Research Methods

Chapter 2
2-2 Research Methods

Basic understanding of the methods used by

researchers is especially valuable for consumers
of relationship science.

There is a lot of personal opinion — rather than

scientific fact — competing for your attention.

Relationship science can affect us personally in

ways most other sciences do not.
2-3 The Short History of Relationship Science

The scientific study of human relationships is

quite a new endeavor. It began in only in the
1960s, and is less well-known, and perhaps less
appreciated, than most other sciences.

Nevertheless, it has made tremendous strides in

the last 70 years.
2-4 The Short History of Relationship Science

Family scholars, psychologists, sociologists,

communication researchers, and neuroscientists now
examine varied types of intimate relationships:

 often using diverse samples of people from all walks

of life and from around the world
 often studying them over long periods of time
 studying both pleasant and unpleasant aspects
 often following them in their natural settings, and
using sophisticated technology
2-5 The Short History of Relationship Science
Look in your library for the journals:

Journal of Marriage and the Family

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
Personal Relationships
Psychological Science
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Journal of Family Psychology
Family Process……

Visit the International Association for Relationship Research at:

[Link]
Developing a Question
2-7 The questions researchers ask emerge
from various sources:
Personal experience
Social problems
Previous research
Theories
2-8 Different Purposes
Some studies seek to describe events as they naturally
occur… (What)

And other studies strive to establish the causal

connections between events that determine which
causes have what consequences. (Why)

Where, When, How, Who questions.

A thoughtful consumer judges an investigation with

regard to its intended purpose.
Obtaining Participants
2-10 Whose Relationships Get studied?

Convenience Sample: anyone who is readily

available

Representative Sample: a group of people who

resemble the entire population of interest
2-11
Representative Sample
2-12 Convenience Samples
Because representative samples are expensive,
convenience samples are used more often.

Moreover, most studies have been conducted on people

who are weird—Western, well-educated, industrialized,
relatively rich, and democratic.

Is this a big problem for relationship science?

Wang, Q. (2016). Why should we all be cultural

psychologists? Lessons from the study of social
cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5),
583-596.
Will You Use College Students In
Your Study?
2-14 An Example From 1989

Who said “yes”?

Men Women

“Would you go out with me tonight?” 50% 56%

“Would you come over to my 69% 6%
apartment tonight?”
“Would you go to bed with me tonight?” 75% 0%

(Clark & Hatfield, 1989)

But by the way, other investigations involving more than 20,000 people from every major region
of the world have since gotten very similar results (Schmitt and the International Sexuality
Description Project, 2003).
2-15 Representative vs. Convenience

 What should we make of one study at just one university

that only included college students?
Caution is warranted.
 There is always a danger that convenience samples will
differ in important ways from other samples that are
more representative.
 But many processes studied by relationship scientists are
so basic that they don’t differ much from group to
group.
2-16 A Potential Problem

Volunteer Bias: Of those invited, people who agree

to participate may differ from those who refuse

In one case (Karney et al., 1995), volunteers were better

educated, employed in higher-status jobs, and
more likely to have cohabited than were those
who refused to participate in a longitudinal study
of their relationships.
2-17 Science is Cumulative

 As long as we are thoughtful and judicious, even

small studies using convenience samples can make
valuable contributions to science.

No one study is perfect.

Be cautious.
Diverse methods and samples are valuable.

Each small step is helpful. We are getting closer to the

truth all the time.
Choosing a Design
2-19 Two Different Research Designs

 Correlational designs
 Experimental designs
2-20 Correlational Designs

Correlational designs
measure naturally-
occurring events,
looking for associations
between them.
 In a positive correlation,
increases in one event are
associated with increases in
the other.
2-21
Correlational Designs

Correlational designs
measure naturally-occurring
events, looking for
associations between them.
In a negative correlation,
increases in one event are
associated with decreases
in the other.
2-22 What can correlation tell us?

A correlation tells us that two events are

associated, but it does not explain causal
connections, if any, between them.

Why are two events related?

A simple correlation can’t tell us why.

