Ive, 2006).

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FIGURE 4.1 Number of Jobs Girls Think They Can Do Better or Worse Than Boys Based on Occupation Type

 

SOURCE: Sherman, A.M. and Zurbriggen, E.L. (2014). “‘Boys Can Be Anything’: Effect of Barbie Play on Girls’ Career Cognitions.” Sex Roles, online publication, March 5. Copyright © 2014 Springer Science + Business Media New York. Reprinted with permission.

 

 

TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/Staff/Getty Images

A young girl prays for blessings in the New Year on the shoulders of her father at the Meiji shrine in Tokyo. Many components of one’s culture are seamlessly passed down through habit, observational learning, and family practices.

These findings are provocative and raise some interesting questions: What is the power of toys? Do toys affect children’s aspirations and perceptions? And why did all of the girls in the 2014 study judge themselves less capable than boys of doing a variety of jobs? Efforts have been made to expose young girls to more career options through toys; for instance, the popular Lego brand has introduced female Lego scientist figures, including an astronomer, a paleontologist, and a chemist, complete with a beaker (Gambino, 2014). Might such changes encourage greater future interest among girls in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, where women are underrepresented? Do “boyish” toys already do that for boys? What do you think?

In this chapter, we examine the process of socialization and the array of agents that help shape our social selves and our behavioral choices. We begin by looking into the “nature versus nurture” debate and what sociology says about that debate. We then discuss the key agents of socialization, as well as the ways in which socialization may differ in total institutions and across the life course. We then examine theoretical perspectives on socialization. Finally, we look at social interaction and ways in which sociologists conceptualize our presentation of self and our group interactions.

THE BIRTH OF THE SOCIAL SELF

Socialization is the process by which people learn the culture of their society. It is a lifelong and active process in which individuals construct their sense of who they are, how to think, and how to act as members of their culture. Socialization is our primary way of reproducing culture, including norms and values and the belief that our culture represents “normal” social practices and perceptions.

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Nina Leen/Contributor/Getty Images

Given the choice in an experiment between a wire mother surrogate and a surrogate covered with cloth, the infant monkey almost invariably chose the cloth figure. How are human needs similar to and different from those we find in the animal kingdom?

The principal agents of socialization—including parents, teachers, religious institutions, friends, television, and the Internet—exert enormous influence on us. Much socialization takes place every day, usually without our thinking about it: when we speak, when others react to us, when we observe others’ behavior—even if only in the movies or on television—and in virtually every other human interaction.

Debate has raged in the social sciences over the relative influence of genetic inheritance (“nature”) and cultural and social experiences (“nurture”) in shaping people’s lives (Coleman & Hong, 2008; Ridgeway & Correll, 2004). If inborn biological predispositions explain differences in behaviors and interests between, say, sixth-grade boys and girls, or between a professional thief and the police officer who apprehends him, then understanding socialization will do little to help us understand those differences. On the other hand, if biology cannot adequately explain differences in attitudes, characters, and behaviors, then it becomes imperative that we examine the effects of socialization.

Almost no one today argues that behavior is entirely determined by either socialization or biology. There is doubtless an interaction between the two. What social scientists disagree about, however, is which is more important in shaping a person’s personality, life chances, philosophy of life, and behavior. In this text we lean toward socialization because we think the evidence points in that direction.

Social scientists have found little evidence to support the idea that personalities and behaviors are rooted exclusively in “human nature.” Indeed, very little human behavior is actually “natural.” For example, humans have a biological capacity for language, but language is learned and develops only through interaction. The weight of socialization in the development of language, reasoning, and social skills is dramatically illustrated in cases of children raised in isolation. If a biologically inherited mechanism alone triggered language, it would do so even in people who grow up deprived of contact with other human beings. If socialization plays a key role, however, then such people would not only have difficulty learning to speak like human beings, but they would also lack the capacity to play the social roles to which most of us are so accustomed.

