I think that perhaps Google Plus is a better format for this kind of thing. It allows easy and quick sharing of links, thoughts, etc. amongst friends. If anyone wants/needs an invite to try it out, let me know.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Chi-Square With Studs Terkel
A Chi-Square Test of Independence With Studs Terkel’s American Dreams: Lost and Found
In American Dreams: Lost and Found, historian Studs Terkel interviewed 98 different individuals and asked them to talk about their conception of the American Dream. The interviewees ranged from wealthy to poor, urban to rural, famous to unheard of, and are meant to offer a diverse survey of people as well as a unique perspective into how Americans understand their country and their dreams. The interviews also varied as to the focus of their content. Some people spoke more of their family’s accomplishments while others spoke more directly of their own. Some spoke of broader issues, such as unions or social justice, and used “we” language while others typically relied on a first-person narrative. Further, many people exhibited certain self-concepts, in which they revealed whether they felt positive or negative about themselves. In an attempt to determine whether the focus of an interview (either self- or family/we-focused) was related to someone’s self-concept (positive, negative, or neutral/ambivalent), I conducted a textual analysis of each interview and placed each one in a cell. To determine whether the two nominal labels were independent, I then conducted a Chi-Square Test of Independence:
χ^2=∑(O_i- E_i)^2/E_i
Where O_i is each total number of observations for a specific cell and E_i is the expected total for each cell. E_i is calculated, in this case, by taking the sum of a column, multiplying it by the sum of a row, and dividing the product by the total sample size, or:
E_i=(R_i C_j)/N
After calculating the obtained χ^2, I compared it to a χ^2 critical value. The degrees of freedom are calculated by multiplying the number of rows minus one by the number of columns minus one:
df=(r-1)(c-1)
The χ^2 obtained in this case was 3.10 and the χ^2 critical value was 5.99, leading to a failure to reject the null hypothesis that interview focus and self-concept are independent. This leads to the conclusion that there is not enough evidence to determine whether or not the two variables are related or not. It could be the case that these variables are indeed independent, but further analysis should be conducted first before drawing that conclusion.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Gender Differences in Smiling Frequency
The frequency of smiles is greater in women than in men. Women are also expected to smile more often than men. Studies have found that low rates of smiling lead to more negative evaluations of women than of men. Men's smiles are also taken to be more indicative of their personality traits than women's, perhaps because of their relative rarity in men. Men's positive expressions are also perceived as more intense than women's, even when objective intensity is held constant.
Briton & Hall, 1995
Deutsch, LeBaron, & Fryer, 1987
Hall, Carney, & Murphy, 2002
Hess, Adams, & Kleck, 2004, 2005
Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000a
LeFrance, Hecht, & Levy Paluck, 2003
Krumhuber, Manstead, Kappas, 2007
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Idealism!
A short little clip of Viktor Frankl from 1972:
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Lateral and Vertical Movement in Psychological Reserach
Research and science are both predicated on vertical movement. By this, I mean that they are social enterprises that advance as new studies are constructed on top of older studies, using similar methods and past findings to guide new research so as to understand natural phenomena more thoroughly. As Newton famously remarked, "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." Is this the way psychological research works, though? In some cases, certainly. There are methods that are commonly used in different labs (e.g., visual perception research, fMRI research, etc.) so that ideas may stack on top of one another and higher understanding can be reached. In many instances, however, this is obviously not the case. Dr. Kevin King, a researcher at the University of Washington, is doing some fascinating work with the construct of "impulsiveness" and how it relates to alcohol use (just ask Rachel Kramer!) He is examining how different psychologists operationalize the impulsiveness and whether those working definitions across studies really examine the same thing or not. In many cases, the answer is a resounding no.
This is pretty damning if the field hopes to progress. If psychology does not move vertically by using the same methods to study constructs, then it moves laterally. The notion that scientific inquiry of a psychological nature is situated within and upon past research is a bit of a falsity, since past studies were not necessarily examining the same construct. That is, findings sit next to each other, but their stacking upon one another is merely an illusion. Other sciences use precise and similar ways of carrying out research. This constitutes a move in the vertical direction, which allows us to better understand the true state of nature. Psychology will remain hindered to the extent that it does not follow this trend.
This is pretty damning if the field hopes to progress. If psychology does not move vertically by using the same methods to study constructs, then it moves laterally. The notion that scientific inquiry of a psychological nature is situated within and upon past research is a bit of a falsity, since past studies were not necessarily examining the same construct. That is, findings sit next to each other, but their stacking upon one another is merely an illusion. Other sciences use precise and similar ways of carrying out research. This constitutes a move in the vertical direction, which allows us to better understand the true state of nature. Psychology will remain hindered to the extent that it does not follow this trend.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
"Are you not entertained?!?"
