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Member rate £492.50
Non-Member rate £985.00
Save £45 Loyalty discount applied automatically*
Save 5% on each additional course booked
*If you attended our Methods School in Summer/Winter 2024.
All students are expected to have completed ECPR’s “Introduction to Experimental Research in the Social Sciences” which is offered during the first week of the 2017 “ECPR Summer School in Methods and Techniques” or to have obtained equivalent knowledge elsewhere. In addition, it is assumed that students will have already conducted their own empirical research programs (typically in the context of a Ph.D. program in the social sciences) and have ongoing plans to conduct research that lends itself to experimental methods. Students will be asked to present their own ideas for research and to engage in theory building, hypothesis generation, and the design of careful, sophisticated experiments for investigating those hypotheses. This is only possible if workshop participants are actively pursuing empirical research programs in the social and behavioral sciences.
John T. Jost is Professor of Psychology and Politics and Co-Director of the Center for Social and Political Behaviour at New York University.
His research, which addresses stereotyping, prejudice, political ideology, and system justification theory, has been funded by the National Science Foundation, has appeared in top scientific journals and received national and international media attention.
He has published more than 200 journal articles and book chapters and four co-edited book volumes, including Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification (Oxford, 2009).
John has received numerous honours and awards, including the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize, the Erik Erikson Award for Early Career Research Achievement in Political Psychology, the International Society for Self and Identity Early Career Award, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Theoretical Innovation Prize, the Society of Experimental Social Psychology Career Trajectory Award, and the Morton Deutsch Award for Distinguished Scholarly and Practical Contributions to Social Justice.
He has served on several editorial boards and executive committees of professional societies and is currently editor of the Oxford University Press book series on Political Psychology.
John Jost is a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Association of Psychological Science, and is Past President of the International Society of Political Psychology.
This course will be unusual in the sense that it will involve very little lecturing. Instead, we will focus squarely on students’ development of their own research ideas, interests, questions, theories, and hypotheses. We will begin by considering William J. McGuire’s post-Popperian philosophy of science and his perspectivist method of planning and implementing programmatic research in the social and behavioral sciences. The focus of this method is on creative hypothesis generation and theory building rather than on hypothesis testing and theory disconfirmation per se.
Specifically, students will complete a series of written exercises designed to clarify the conceptual foundations of their own research programs and, in the process, develop multiple hypotheses concerning nonobvious empirical relationships among independent, dependent, mediating, and moderating variables that are of genuine theoretical interest. Students will be asked to present their hypotheses to the rest of the class, and we will engage in group discussion and constructive evaluation.
We will discuss the major advantages of developing experimental programs of research in the social and behavioral sciences, such as leveraging the method of strong inference, and the four stages of experimentation, namely: (l) setting the stage for the experiment, (2) constructing the independent variable, (3) measuring the dependent variable, and (4) planning the post-experimental follow-up. We will work on developing meaningful operationalizations of variables, including manipulations as well as measurement strategies, and we will seek to avoid and overcome common methodological problems or “impurities,” which can introduce interpretational (and rhetorical) threats and ambiguities. Students will be asked to present their experimental designs to the rest of the class, and we will engage in group discussion and constructive evaluation.
Based on feedback at several stages, students will work to refine their hypotheses, research designs, and experimental procedures, with the eventual long-term goal of independently conducting sophisticated, theory-driven programs of research on interesting ideas of their own choosing.
All students are expected to have completed ECPR’s “Introduction to Experimental Research in the Social Sciences” which is offered during the first week of the 2017 “ECPR Summer School in Methods and Techniques” or to have obtained equivalent knowledge elsewhere. In addition, it is assumed that students will have already conducted their own empirical research programs (typically in the context of a Ph.D. program in the social sciences) and have ongoing plans to conduct research that lends itself to experimental methods. Students will be asked to present their own ideas for research and to engage in theory building, hypothesis generation, and the design of careful, sophisticated experiments for investigating those hypotheses. This is only possible if workshop participants are actively pursuing empirical research programs in the social and behavioral sciences.
