Chapter 1&2

Question 1

Theory

Answer 1

an attempt to explain some aspects of social life

Question 2

Deductive Reasoning

Answer 2

Theories–> Hypothesis–> Observations

Question 3

Falsification

Answer 3

a theory must produce predictions that can be shown to be incorrect.

Ex: Survey to see if people rate animal welfare as important. Run media ads and after 2nd survey, results are the same.

Question 4

Scope

Answer 4

the diversity and breadth of phenomena that can be used to explain and can be applied to more diverse topics

Question 5

Hypothesis: Variable 1 will be related to variable 1

Answer 5

H1: News use will be related to political knowledge

Question 6

Hypothesis: Variable 1. and 2 will share a positive relationship

Answer 6

H1: News use and political knowledge will share a positive relationship.
H2: Entertainment media use and political knowledge will share a negative relationship.

Question 7

Research Question

Answer 7

is a driving point of inquiry that scholars hope to answer

Ex: What role does political news play in affecting political participation

Question 8

Empirical

Answer 8

a researcher draws upon direct observations/measurements of the world

Ex: if we want to know whether customers will frequent a business following an ad campaign we should monitor sales (behaviors, comm patterns, media content, etc..)

Question 9

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF RESEARCH

Answer 9

emirpical, systematic, intersubjective, cyclical and self correcting

Question 10

Systematic

Answer 10

a researcher follows a set of rules and procedures to ensure data can be properly gathered and analyzed

Ex: scholars who are interested in studying the effects of violent movies on children would develop a plan for how to select children, what kind of content to show them, and how to measure the children’s responses

Question 11

Intersubjective

Answer 11

Knowledge is built gradually with clear definitions and shared understanding among researchers

Ex: explaining the meaning of our study, meanings of terms, and the assumptions under which we operated. (the meanings are shared as a community across researchers)

Question 12

Cyclical and Self-Correcting

Answer 12

Replication and correction of mistakes, contributing to cumulative knowledge development—allowing others to check our work

Ex: Consider when the Earth was known to be the center of the universe. All theories about the seasons, night and day, and our place in the universe were dictated by this core belief. Yet too many scientific observations didn’t make sense based on this belief, and so our understanding changed as better measures and approaches were developed to confirm that the Earth rotates around the sun and not the other way around.

Question 13

Unit of Analysis

Answer 13

Refers to the specific entity or subject being studied, crucial for defining the scope of research.

Ex: a public relations researcher might want to understand how corporations use Facebook pages to improve their public image. You might want to draw conclusions about how individual consumers respond to the page, in which case individual people would be your unit of analysis. But you might want to know the factors that lead a whole company to employ a specific type of page. In that case, the company would be the unit of analysis, not just one person.

Question 14

Independent Variable

Answer 14

this variable is the one that causes the or influences the other one

Question 15

Dependent Variable

Answer 15

variables that are affected or caused by other variables

Question 16

Third Variable

Answer 16

Mediation or moderation, things that get in the middle of these relationships

Can also be a “control”- researchers wants to remove the influence that variable has in the relationship between IV and DV

Question 17

Example:

Answer 17

Prediction: Exposure to social media messages about a local animal shelter will increase positive feelings about that shelter and in turn, increase willingness to give money

(IV)- Amount of exposure
(Mediator)- Amount of positive feelings
(DV)- Willingness to give money
(Moderating)- Income

Question 18

Relationship

Answer 18

describes a link between at least two variables, such that we can make a more accurate prediction about one characteristic of an individual based on information about at least one other variable describing that person

Question 19

Prediction

Answer 19

knowledge about the relationship obtained from a study, the information about the value of one variable for an individual is helpful in estimating the value of another variable.

Question 20

Positive Relationship

Answer 20

Both variables increase

Ex:
-Hours spent studying /
-GPA /

Question 21

Moderating

Answer 21

Specifically, occurs when the relationship between X and Y is not constant but depends upon the value of Z.

Ex: Income

Question 22

3 Main Criteria for determining causality

Answer 22

1) Establishing relationship
2) Confirming time order
3) Eliminating confounds

Question 23

Time Order

Answer 23

this means for testing causality is that any change in the independent variable must occur before any change in the dependent variable, an idea sometimes termed temporal precedence.

Ex: Time order would require that first, a person watches the news, and then after watching the news, their knowledge increases.

Question 24

Parsimony

Answer 24

Refers to the simplicity of a theory.

Helps distinguish better theories from weaker ones

Question 25

Hypotheses

Answer 25

clear predictions about the relationship between variables

Question 26

Hypothesis: for a situation where you expect differences between two groups

Answer 26

Hypothesis: Scores for Variable 2 will differ by Variable 1 such that scores will be higher for Group 1 than Group 2. H1: Scores for political knowledge will differ by voting such that scores will be higher for voters than nonvoters.

Question 27

Negative Relationship

Answer 27

One variable increases while the other decreases Ex: -Time seeking info (Newspaper, news) / -Entertainment watching (movies) \

Question 28

Mediation

Answer 28

When one or more variables are influenced by the independent variable and those variables being influenced, in turn, influence the dependent variable Ex: maybe you think that exposure to social media messages about a local animal shelter will increase positive feelings about the shelter and that, in turn, positive feelings will increase willingness to give money. The amount of exposure is the independent variable, or IV (X), the amount of positive feelings is the mediator (Z), and the willingness to give money is the dependent variable, or DV (Y).

Question 29

Causality

Answer 29

a shift in one variable (the independent variable) alters the value of another variable (the dependent variable). Ex: if we think that using news media causes people to increase their political knowledge, we expect more than just finding that more knowledgeable people watch more news. We must show that if you take a less knowledgeable person and show them news, their knowledge will increase.

Question 30

Confounds

Answer 30

is a type of third variable that creates the impression of a causal relationship between an independent and dependent variable, but the confound is actually the variable that influences both, creating the spurious (i.e., false) impression of a relationship. Ex: If better-educated people tend to both watch news and know about current events, and if this is the sole reason for the relationship, then no amount of increased news use will make the less educated more knowledgeable.

Question 31

Causality Example

Answer 31

Suppose that every Friday, you make the two-hour drive home for the weekend, and at the end of that drive, you are very happy and excited. At first glance, you might conclude that driving for two hours makes you happy. This conclusion meets the first criterion for causality in that there is an observed relationship: each Friday, you drive for two hours, and you are happier at the end of that drive than when you started the drive. It also meets the second criterion, time order. The driving precedes the increase in happiness—your happiness was low when you started the car and high two hours later—so we can also safely conclude, at least, that being happy does not cause you to drive. You probably can sense that this relationship does not meet the third criterion, as a third variable likely accounts for your happiness. In this case, unless you really love driving, it is likely that being home (the third variable) causes your increase in happiness, and the relationship between driving and happiness is merely spurious.

Question 32

Criteria for a Theory

Answer 32

1) Based in evidence 2) Describes the relationships between variables 3) Allows the formation of falsifiable hypothesis

Question 33

Inductive Reasoning

Answer 33

Observations--> Empirical Patters--> Theories

Question 34

Difference Statememt

Answer 34

people who do X1 [IV category 1], will show more Y [DV] than will people who do X2 [IV category 2] Ex: Teenagers will disclose more personal information about themselves online than will adults.

Question 35

Continuous Statement

Answer 35

The more there is of variable X [IV], the more [or less] there will be of variable Y [DV] Ex: The older the person, the less personal information that they will reveal online.