WHAT ARE THE MAJOR TYPES OF SOCIAL RESEARCH?In most experiments, a researcher divides the
people being studied (about seventy people in the
study) into two or more groups. The researcher then
treats both groups identically except that he or she
gives one group but not the other a specific condi-
tion: the “treatment.” The Lowery et al. experiment
was “priming” students with words related to being
smart. The researchers measure the reactions of
both groups precisely. By controlling the setting and
giving only one group the treatment, she or he can
conclude that differences in group reactions are due
to the treatment alone.Surveys.As researchers, we utilize questionnaires
or interviews to learn people’s beliefs or opinions
in many research situations (e.g., experiments, fieldEXAMPLE BOX 10
Cohort StudiesAnderson and Fetner (2008) used data from a cross-
national survey of people in various countries con-
ducted in the 1981–1982, 1990, and 2000 periods
and examined a question regarding tolerance of
homosexuality in the United States and Canada. The
authors found that tolerance for homosexuality in-
creased both by birth cohort and over time. Thus,
people born later in the twentieth century were more
tolerant than people born earlier and everyone was
more tolerant in the later time periods. For example,
people born in the 1920–1929 era were less tolerant
when asked in 1981–1982 than when they were
asked 20 years later in 2000. People born in
1960–1963 tended to be more tolerant than the
1920–1929 cohort when they were asked in 1980
and in 2000, and their tolerance increased over time
as well. An interesting aspect of this study is the com-
parison between Canada and the United States. In
1980–1982, Canadians were less tolerant than Amer-
icans for every birth cohort. Thus, Canadians born in
the 1920s or 1940s or 1960s, who were then in their
60s, 40s, or 20s were all less tolerant than Americans
when asked in the 1981–1982 survey. When asked in
the 1990 and 2000 surveys, Canadians at every birth
cohort were much more tolerant than Americans. In
fact, increased tolerance between 1990 to 2000 for
Americans was small compared to that of the Cana-
dians. Moreover, the youngest Canadian cohort
(people born in the 1960s) increased tolerance far
more dramatically than other cohorts and Americans
of that cohort. A more detailed analysis showed that
Canadians from rural areas, small towns, and large
cities all became more tolerant; however, Americans
in rural areas and very small towns did not become
tolerant; only those in larger towns or urban areas
did so. A researcher who studied only cross-sectional
data in 1981–1982 would see small cohort difference
with the Americans being slightly more tolerant.
Consideration of only cross-sectional data in 2000
would identify very large cohort differences and that
the Canadians were much more tolerant than the
Americans. By looking longitudinally, it is possible to
see how opinions changed by cohort and over time
very differently in the two countries.
In another cohort study, Bratter and King (2008)
examined data from a 2002 U.S. nationally repre-
sentative sample of people ages 15–44 who were
ever married and who had valid information on the
race of their first spouse (1,606 males and 4,070 fe-
males). The authors studied marriage cohorts (i.e., all
people married in a certain year or set of adjoining
years), comparing interracial and same-racial group
marriage partners. They investigated whether the
marriage was intact or had ended at a later time
point. In this study, six cohorts were examined (earlier
than 1980, 1980–1984, 1985–1989, 1990–1994,
1995–1999, and after 2000). Comparisons across the
cohorts showed that interracial couples tended to
have higher divorce rates. However, this was not
the case for people married across all years but it
was especially strong for those marrying during
the late 1980s. The researchers found that White
female/Black male and White female/Asian male
marriages had higher divorce rates than White/White
couples but marriages involving non-White females
and White males and Hispanics and non-Hispanic
persons had similar or lower risks of divorce.