2-23

Don’t assume too much when you encounter a

correlation. Several different causal connections
may be plausible.
 How to Interpret the findings?
#1“Married People Are Happier”
1. Marriage makes people happy.
2. A happy person tends to be married.
3. Something else, for example, personality, or
self-esteem, account for the positive
correlation between marriage and happiness.
 How to Interpret the findings?
#2 Do Condoms Cause Sexually Transmitted Diseases?
(Rosenberg, Davidson, Chen, Judson, & Douglas, 1992)

Researchers examined records of women who had visited a

clinic for STDs. They found a positive correlation between
condom use and STDs.

1. Using condoms causes you to catch an STD.

2. Catching an STD causes you to use condoms.

3. Something else causes people both to use condoms and to

catch an STD.
2-26 Experimental Designs

Experimental designs manipulate events to

delineate clearly the causal connections
between them.

They illuminate cause and effect.

“If we change x , what happens to y ?”

 #1 Attitude Similarity and Attraction
(Byrne & Nelson, 1965)

Assessed the participants attitudes

Asked to inspect an attitude survey that had
supposedly been completed by a stranger in
another room (but actually been prepared by
the researcher either to agree or disagree with
the participants’ own attitudes)
Asked the participants to what extent they liked
the stranger
2-28 Experimental Designs

Experiments can be very informative, but

experimenters must be able to control and
manipulate the events they wish to study.

You can’t do experiments on events you cannot

control…
…such as…..
Select a Setting
2-30 Selecting a Setting

Laboratories allow researchers control over

events, but may elicit unnatural behavior.

Natural environments, such as a couple’s home,

may elicit more typical behavior but be full of
distractions.
2-31 Selecting a Setting

Some structured situations invite people to role-play

(i.e., to pretend certain events are happening).

 In scenarios, people read a story and imagine it

taking place.
 In simulations, people act out a particular role.
 In immersive virtual environments, people interact
with 3-D computer representations of other people.
The Nature of Our Data
• Self-reports

• Observations

• Physiological measures

• Archival evidence
2-33 Self-Reports

Asking people about their feelings and

behavior

 Self-reports are inexpensive and easy to obtain

 They help us understand people’s personal points of

view
2-34 Problems with Self-Reports

 Participants may misunderstand some questions.

 Their memories may not be accurate.
 People may not be able or willing to tell the truth.
 Social desirability bias: People may be reluctant to report
anything that makes them look bad.

Corneille, O., & Gawronski, B. (2024). Self-reports are better

measurement instruments than implicit measures. Nature
Reviews Psychology, 3(12), 835-846.
Dang, J., King, K. M., & Inzlicht, M. (2020). Why are self-report
and behavioral measures weakly correlated?. Trends in
cognitive sciences, 24(4), 267-269.
2-35 Observations

Observations: watching behavior directly

Scientific observations are not casual

undertakings.

Observers are highly trained, and their watching

is often highly detailed.
2-36 Observations

Event-sampling uses short, intermittent periods of

observation to capture samples of behavior that
occur over longer periods of time.
Eye-tracking studies
2-37 Problems with Observations

Reactivity is sometimes a problem: People may

change their behavior when they know they are
being observed.
2-38 Physiological Measures

Physiological Measures assess partners’ autonomic

and biochemical responses.

Measures of heart rate, stress hormones can

provide information about how interactions with
others affect people physically.
 Can the negative effects of stigma “go
under the skin”?
 645 children (51.9% boys) of parents living with HIV, aged
from 8 to 15 (Mean = 10.67, SD = 1.79), from five
administrative villages in a HIV endemic area in central
China.
 About 88.8% of caregivers reported a relatively low monthly
household income, 2000 Chinese Yuan (approximately
324USD).
 The majority of caregivers (94.1%) reported an educational
level of middle school or below.
 Children were instructed to collect their saliva samples at
wakeup, 30 minutes after awakening, before dinner and at
bedtime across 3 days (Thursday-Saturday).
(Chi et al., 2015)
 Saliva Cortisol
 Cortisol is a hormone
sensitive to psychological
stress
 Its release is governed by
the hypothalamic-pituitary-
adrenal (HPA) axis
 It demonstrates a strong
basal diurnal rhythm
 Flatter diurnal cortisol slope
is viewed as a marker of a
dysregulated HPA axis
 Dysregulation of the HPA
axis is associated with
compromised immune
functioning, inflammation,
diabetes, lung disease,
Diurnal rhythm
 Salivary cortisol

