Chapter1-016- Correlational Research Detecting Natural Associations

Most of what you will learn about social-psychologicalresearch methods you will absorb as you read later chapters. But let’s now go backstage and see how social psychology is done.This glimpse behind the scenes should be just enough for you to appreciatefindings discussed later. Understanding the logic of research can also help youthink critically about everyday social events.

Social-psychological research varies by location. It cantake place in the laboratory (a controlled situation) or in the field (everydaysituations). And it varies by -method—whethercorrelational (asking whether two or more factors are naturally associated) orexperimental (manipulating some factor to see its effect on another). Ifyou want to be a critical reader of psychological research reported in newspapersand magazines, it will pay you to understand the difference betweencorrelational and experimental research.

Using some real examples, let’s first consider theadvantages of correlational research (often involving important variables innatural settings) and its major disadvantage (ambiguousinterpretation of cause and effect). As we will see in Chapter 14,today’s psychologists relate personal and social factors to human health. Amongthe researchers have been Douglas Carroll at Glasgow Caledonian University andhis colleagues, George Davey Smith and Paul Bennett (1994). In search ofpossible links between socioeconomic status and health （社会经济地位和健康）,the researchers ventured into Glasgow’s old graveyards. As a measure of health,they noted from grave markers the life spans of 843 individuals. As anindication of status, they measured the height of the pillars over the graves,reasoning that height reflected cost and therefore affluence. As Figure 1.4shows, taller grave markers were related to longer lives, for both men andwomen.

Carroll and his colleagues report that other researchers,using contemporary data, have confirmed the status-longevitycorrelation. Scottish postal-code regions having the least overcrowdingand unemployment also have the greatest longevity. In the United States, income correlates with longevity (poor and lower-statuspeople are more at risk for premature death). In today’s Britain, occupationalstatus correlates with longevity. One study followed 17,350 British civil serviceworkers over 10 years. Compared with top-grade administrators, those at theprofessional-executive grade were 1.6 times more likely to have died. Clerical（文书）workerswere 2.2 times and laborers 2.7 times more likely to have died (Adler &others, 1993, 1994). Across times and places, the status-health correlation seemsreliable.