Observational And Archival Studies

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Social Psychology Study Guide Essay #1 Eric Before we could fully decide that we knew the reasons people think some of the things they do, or reasons why people act the way they act we had to undergo years of research and experiments until we start seeing different types of patterns and similarities in the reactions to our experiments. We also have a variety of different methods in which we conduct these experiments so that we can see all of the different angles on the subject or conclusion that we are observing. One of these methods is referred to as observational studies. This is where someone would personally go into the field to find the answers that they seek as opposed to researching on the internet or going around asking people’s opinions on the matter. For example, if you wanted conduct a general survey on peoples honesty you could leave a wallet in the same spot inside of a business or something of the sort and make it seem as though someone had left it behind, you could observe what percentage of the people either ignored the item, took it for themselves, or if they might take it to the lost and found to see if someone left it behind. Rough example but if you got rid of the majority of the variables it could turn out. The next method of research is known as archival studies. This type of study involves digging into existing records of previously occurring events and behaviors. Such things might consist of: journals, medical records, police reports, athletic statistics, or maybe documents of someone’s study in the past. One of the major positives of this sort of research is you don’t have to take into account experimenter expectancy effects; this is when the researchers bias will unconsciously effect the outcome from the participants in the experiment. It is also a very useful tool when you are researching historical patterns in our society. The

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