But seriously, are you? Because if not, or even if you are but wouldn't mind a little more...
The musical "Next to Normal" is at the 5th Avenue Theatre and comes highly recommended (both by a psychologist and a non-psychologist). It is a rock musical about a family dealing with a bipolar mother--intriguing, right? The musical was on Broadway for three years, and won a few Tony's during its run there (for best leading actress, best orchestration, and best score, if I'm not mistaken). It also won a Pulitzer. Apparently the play is fantastically intense, emotional, and...musical. I figure it may interest the fellow psych-enthusiasts out there. Here is the link:
And, for the under-25 crowd, tickets are discounted (I'm not sure by how much) if you buy them day-of-show. Ahhh, to be young!
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For a free-er and faster form of musical entertainment, here's a really awesome and semi-psychology-related song. It uses samples from something like 37 films and spoken word records.
"Frontier Psychiatrist" by The Avalanches:
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Statistics, I love you, but you are bringing me down
After giving this issue some thought, I have come to the conclusion that statistics are currently serving the unfortunate purpose of preventing psychology from developing into a mature science. I will not go so far as to claim that psychological research is unscientific, just under developed when compared to its older siblings biology, chemistry, and physics.
I believe that science has two primary epistemological modes: observation and theory. Observation involves simply watching. There is a precise and accurate way to watch, and this is what science tries to do. Due to cognitive biases, however, people tend to see patterns in what they watch that may not represent actual differences in nature. Thus, we have developed what some people call "social control" (see: Dr. Laura Little) so that our tendencies to see what is not there may be kept in check. This social control exists in the form of the null hypothesis significance test. This way, differences are held to a commonly agreed upon standard and if the differences appear likely to be "real" (i.e., not due to chance) then we may state they we have observed a phenomenon in nature.
Theory involves trying to understand and predict the phenomenon that we have observed. It goes beyond simply seeing if something is really there, and it attempts to look at the underlying causal mechanisms that explain or precipitate the phenomenon we are interested in. If statistics is the language of knowing whether something is actually there or not, then mathematics is the language of theory. This means that, after conducting null hypothesis significance tests, we should create parsimonious math models that explain and predict phenomena. This is not completely unheard of in psychology: it is often done in the fields of perceptual psychology, and math modeling has been used to accurately predict divorce in a social-psychological context (see: Dr. John Gottman). Yet, this type of analysis is sorely lacking in psychology as a whole.
Why is this? I believe it is because as psychologists, we have become too attached to statistics. We have worked hard (and brilliantly) to use the most advances methods to detect differences in populations, but we are highly unaware of the fact that other sciences use math modeling to create powerful theories on top of and in conjunction with statistics. Although statistics are crucial to observation, scientists should be bilingual: they must speak a language that accurately distinguishes between spurious and real phenomena (i.e., statistics) and they must speak one that is descriptive and prescriptive of both current and future events (i.e., mathematics). Psychologists need to learn to speak this second language in order to advance their science from nascence into maturity.
I believe that science has two primary epistemological modes: observation and theory. Observation involves simply watching. There is a precise and accurate way to watch, and this is what science tries to do. Due to cognitive biases, however, people tend to see patterns in what they watch that may not represent actual differences in nature. Thus, we have developed what some people call "social control" (see: Dr. Laura Little) so that our tendencies to see what is not there may be kept in check. This social control exists in the form of the null hypothesis significance test. This way, differences are held to a commonly agreed upon standard and if the differences appear likely to be "real" (i.e., not due to chance) then we may state they we have observed a phenomenon in nature.
Theory involves trying to understand and predict the phenomenon that we have observed. It goes beyond simply seeing if something is really there, and it attempts to look at the underlying causal mechanisms that explain or precipitate the phenomenon we are interested in. If statistics is the language of knowing whether something is actually there or not, then mathematics is the language of theory. This means that, after conducting null hypothesis significance tests, we should create parsimonious math models that explain and predict phenomena. This is not completely unheard of in psychology: it is often done in the fields of perceptual psychology, and math modeling has been used to accurately predict divorce in a social-psychological context (see: Dr. John Gottman). Yet, this type of analysis is sorely lacking in psychology as a whole.
Why is this? I believe it is because as psychologists, we have become too attached to statistics. We have worked hard (and brilliantly) to use the most advances methods to detect differences in populations, but we are highly unaware of the fact that other sciences use math modeling to create powerful theories on top of and in conjunction with statistics. Although statistics are crucial to observation, scientists should be bilingual: they must speak a language that accurately distinguishes between spurious and real phenomena (i.e., statistics) and they must speak one that is descriptive and prescriptive of both current and future events (i.e., mathematics). Psychologists need to learn to speak this second language in order to advance their science from nascence into maturity.
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