Evaluate the situations below, and indicate whether you think the variable is better measured as self-report or with an observation. Propose an exact operationalization of how you would measure the variable. A political psychologist wishes to measure the percentage of people who vote in elections in a certain rural area. A psychology student wants to measure how often people send text messages while driving in a local neighborhood. A relationships researcher wants to measure how much jealousy women feel in their relationships with their partners.
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A political psychologist wishes to measure the percentage of people who vote in elections in a certain rural area.
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A psychology student wants to measure how often people send text messages while driving in a local neighborhood.
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A relationships researcher wants to measure how much jealousy women feel in their relationships with their partners.
A self-report is a type of research method in which the participants are asked to respond to the questionnaires or a researcher interviews the participants. In a self-report, study participants are often asked to report about their beliefs, attitudes, feelings etc...
In an observational method, the researcher observes the participants behaviour and makes an account of the same. In the observational method, researchers have control over the environment and manipulate accordingly to see if the variable has an effect on the behaviour.
With the given situations following methods are best useful:
1. A political psychologist wishes to measure the percentage of people who vote in elections in a certain rural area.
Here the psychologist is aimed at measuring a large amount of data to check the percentage of people who vote in rural areas so a self-report study would be the best fit.
2. A psychology student wants to measure how often people send text messages while driving in a local neighbourhood: The researcher is aimed at studying the behaviour of people who text while driving and here a self-report method could not be used as the participants might fake their responses so an observational method would be the best method to use as the researcher will be able to analyse the behaviours properly
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