Handbook of Research Methods in Social and Personality Psychology

This indispensable collection provides extensive, yet accessible, coverage of conceptual and practical issues in research design in personality and social psychology. Using numerous examples and clear guidelines, especially for conducting complex statistical analysis, leading experts address specific methods and areas of research to capture a definitive overview of contemporary practice. Updated and expanded, this third edition engages with the most important methodological innovations over the past decade, offering a timely perspective on research practice in the field. To reflect such rapid advances, this volume includes commentary on particularly timely areas of development such as social neuroscience, mobile sensing methods, and innovative statistical applications. Seasoned and early-career researchers alike will find a range of tools, methods, and practices that will help improve their research and develop new conceptual and methodological possibilities. Supplementary online materials are available on Cambridge Core

Cover -- Half title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Contributors -- Introduction to the Second Edition -- Introduction to the First Edition -- Chapter one Scratch an Itch with a Brick -- Represent New Perspectives -- Intellectual Puzzles -- Personal Experiences -- Group Identities -- Worldview Defense -- Comment -- Why Run the Study? -- Because This Is Science -- Hitting the Sweet Spot Is Fun -- Solving the Puzzle Is Satisfying -- Being Right Is Fun -- Telling Good Stories Is Entertaining -- Promoting Evidence Is Important -- Sideshows: Pragmatic Reasons for Research -- Publish or Perish -- Collaborate -- Get Rich (or at Least Get Funding) -- Teach -- Serve -- Be Zen -- Conclusion: Why We Do Research -- Part one Design and Inference Considerations -- Chapter two Research Design and Issues of Validity -- Research Purpose and Types of Validity -- Internal Validity: The Third-Variable Problem -- Construct Validity: From Construct to Operation and Back Again -- Causes and Confounds -- Construct Validity and Conceptual Replications -- Multiple Operations: Convergent and Discriminant Validity -- Causal Processes and Mediational Analyses -- The Many Faces of External Validity -- Robustness: Can It Be Replicated? -- Ecological Validity: Is It Representative? -- Relevance: Does It Matter? -- Is External Validity Important? -- Optimizing Types of Validity -- Setting: Lab versus Field -- Isolation versus Construct Validity -- Chapter three Research Design -- Focus of This Chapter -- Independent Variables (Factors) -- Fixed or Random Factor? -- Extremity of Levels -- Number of Levels -- Relations among Factors -- Reasons for Using Between-Participants versus Within-Participants Factors -- Reasons for Crossing Factors: I. Testing Theoretically Predicted Interactions (Construct Validity).

This indispensable sourcebook covers conceptual and practical issues in research design in the field of social and personality psychology. Key experts address specific methods and areas of research, contributing to a comprehensive overview of contemporary practice. This updated and expanded second edition offers current commentary on social and personality psychology, reflecting the rapid development of this dynamic area of research over the past decade. With the help of this up-to-date text, both seasoned and beginning social psychologists will be able to explore the various tools and methods available to them in their research as they craft experiments and imagine new methodological possibilities