One of the most fully documented cases of social isolation occurred more than 200 years ago. In 1800, a “wild boy,” later named Victor, was seen by hunters in the forests of Aveyron, a rural area of France (Shattuck, 1980). Victor had been living alone in the woods for most of his 12 or so years and could not speak, and although he stood erect, he ran using both arms and legs like an animal. Victor was taken into the home of Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, a young medical doctor who, for the next 10 years, tried to teach him the social and intellectual skills expected of a child his age. According to Itard’s careful records, Victor managed to learn a few words, but he never spoke in complete sentences. Although he eventually learned to use the toilet, he continued to evidence “wild” behavior, including public masturbation. Despite the efforts of Itard and others, Victor was incapable of learning more than the most rudimentary social and intellectual skills; he died in Paris in 1828.

Other studies of the effects of isolation have centered on children raised by their parents, but in nearly total isolation. For 12 years, from the time she was 1½ years old, “Genie” (a pseudonym) saw only her father, mother, and brother, and only when one of them came to feed her. Genie’s father did not allow his wife or Genie to leave the house or have any visitors. Genie was either strapped to a child’s potty-chair or placed in a sleeping bag that limited her movements. Genie rarely heard any conversation. If she made noises, her father beat her (Curtiss, 1977; Rymer, 1993).

When Genie was 13, her mother took her and fled the house. Genie was unable to cry, control her bowels, eat solid food, or talk. Because of her tight confinement, she had not even learned to focus her eyes beyond 12 feet. She was constantly salivating and spitting, and she had little controlled use of her arms or legs (Rymer, 1993).

Wild Child: The Story Of Feral Children CLICK TO SHOW

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Gradually Genie learned some of the social behavior expected of a child. For example, she became toilet trained and learned to wear clothes. However, although intelligence tests did not indicate reasoning disability, even after 5 years of concentrated effort on the part of a foster mother, social workers, and medical doctors, Genie never learned to speak beyond the level of a 4-year-old, and she never spoke with other people. Although she responded positively to those who treated her with sympathy, Genie’s social behavior remained severely underdeveloped for the rest of her life (Rymer, 1993).

Genie’s and Victor’s experiences underscore the significance of socialization, especially during childhood. Their cases show that however rooted in biology certain capacities may be, they do not develop into recognizable human ways of acting and thinking unless the individual interacts with other humans in a social environment. Children raised in isolation fail to develop complex language, abstract thinking, notions of cooperation and sharing, or even a sense of themselves as people. In other words, they do not develop the hallmarks of what we know as humanity (Ridley, 1998).

Sociologists and other social scientists have developed a number of theories to explain the role of socialization in the development of social selves. What these theories recognize is that whatever the contribution of biology, ultimately people as social beings are made, not born. Below, we explore four approaches to understanding socialization: behaviorism, symbolic interactionism, developmental stage theories, and psychoanalytic theories.

BEHAVIORISM AND SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

Behaviorism is a psychological perspective that emphasizes the effect of rewards and punishments on human behavior. It arose during the late 19th century to challenge the then-popular belief that human behavior results primarily from biological instincts and drives (Baldwin & Baldwin, 1986, 1988; Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, 1999). Early behaviorist researchers such as Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) and John Watson (1878–1958), and later B. F. Skinner (1904–1990), demonstrated that even behavior thought to be purely instinctual (such as a dog salivating when it sees food) can be produced or extinguished through the application of rewards and punishments. Thus, a pigeon will learn to press a bar if that triggers the release of food (Skinner, 1938, 1953; Watson, 1924). Behaviorists concluded that both animal and human behavior can be learned, and neither is just instinctive.

When they turned to human beings, behaviorists focused on social learning, the way people adapt their behavior in response to social rewards and punishments (Baldwin & Baldwin, 1986; Bandura, 1977; Bandura & Walters, 1963). Of particular interest was the satisfaction people get from imitating others. Social learning theory thus combines the reward-and-punishment effects identified by behaviorists with the idea that we model the behavior of others; that is, we observe the way people respond to others’ behavior.