PSYC 528

Advanced Methods in Social Psychology and Personality

(2020-2021 Academic Year, Term 2)

When: Fridays 12:00 - 2:00

Where: Via Zoom (Zoom info sent by email; email Mark if you need that information again.)

Course webpage (to access the readings): https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/psyc528.htm

Instructor:

Mark Schaller

Email: schaller@psych.ubc.ca

Zoom office hours: By appointment (some additional details described below)

Course objectives:

Productive psychological scientists need to be able to do a lot of things. At the very least, you need to be able to (1) identify interesting research questions and novel hypotheses that plausibly answer those questions, (2) design and carry out empirical studies that yield the kinds of results necessary to rigorously test the veracity of those hypotheses, and (3) present these empirical findings in articles that get published and noticed by other scholars. There are lots of challenges to overcome in order to attain those goals. There are lots of useful methodological strategies that you can employ to meet those challenges and to achieve those goals. Some of these challenges and methodological strategies are relevant in just about any domain of the behavioral sciences. Some of them are particularly germane to research in personality and social psychology. The purpose of this course is to provide a useful overview of many of these challenges and methodological strategies, and to help you think critically about the advantages, disadvantages, and issues associated with specific methods that might be used to address specific challenges.

(This is not a course on statistics. There are lots of other classes that you can take that dig deep into methods for statistically analyzing data after data has been collected. The focus of this class is on methods for doing the kinds of stuff that scientists have to rigorously do in order to actually acquire useful data in the first place.)

If this course is successful, it will (1) sensitize you more fully to the methodological challenges associated with research in social and personality psychology, (2) help you be a more mindful user of the scientific tools that you're already familiar with, and (3) introduce you to additional tools that might come in handy over the course of your research career. Also, along the way, the course might (4) provide additional insights into some psychological processes that are important topics of inquiry in social and personality psychology.

Overview of the course, at a glance:

Week 1 (Friday January 15): Introductions & some basics

Week 2 (Friday January 22): Constructs (measuring and manipulating them)

Week 3 (Friday January 29): Mediation and causal chains

Week 4 (Friday February 5): Sampling decisions and implications

Week 5 (Friday February 12): Getting inside the head

MID-TERM BREAK

Week 6 (Friday February 26): Going into the real world

Week 7 (Friday March 5): Connecting to other levels of analysis

Week 8 (Friday March 12): Replication and cumulative knowledge

Week 9 (Friday March 19): Ideas, theories, models, hypotheses

Week 10 (Friday March 26): Student presentations

Week 11 (Friday April 2): Student presentations

Week 12 (Friday April 9): Student presentations

Readings:

I have curated a reading list to guide us. The reading list is on the class website, and you can find it here: https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/528ReadingList.htm. Many of the readings provide some sort of useful overview of particular kinds of research methods. Others present spirited opinions about and/or criticisms of particular kinds of scientific practices. Others offer examples of how specific methodological strategies might be used to address particular kinds of questions that can arise in social / personality research.

About this list of readings: It is really long; but please do not get freaked out by that. For each week, there are two categories of readings: (a) a short list of 3 or 4 things to Read for sure; and (b) a supplemental (and often much longer) list of Other things worth reading, when you have the time.

Read for sure means exactly that: Make sure you read these things! And make sure you read them before we meet. Some of them are short, but some are pretty darn long or dense or otherwise take some time to plow through thoughtfully. Give yourself enough time to read these Read for sure readings done each week, so that you are fully ready to discuss them before we meet.

(As for the Other things worth reading, when you have the time: They are on the list simply as an additional resource for your potential benefit: Useful things for you to be aware of, and to potentially dig into and draw upon whenever you have the inclination and the time. If you have a chance to read some of them this term, that would be great and you would probably benefit from it. If not, no problem. At the very least, I want them to be on your radar.)

All readings are available in electronic form, on the course website. To obtain each reading, just click on the reference to it on that reading list on the website: https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/528ReadingList.htm

Class Time:

This is graduate seminar, and so most of class time each week will be devoted to focused discussion (and maybe sometimes even spirited debate) about topics and issues covered in the assigned readings. I envision my role to be primarily as a facilitator of that discussion. Sure, sometimes I might find some opportunity to provide you with additional information that is not in the assigned readings; but mostly I will just be trying to moderate a conversation in which the rest of you do the majority of the talking. So, again, it is super-duper important that you read the readings, so that you come to class prepared to discuss those readings thoughtfully!

Also, I want each of you to help share the burden of leading our class discussions. This will also help ensure your active participation in class discussions. You will have the opportunity to choose one of the Read for sure readings assigned for Weeks 2 - 9, with the idea that you will facilitate the class discussion on the topic(s) covered within that reading during that class meeting. (We will sort out the details during our first class meeting, so that you can plan accordingly. It would be awesome if you gave the whole reading list a look-over before our first class meeting, and identified some specific readings that you might be particular keen to lead the discussion of.)

Our class meetings will take place on Zoom. (Zoom info provided to you separately, via email).