Day | Topic | Details |
---|---|---|
Monday | Scientific theories and criteria for their evaluation; post-Popperian philosophy of science; creative hypothesis generation; the perspectivist method |
Both sessions will involve a mix of background lectures and discussion, as well as individual and group activities focused on students’ own theoretical development |
Tuesday | Presentation and discussion of hypothesis generation exercise (perspectivist worksheets) |
These sessions will involve student presentations of initial and contrary hypotheses (according to the perspectivist method) followed by group discussion/constructive evaluation |
Wednesday | Presentation and discussion of (rough) experimental designs; operations and other logistical issues |
These sessions will involve student presentations of initial experimental designs (and procedures) followed by group discussion |
Thursday | Strong inference; overcoming experimental “impurities”; improving your manipulations and measures |
In addition to methods of strong inference, we will discuss common problems with the conceptualization and operationalization of independent and dependent variables and other interpretational threats |
Friday | Presentation and discussion of theoretical ambitions and (more polished) experimental procedures |
Students will describe (and receive feedback on) their plans for conducting theory-driven experimental research programs on interesting ideas of their own choosing |
Day | Readings |
---|---|
Monday |
• James N. Druckman & Arthur Lupia (2012, March 9). Experimenting with politics. Science, 335, 1177-1179. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18f6/2a894a69eb68b217fa18cc7b2fcf8052d1ba.pdf
|
Tuesday |
• William J. McGuire (1989). Strategic planning of programs of research. Selection from: The Psychology of Science: Contributions to Metascience (pp. 224-245). http://www.psychwiki.com/dms/wiki/uploadedfiles/researchdesign/Perspectivist_Worksheets_Original.pdf
|
Wednesday |
• Hendrick, C., & Jones, R.A. (1972). Postscript (on the method of strong inference). Selection from: The Nature of Theory and Research in Social Psychology (pp. 355-360). New York: Academic.
|
Thursday |
• Robert P. Abelson (1995). Impurities in experiments. Selection from: Statistics as Principled Argument (pp. 189-198). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/lord_lepper_preston84_JPSP_considering-the-opposite.pdf
|
Friday |
• William J. McGuire (1997). Creative hypothesis generating in psychology: Some useful heuristics. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 1–30. http://annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.48.1.1 |
Laptop
Background (Foundational):
Druckman, J. N., Green, D. P., Kuklinski, J. H., & Lupia, A. (Eds.). (2011). Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. Cambridge University Press. (http://groups.polisci.northwestern.edu/researchpool/Handbook.pdf)
Kittel, B., Luhan, W. J., & Morton, R.B. (Eds.). (2012). Experimental Political Science: Principles and Practices. Palgrave-Macmillan.
Morton, R.B. & Williams, K. (2010). Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality. From Nature to the Lab. Cambridge University Press. (http://faculty.som.yale.edu/shyamsunder/ExperimentalEconomics/Nature_to_Lab_manuscript.pdf)
Foreground (Required):
Abelson, R.P. (1995). Impurities in experiments. Selection from: Statistics as Principled Argument (pp. 189-198). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Druckman, J.N., & Lupia, A. (2012, March 9). Experimenting with politics. Science, 335, 1177-1179.
Hendrick, C., & Jones, R.A. (1972). Postscript (on the method of strong inference). Selection from: The Nature of Theory and Research in Social Psychology (pp. 355-360). New York: Academic.
McGuire, W.J. (1989). Strategic planning of programs of research. Selection from: B. Gholson, W.R. Shadish, Jr., R.A. Neimeyer, & A.C. Houts (Eds.), The Psychology of Science: Contributions to Metascience (pp. 224-245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
McGuire, W.J. (1997). Creative hypothesis generating in psychology: Some useful heuristics. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 1–30. http://annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev.psych.48.1.1
McGuire, W.J. (2004). Appendix: Perspectivist worksheets for generating a program of research. In J.T. Jost, M.R. Banaji, & D. A Prentice (Eds.) Perspectivism in Social Psychology (pp. 319-324). Washington, DC: APA. http://www.psychwiki.com/dms/wiki/uploadedfiles/researchdesign/Perspectivist_Worksheets_Original.pdf
McGuire, W.J. (2013). An additional future for psychological science. (Edited with an introduction by J.T. Jost). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 414-423. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/18f6/2a894a69eb68b217fa18cc7b2fcf8052d1ba.pdf
Wilson, T.D., Aronson, E., & Carlsmith, K. (2010). The four stages of laboratory experimentation. Selection from: Handbook of Social Psychology (Fifth Ed., Vol. 1, pp. 63-78). http://www.colgate.edu/portaldata/imagegallerywww/184416d4-5863-4a3e-a73b-b2b6b86e7b60/ImageGallery/Wilson_Aronson_Carlsmith_2010.pdf
Supplemental (Optional):
Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210. https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/345/345%20Articles/Festinger%20&%20Carlsmith.pdf
Lord, C.G., Lepper, M., & Preston, E. (1984). Considering the opposite: A corrective strategy for social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1231-1243. http://synapse.princeton.edu/~sam/lord_lepper_preston84_JPSP_considering-the-opposite.pdf
Summer School
Introduction to Experimental Research in the Social Sciences
Summer School
Structural Equation Modeling
Psychometrics and Item Response Theory
Multilevel Modeling
Winter School
Structural Equation Modeling
Multilevel Modeling