Concepts and Methods March 29, 2012

Asian Americans are Americans of Asian descent – Origins from Far East, Southeast Asia, South Asia – Includes non-US-born, non-US-citizens Race – classification system based on phenotypes and social constructed – “Asian”, “Asian American”, “White”, “Black”, etc. Ethnicity – group of people who identify with each other based on common heritage – Culture, language, ideology

Topics Asian American identity Dual identities Model minority myth Politics of overrepresentation Perpetual foreigner Racism and hate crimes Mental health and gender Relationships with other groups

Methods

Correlational Studies (e.g., surveys) Measures relationship between two variables Correlation is not causation

Example Perceived discrimination scale, depression scale (e.g., CESD) Asian Americans who perceive more discrimination report greater depression. Reverse causation? Third variable?

Experimental Studies Randomly assigning people to conditions using the scientific method Allows you to pinpoint causation IV: The treatment variable that is manipulated by the experimenter. DV: The response that the experimenter is measuring.

Example Are Asian Americans less likely than White Americans to be hired for national security jobs? IV? DV? Wen Ho Lee, Scientist

Psych 334: Lab in Social Psych Conduct an independent research project on the social psychology topic of your choice! Experience all stages of the research process— designing an experiment, running subjects, analyzing data, writing a research paper, and presenting research Prerequisite: 2.0 in PSYCH 209; a 2.0 in either PSYCH 315 or PSYCH 317; 2.0 in either PSYCH 245* or PSYCH 345* * 2.0 in PSYCH 461 or PSYCH 463 or PSYCH 478 or at least one quarter 499 in a social psychology laboratory can substitute for this requirement. Have questions or need an add code? Contact Oliver Siy (course instructor; or Ben Drury (course supervisor;

How to read articles

Key questions when reading articles 1.What is the overarching research question(s)? 2.How does the question fit into previous research? 3.What is the hypothesis for each study? 4.What did the studies do? What were the authors measuring? 5.What were the key findings? 6.Why is the research important?

Experimental studies (Thursdays) Describes (in detail) how the experiment was conducted Includes information about participants, materials and procedures Look for: 1.What was the iv, and how was it manipulated? 2.What was the dv, and how was it measured?

You don’t have to understand everything But you still need to read before each class

How to get more out of reading articles? 1. Skim the article – look at title/abstract, first paragraph, tables, and/or first paragraph of the general discussion to get an overall picture of the article 2. Take notes on the sections 3. Make sure you know how to answer the key questions

Critiquing articles 1.Do the findings support the author’s conclusions? Are there alternate explanations? 2.Did the author overlook important literature to cite? 3.Is the research novel? 4.What was done well?