Physical Traces
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Transcript Physical Traces
Research Methods in Psychology
Unobtrusive Measures of
Behavior
Unobtrusive Observational Methods
Learn about behavior by looking at
evidence of people’s past behavior
Nonreactive
• people can’t react to being observed because
they’re no longer present
The Multimethod Approach
Unobtrusive measures contribute to
multimethod approach to understanding
behavior and mental processes
Multimethod
• Use a variety of measures to examine
research questions:
direct observation
surveys
unobtrusive measures
The Multimethod Approach, continued
Research findings based on a single
method may be biased because of
• characteristics of measurement process
• reactive measurement
Advantage of using multiple methods
• converging evidence for a phenomenon
across different methods → stronger
conclusions
Two Unobtrusive Observational Methods
Physical traces
• remnants, fragments, and products of past
behavior
Archival records
• public and private documents that describe
activities of
individuals
groups (e.g., institutions, government)
Physical Traces
Physical trace measures are obtained
indirectly
• people who are “observed” are not present
when the data are collected
Two types
• use traces
• products
Physical Traces, continued
Use traces
• evidence that remains from the use (or
nonuse) of an item
• example: beverage containers in campus
recycling bins (e.g., water, soda, juice, coffee)
What do these containers tell us about the health
habits of students on campus?
Physical Traces, continued
Use traces are classified as natural or
controlled (planned)
• Natural-use traces
produced without any intervention by the
investigator
example: analyze amount of highlighting in
students’ textbooks
• What information does this provide about students’
studying? About what is learned?
Physical Traces, continued
• Controlled-use traces
produced with some degree of intervention or
manipulation by the researcher
example: place small glue seals between some
pages of textbooks prior to their purchase, then
analyze which pages are unsealed
• What does this tell us about students’ studying?
Physical Traces, continued
Products
• creations, constructions, or other artifacts of
earlier behavior
• examples
television programs such as Howdy Doody,
Sesame Street, Mister Roger’s Neighborhood,
Power Rangers, Pokemon, Teletubbies, Wiggles
What do children’s TV programs tell us about our
culture?
Physical Traces, continued
Problems and Limitations
• Valid measures of behavior?
many inferences may be possible based on
physical evidence
• Biases in physical traces?
biases can exist in how physical traces are created
or how they survive
• Use multimethod approach
collect supplemental evidence
look for converging evidence for a conclusion
Archival Data
Archival records
• public and private documents of individuals,
institutions, governments, and other groups
• two types
running records (e.g., your transcript)
records of specific events (e.g., your graduation)
• data from archival records are nonreactive
people’s behavior is observed indirectly
Archival Data, continued
Archival data are used to
• test hypotheses as part of a multimethod
approach
• test the external validity of laboratory findings
do findings generalize to a real-world setting?
• test hypotheses about past behavior
• assess the effect of a natural treatment
Archival Data, continued
Natural treatments
• naturally occurring events that impact society
and individuals
• examples
societal level: drastic changes in stock market,
acts of terrorism, election of new president
individual level: death of a parent, divorce,
graduation
• use archival data to examine effects of natural
treatments on people’s behavior
Content Analysis
Content analysis
• process of making inferences based on
objective coding of archival data
• two types
quantitative: classify events and behavior into
categories to count their frequency of occurrence
qualitative: make subjective judgments about the
content in an archival record
Content Analysis, continued
Three steps
• Identify a relevant source
Choose archival records that will provide relevant
information to answer the research question
• Sample selections from the source
Goal: obtain a representative sample
• Code units of analysis
Use precise operational definitions and appropriate
units of measure
Archival Data, continued
Problems and limitations
• Selective deposit
occurs when some information is selected to be
included in archival record, but other information is
excluded
examples:
• doctors don’t “chart” all of the information that a patient
provides, only what they consider most important
• politicians speak “on the record” or “off the record”
Problems and Limitations, continued
• Selective survival
occurs when information is lost or missing from an
archival source
examples:
• when students drop a course within a certain time period,
the record of their enrollment is dropped from the
transcript
• photos may be lost from albums or yearbooks (e.g.,
following divorce)
Problems and Limitations, continued
• Spurious relationship
exists when evidence falsely indicates two or more
variables are related
occurs because of
• statistical problems or inadequate analysis
• coincidence, as when a correlation between two
variables can be attributed to a third variable
example:
• ice cream sales and crime rates are positively correlated
does eating ice cream cause crime?
does crime cause people to eat ice cream?
3rd variable: temperature
Ethical Issues and Unobtrusive Measures
Unobtrusive measures
• help psychologists meet ethical goals of
improving
understanding of behavior
condition of individuals and society
• have lower risk to participants
very favorable risk/benefit ratio
• lower cost of the research because the data
already are collected