Chapter
1. Is Public Affection a Public Affliction?
Introduction
Chapter 6
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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
Behavioral Choice
A behavioral measure involving participants making a purposeful selection from several options.
Behavioral Trace
A behavioral measure that relies on evidence left behind by a participant who is no longer present.
Behavioral Observation
A behavioral measure that relies on directly seeing or observing behavior.
Naturalistic Observation
An observational data collection technique in which the researcher witnesses and systematically records behaviors as they occur in their original, unaltered setting.
Contrived Observation
An observational data collection technique in which the researcher artificially introduces a variable of interest and unobtrusively records what happens.
Participant Observation
An observational data collection technique in which the researcher interacts with those being studied while systematically recording their behavior.
Concealed Observation
An observational data collection technique in which participants do not know that their behaviors are being recorded.
Nonconcealed Observation
An observational data collection technique in which participants know that their behaviors are being recorded.
Coding System
A set of rules to help guide how the researcher classifies and records behaviors under observation.
Duration Recording
Documenting the time elapsed during which a behavior occurs.
Frequency-count Recording
Documenting each time a target behavior occurs.
IRB
A board that reviews the ethical merit of all the human research conducted within an institution.
Pilot Testing
A trial run used to refine the design, methods, and instruments for a study prior to carrying out the actual research.
Descriptive
A research design that describes what is happening.
Inferential
A research design that explores why a phenomenon occurs.
Observational Research
In this activity, you will refine your observational research skills by identifying instances of public displays of affection. You will use these observations to draw conclusions about how common PDA is among couples in public settings.
Dr. Natalie J. Ciarocco, Monmouth University
Dr. David B. Strohmetz, University of West Florida
Dr. Gary W. Lewandowski, Jr., Monmouth University
Something to Think About…
Scenario: It’s Friday night and you’re standing in line, waiting to buy tickets for a movie you’ve been anticipating for months. The line is long, which gives you the chance to people-watch. As you scan the crowd, you notice a couple in the next line being overly affectionate—kissing, rubbing noses, giggling, and talking to each other in that goofy voice people who are dating use. Sure, they might be in love, but for some reason their behavior seems sickeningly sweet. Are you predisposed to dislike this behavior, or does it just catch you off-guard? After all, when you were looking at everyone in line, you did not see any other couples acting this way.
Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Something to Think About…
Public displays of affection occur when a couple engages in acts of physical intimacy in view of others, typically strangers. There are many factors that play a role in how you react to seeing public displays of affection. Observer comfort with such acts varies from person to person and from culture to culture, but your comfort level may depend on which acts a couple publicly displays. Before you can know why people react differently to public displays of affection, you must first identify how often people who appear romantically involved engage in these behaviors.
UpperCut Images/Getty Images
Our Research Question
Given your observation at the movie theater, you decide to develop a research study to investigate public displays of affection. But first, you need something to guide your exploration of this topic. All research studies start with a question, so here is your chance to ask one of your own.
Now that you have established a research question (“How common are public displays of affection?”), you must decide which type of research design best answers your research question. To narrow down your options, consider the following:
If you want to collect data using a behavioral observation, you will need to determine which type of behavioral observation is best. When in doubt, think back to your research question (“How common are public displays of affection?”). Now, consider the following:
You now know that you will not be part of the observation, but do the couples you are observing need to know they are being watched? You must decide whether your observation should be concealed or nonconcealed.
You are well on your way to completing a naturalistic concealed observation. Before you begin, you are going to need a coding system to keep track of the observations you make.
Coding System
This means you need an operational definition or a description of exactly what you mean by “public displays of affection.”
Given that you want to determine how common public displays of affection are, what behaviors might you observe and record? List three behaviors that could be examples of affection seen in public.
Question
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Question
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1.10
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Developing a Coding System
Now that you know which behaviors you want to observe, you need to determine which aspects of those behaviors you want to code. Although a certain behavior, such as a kiss, might seem simple to observe, there are many aspects of it that you could analyze. For example, you could complete a duration recording, writing down for how long a couple kisses, or a frequency-count recording, writing down how many times a couple kisses.
Before you can conduct your observation, you need to determine precisely whom you want to observe and where you can find this target sample. In a naturalistic observation, you must find your participants in a place where the behaviors you are interested in observing (in this case, displays of affection) will occur naturally or spontaneously. There are many settings in which these behaviors could occur, but you are seeking the place that best suits your research needs.
Now that you have determined how you will collect your data and your intended sample, you must submit your research procedure to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for ethical approval. The IRB or ethics board will determine whether or not your study meets all ethical guidelines.
IRB
Each IRB has its own protocol that conforms to the national standard when a researcher submits an application for proposed research. In addition to the appropriate paperwork and other information submitted to the IRB, the board considers the following description during their evaluation of your proposed experiment:
The purpose of this research is to determine how common public displays of affection are. To study this topic, the researchers will conduct a naturalistic observation at a local coffeehouse. Participants will be unaware of the observations. Research observers will monitor participants’ behaviors from a distance and will not interact with them in any way. During the observations, the researchers will record the number of couples that enter the coffeehouse, as well as the number of times couples engage in a variety of affectionate behaviors.
wk1003mike/Shutterstock
Responding to the IRB
The IRB reviewed your submission and has a major concern. While they understand that you are observing naturally occurring behaviors and therefore do not need informed consent, they are concerned about observations of people under the age of 18. The IRB considers minors to be a special population.
You must now determine how to respond to the IRB, keeping in mind that you want to address their concern while still upholding the quality of your study.
With your IRB approval secured, it is time to begin conducting your observation of public displays of affection in the coffeehouse. Note how often each behavior that you wanted to observe as part of your coding system occurs, and note how many couples are present during your observation.