 Unbound, biologically active

 Highly correlated with unbound cortisol in serum or plasma samples
(r > .90)
 Not affected by saliva flow rate
 Easy to collect (Salivettes)
 Is there anything that can buffer/resist
the negative effects of stigma?
Resilience
One’s capability to adapt flexibly, persistently, and
resourcefully to stressful situations
Resilience traits intuitively is perceived as a
protective factor that buffers the life adversity and
external stress (Masten & Narayan, 2012)
However, emerging empirical evidences suggest
that resilience is an adaptive mindset that generally
enables people to survive and thrive in adversity (Chi et
al., 2015)
2-46 Archival Materials

Inspection of personal documents (such as

yearbooks and diaries) and public records (such
as marriage licenses) can also be informative.
 Facial Expression

Smile intensity is related to marital stability, future

life satisfaction, and Longevity!!!
 Smile Intensity in Photographs
Predicts Longevity (Abel & Kruger, 2010)
 Smile intensity: 1) no smile 2) partial smile
(only movement of muscles around the
mouth; 3) full smile (Duchenne smile)
(movement of muscles around the
mouth and corners of the eyes)
 Longevity: How long do the participants
live? (till 2009)
 230 Baseball players (register for 1952)
 The also control other confounding
factors that are related to longevity:
 Year of birth, body mass index (BMI),
career length, marital status, college
attendance
 Smile Intensity in Photographs
Predicts Longevity (Abel & Kruger, 2010)

 College attendance resulted in a 44% reduced risk

of dying in any particular year (r = .19, p < .01;
hazard ratio, or HR = 0.56, p = .01).
 The risk of dying was reduced by an additional 4%
for each year of playing baseball (r = .15, p < .05; HR
= 0.96, p = .04).
 Players with Duchenne smiles were half as likely to
die in any year compared with nonsmilers, HR =
0.50, p = .006
2-51 Interpreting and Integrating Results

The data obtained in relationship studies can

present unique complexities:

Paired, interdependent data – partners

influence each other; their responses are not
independent

Three sources of influence – each individual

partner, and their idiosyncratic partnership,
influence what happens
2-52 Interpreting and Integrating Results

Relationships are complex.

We put more faith in our results when they

are replicated in diverse samples by varied
investigators using various methods.
2-53 Interpreting and Integrating Results

Meta-analyses are studies that statistically

combine the results from prior studies to identify
the themes they contain.
The Ethics of Such Endeavors
2-55 The Ethics of Such Endeavors

Should relationship science pry into people’s

personal affairs?

Relationship scientists are very careful to protect

the welfare of the participants in their research…

…but people may be asked about sensitive

matters.
2-56 The Ethics of Such Endeavors

Arguably, relationship science has an

ethical imperative to gain knowledge that
can benefit us.

Too many close relationships fail, so it would be

unethical not to try to understand how good
relationships work.
2-57 A Note for Consumers

Relationship science has made enormous strides

in its short history.

As a new student of relationship science, you

have an obligation to prefer facts to gossip…

…even if you have to work a little harder to

make sense of their complexities.
2-58 For Your Consideration
Chris and Kelsey had to participate in research studies if they wanted to
pass the Introductory Psychology course they were taking together,
so they signed up for a study of “Relationship Processes.” They had
been dating for 2 months and the study was seeking “premarital
romantic couples,” and they liked the fact that they would be paid
$5 if they both participated. So, they attended a session with a
dozen other couples in which they were separated and seated on
opposite sides of a large room. They read and signed a permission
form that noted they could quit anytime they wanted, and then
started to work on a long questionnaire.
Some of the questions were provocative. They were asked how many
different people they had had sex with in the last year, and how
many people they wanted to have sex with in the next five years.
Then, they were asked to answer the same questions again, this time
as they believed the other would. Chris had never pondered such
questions before, and he realized, once he thought about it, that he
actually knew very little about Kelsey’s sexual history and future
intentions. That night, he was a little anxious, wondering and worrying
about Kelsey’s answers to those questions.
Having read this chapter do you think this research procedure was
ethical? Why?
Q&A