Weekly Questions:

To help ensure that you are getting the most out of the course, and are also contributing constructively to class discussions (even when you are not a designated discussion leader), I have a small task for you to do in advance of our class meetings on Weeks 2 - 9: I want each of you to (a) articulate at least 1 question each week that is inspired by one or more of the readings and that you perceive to be worthwhile to discuss, and (b) to provide that question in advance to discussion leader(s) and to me. Please phrase each question in a coherent, understandable way; but please keep it brief. (Just one or two sentences typically suffices for this sort of thing.) Email your question(s) to the discussion leader(s), and to me, no later than 5:00 pm the day before each class. (Please put your question in the body of the email; no attachments please.) This will allow the designated discussion leader(s) to draw upon your questions to help organize and facilitate a useful class discussion.

I will keep a record of your submissions of these questions, as one way of tracking your active participation in the course. But I am not going to be marking them in any meaningful way. Mostly this exercise is designed to help ensure that everyone is staying on top of the readings and is prepared to contribute usefully to good, thoughtful class discussions.

Student Presentations:

The last three scheduled class meetings (Weeks 10 - 12: March 26, April 2, & April 9) are reserved for student presentations. This is an opportunity for you to (a) dig deep into some specific methodological topic of your choosing, and (b) provide the rest of us with an expert presentation on it. You will each have a 30-minute time-slot for this presentation (roughly 20 minutes for a presentation plus 10 minutes for Q & A.)

There are a lot of different approaches you could take to this presentation. For instance, you might focus on one particular kind of methodology, and provide an introductory tutorial on that methodology (when to use it, how to use it, its strengths and weaknesses, etc.). Or you might focus on one particular kind of research challenge, and provide an overview of different methodologies that might be employed to meet that challenge (along with some insight into their different strengths and weaknesses). Or you might focus on one specific published study that is methodologically innovative or noteworthy in some way, and provide an insightful overview of exactly why and how it is methodologically innovative or noteworthy (and how it might be useful in other research contexts, etc.). Those are just some examples of approaches that you might take. Ideally, you will use it as an opportunity to become deeply expert on something that is useful to you; and, by presenting it in class, you will share your newfound expertise with the rest of us too.

Before committing to a topic for your presentation, it will probably be useful to chat with me about it. I want to set up individual meetings with each of you at the beginning of the term, and then again midway through the term. During one or both of these individual meetings, we should make sure to talk in a planful way about your presentation, to help ensure that it jives with your personal scholarly goals as well as the educational goals of this course.

Paper:

I will want you to write one paper for this class, due at the end of the term. (Deadline: Friday, April 16; delivered to me via email.)

Because this is a paper for a course on Advanced Methods in Social Psychology and Personality, you should use this paper as an opportunity to develop and demonstrate your skills at being thoughtful and clever and insightful about research methods in social and/or personality psychology. Ideally, you will also use it as an opportunity to write something that might be a stepping stone toward publishable scholarly product. There are different kinds of papers that might serve these goals. For example, you could write a paper that functions as a research proposal (the sort of thing that might be submitted as research grant application to a funding agency). This kind of paper would articulate the scholarly rationale for one or more empirical studies designed to test one or more novel hypotheses pertaining to social and/or personality psychology, and then proceed to describe in detail (and to justify) the methods that these studies will employ. Alternatively, you could write a paper that functions as an incisive scholarly discussion of a particular methodological issue or methodological tool (the sort of thing that might be submitted as a manuscript to a journal like Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science). This kind of paper could take many forms (an expert tutorial on a particular methodology, a critical discussion of current methodological practices, etc.), and you will see a lot of examples of articles like this on the reading list. Anyway, you can choose what kind of paper you want to write (just so long as you write a paper that provides you with opportunities to show off some thoughtful methodological chops).

Before committing to a topic for your paper, I expect it will be useful to chat with me about it. Again, I want to meet individually with each of you at least twice this term. During one or both of these individual meetings, let us make sure to talk about your ideas for this paper assignment.

(By the way, it is perfectly okay for the topic of your paper to overlap substantially with the topic of the presentation you will give toward the end of the term. It is also perfectly okay if there is no overlap.)

Regardless of what kind of paper you write, I expect that the main body of these papers will be roughly 15 - 25 pages, double-spaced (that doesn't include references, abstract, or title page).

Course Grade:

Your final course grade will be based on the following two things, weighted equally: (a) the overall quality of your paper (with particular emphasis on the extent to which it demonstrates methodological expertise and insight); and (b) your class participation (as indicated by your presentation, your efforts as discussion leader, your weekly questions, and your other thoughtful contributions to class discussion).

Individual meetings with Mark:

I would like to meet individually with each of you early in the term, and then again about halfway through the term. The purpose of the early-in-the-term meeting is mostly so that I can learn more about you and your goals, including your broader scholarly aspirations as well as what you hope to get out of this course. It will also serve as an early opportunity for me to provide whatever helpful guidance I can about the kinds of things expected of you in this course. The middle-of-the-term meeting will provide us a timely opportunity to talk in detail about the presentation you will give toward the end of the term, and about the paper due at the end of the term. (We will sort out a schedule for these meetings during class, and/or via email.)

If you want to meet with me at other times, just let me know.

We will do these individual meetings via Zoom. (I think we can use the same Zoom link that we are using for our weekly class meetings. I am sending that Zoom info to you separately, via email.)