Practical Investigation: Self Reports: Flashcards
(12 cards)
What’s the Aim of the practical study in social psychology?
To see if there is a gender difference in obedience and answer the question “Are men more obedient than women?”
What is the Sample?
There was 21 ppts, 8 males and 13 females aged 16-17 to look at gender differences in obedience. Opportunity Sample: Whoever was in our psych class and willing to take part.
What is a strength of an opportunity sample?
Quick and easy to obtain our ppts as it was whoever was in our class at the time of the research into obedience. Therefore collecting data will be available quickly on gender and obedience.
What is a weakness of the sample?
It is not representative as only students aged 16-17 from a psych class to study obedience. This means that findings on obedience and gender may not be generalisable to older age groups and people who study different subjects.
What is the procedure?
Ppts given a questionnaire to complete in 5 mins. They were asked to answer open and closed questions individually. There were 5 questions that had to be completed 2 open and 3 closed.
An example of a closed question?
On a scale of 1-10 do you obey your parents, 1=No 10=Yes?
An example of an open question?
In your opinion how important is it to obey an authority figure and why?
What is the conclusion?
It can be concluded that females are more obedient than males. This is supported by the results that showed that females have a mean of 21 whereas males have a mean of 19.
One strength: Self Reports:
One strength of self reports into obedience is that it is standardised as the same questions were asked to all students to measure obedience, e.g.. On a scale of 1-10 how likely are you to obey your parents. This increases the reliability because it can be replicated to check consistency for results on obedience and gender.
One Strength: Quantitative Data:
One strength of using quant data is that the obedience scores were objectively interpreted by researcher with less bias. This is a strength as findings on obedience will be more reliable and consistently interpreted by researchers over time.
One Weakness: Self Report:
One limitation of using a self report to investigate gender differences in obedience is that it social desirability may have meant the participants said they would be more or less obedient to be seen in a positive light. This is a limitation because the results on gender differences in obedience may not be valid as they may not be a true and accurate reflection of whether someone would obey authority
One Weakness: Quantitative Data:
One limitation of using quantitative to investigate gender differences in obedience is that it does not explain why the males and females would obey authority as only numerical data is given. This is a limitation because it limits our understanding of why there are gender differences in obedience, making the findings less useful