What you just did was a pilot test, or a trial run of a study that researchers use to refine its design, methods, and instruments prior to carrying out the actual research.
Pilot Testing
Take a moment to think about whether your coding system was effective. Did you find the behaviors you were looking for easily? Was the location you chose an adequate place to gather data?
Revising the Coding System
multiple_choice
Now that you have practiced collecting observational data on public displays of affection, you most likely need to revise and improve your coding system. Researchers rarely get everything right with their original coding system, which is why they pilot it first and then revise it.
Question
Based on what you saw in the pilot round of coding, which of the following would be the best three behaviors to observe and record for frequency?
It’s time for Take 2! Using the revised coding system, conduct a second observation of public displays of affection in the coffeehouse. Note how often each behavior we have selected (holding hands, kissing, and hugging) occurs, and note how many couples are present during your observation.
Now that you have seen how to conduct observational research and use observational coding, let’s consider what a full version of this study might look like.
If you were to run a full version of this study, you would want to have two trained observers spend 45 hours at a local coffeehouse. Having two observers helps with the reliability of the observations. The observers would record the number of couples who patronize the coffeehouse and would code the frequency of hand-holding, kissing, and hugging that occurs between couples during the observation. As an example, let’s say that the observers coded behavior from a total of 72 couples.
Example Data Set
This is an example of what the data set would look like. The top row shows the variable names (i.e., each coded behavior); the other rows display the frequency that each behavior occurred for the first 10 couples observed.
Couple Number
Hugs
Kisses
Hand Holds
1
0
0
1
2
1
0
2
3
0
0
0
4
0
0
1
5
0
0
3
6
1
2
1
7
0
1
0
8
0
2
1
9
0
0
0
10
0
0
1
Selecting the Proper Tool
Ines Koleva/E+/Getty Images
Now that you have collected your data, you must determine the best way to summarize your observations so that you can draw conclusions about your research question. The decisions you made about how to collect your data dictate the statistics you should use. First, you need to consider if your study is descriptive or inferential.
The following is an example of output for another observational study. This study investigated how often people text and call while having dinner in a restaurant.
Before continuing, click on the output to learn more about each of its elements.
Statistics
Texts
Calls
N
Valid
61
61
Missing
0
0
Mean
1.74
.74
Median
1.00
1.00
Mode
2
0
Calls
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
0
30
49.2
49.2
49.2
1
17
27.9
27.9
77.0
2
14
23.0
23.0
100.0
Total
61
100.0
100.0
Texts
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
0
11
18.0
18.0
18.0
1
20
32.8
32.8
50.8
2
24
39.3
39.3
90.2
2
14
23.0
23.0
100.0
4
2
3.3
3.3
93.4
5
1
1.6
1.6
95.1
6
1
1.6
1.6
96.7
7
1
1.6
1.6
98.4
12
1
1.6
1.6
100.0
Total
61
100.0
100.0
This is the average number of times people texted at the restaurant.
This is the average number of times people made a phone call at the restaurant.
This is the midpoint for number of calls and texts. Half of the sample texted and called more than this and half texted and called less.
This is the most common number of times a person texted and called.
This is the number of times people made 0 calls at the restaurant.
This is the number of times people made 1 call at the restaurant.
This is the number of times people made 2 calls at the restaurant.
This column represents the number of times a person texted at the restaurant. You can see people texted between 0 and 12 times at the restaurant.
This column represents the number of people that texted a given number of times. For example, 20 people texted 1 time at the restaurant.
This column represents the percentage of people that texted a given number of times. For example, 32.8% of people texted once.
Question
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Your Turn: Evaluating Output
Alex Brylov/Shutterstock
Below is the output from your study.
Statistics
hugs
kisses
hold_hands
N
Valid
72
72
72
Missing
0
0
0
Mean
.7500
.6667
1.2222
Median
.0000
.0000
1.0000
Mode
.00
.00
1.00
hugs
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
.00
38
52.8
52.8
52.8
1.00
16
22.2
22.2
75.0
2.00
16
22.2
22.2
97.2
3.00
2
2.8
2.8
100.0
Total
72
100.0
100.0
kisses
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
.00
51
70.8
70.8
70.8
1.00
15
20.8
20.8
91.7
2.00
4
5.6
5.6
97.2
10.00
1
1.4
1.4
98.6
15.00
1
1.4
1.4
100.0
Total
72
100.0
100.0
hold_hands
Frequency
Percent
Valid Percent
Cumulative Percent
Valid
.00
23
31.9
31.9
31.9
1.00
28
38.9
38.9
70.8
2.00
5
6.9
6.9
77.8
3.00
14
19.4
19.4
97.2
4.00
2
2.8
2.8
100.0
Total
72
100.0
100.0
Your Turn: Evaluating Output
chapter_6_multiple_choice
Alex Brylov/Shutterstock
Based on the results of your statistical analyses, input the correct value next to the term requested.
Average number of kisses
Number of couples that hugged 3 times
The most frequently occurring number of hand holds between couples
The number of couples that never kissed
The percentage of couples that held hands 2 times
Question
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Activity: Graphing Results
chapter_6_graph_activity
In order to visualize your data, input the name of the behavior that corresponds to each mean frequency listed in the output. Then check out the graphic representation of your data, shown below.
Alex Brylov/Shutterstock
Output
Behavior
Mean Frequency
Kissing
Hand Holding
Hugging
Mean Frequency.
Affectionate Behaviors
Question
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Your Turn: Results
gguy/Shutterstock
Now that you have worked with your data, you must determine the best way to express your findings in written form. You must be sure that how you describe your findings accurately represents the data.
You have determined how to express your findings in a scientifically responsible way. Now, you need to be able to convey what your findings mean in everyday terms so that the others might benefit from your study.