Reading List

Issues in the use of human subjects

Baumrind, D. (1985). Research using intentional deception: Ethical issues revisited. American Psychologist, 40, 165-174.

Orne, M. (1962). On the social psychology of the psychology experiment: With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implications. American Psychologist, 17, 776-783.

Ortmann, A., & Hertwig, R. (1997). Is deception acceptable? American Psychologist, 52, 746-747.

Ong, A. D., & Weiss, D. J (2000). The impact of anonymity on responses to “sensitive” questions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 30, 1691-1708. (available on web site)

Weiss, D. J. (2001). Deception by researchers is necessary and not necessarily evil. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 431-432. (available on web site)

Theories and model construction

Bjork, R. A. (1973). Why mathematical models? American Psychologist, 28, 426-433.

Harris, R. J. (1976). The uncertain connection between verbal theories and research hypotheses in social psychology. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 12, 210-219. (available on web site)

Underwood, B. J. (1975). Individual differences as a crucible in theory construction. American Psychologist, 30, 128-134.

Weiss, D. J. (1989). Potential methodological contributions of mathematical psychology to patient compliance research. Journal of Compliance in Health Care, 4, 95-100. (available on web site)

Validity of measures

Weiss, D. J., Walker, D. L., & Hill, D. (1988). The choice of a measure in a health-promotion study. Health Education Research: Theory & Practice, 3, 381-386. (available on web site)

Experimental Design

Grice, G. R. (1966). Dependence of empirical laws upon the source of experimental variation. Psychological Bulletin, 66, 488-498.

Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1992). When small effects are impressive. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 160-164.

Grading: Each student will present a proposed experiment to the class and will subsequently submit a written version (APA style - must be done with a word-processing program - consider the APA template in WINWORD in the lab). The grade will be based upon the written submission.

First Homework Assignment: Please read “How to Read a Journal Article” (on the web site). Then read the journal article: Egu, C. L., & Weiss, D. J. (2003). The role of race and severity of abuse in teachers’ recognition or reporting of child abuse. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 12, 465-474 (on the web site), based on the senior author’s M.A. thesis. After the initial determination of the topic, the researcher(s) must make a series of choices whose success will determine the value of the study. Identify as many choice points as you can in the Egu and Weiss article. List the pros and cons of the various options that the researchers considered (or should have considered).