A Social Psychological Perspective

Ethics is normative; ethics indicates, in broad terms, what researchers should do. For example, researchers should respect human participants. Empirical study tells us what actually happens. Empirical research is often needed to fine-tune the best ways to achieve normative objectives, for example, to discover how best to achieve the dual aims of gaining important knowledge and respecting participants. Ethical decision making by scientists and institutional review boards should not be based on hunches and anecdotes (e.g., about such matters as what information potential research participants would want to know and what they understand, or what they consider to be acceptable risks). These questions should be answered through empirical research. Some of the preceding articles in this special issue illustrate uses of empirical research on research ethics. This article places empirical research on research ethics into broader perspective and challenges investigators to use the tools of their disciplines to proactively solve ethical problems for which there currently exist no empirically proven solutions.     

Empirical research on research ethics

Ethics is normative; ethics indicates, in broad terms, what researchers should do. For example, researchers should respect human participants. Empirical study tells us what actually happens. Empirical research is often needed to fine-tune the best ways to achieve normative objectives, for example, to discover how best to achieve the dual aims of gaining important knowledge and respecting participants. Ethical decision making by scientists and institutional review boards should not be based on hunches and anecdotes (e.g., about such matters as what information potential research participants would want to know and what they understand, or what they consider to be acceptable risks). These questions should be answered through empirical research. Some of the preceding articles in this special issue illustrate uses of empirical research on research ethics. This article places empirical research on research ethics into broader perspective and challenges investigators to use the tools of their disciplines to proactively solve ethical problems for which there currently exist no empirically proven solutions.     

The Productivity of Wh‐ Prompts when Children Testify

Wh‐ prompts (what, how, why, who, when, and where) vary widely in their specificity and accuracy, but differences among them have largely been ignored in research examining the productivity of different question types in child testimony. We examined 120 six‐ to 12‐year‐olds' criminal court testimony in child sexual abuse cases to compare the productivity of various wh‐ prompts. We distinguished among wh‐ prompts, most notably the following: what/how‐happen prompts focusing generally on events, what/how‐dynamic prompts focusing on actions or unfolding processes/events, what/how‐causality prompts focusing on causes and reasons, and what/how‐static prompts focusing on non‐action contextual information regarding location, objects, and time. Consistent with predictions, what/how‐happen prompts were the most productive, and both what/how‐dynamic prompts and wh‐ prompts about causality were more productive than other wh‐ prompts. Prosecutors asked proportionally more what/how‐dynamic prompts and fewer what/how‐static prompts than defense attorneys. Future research and interviewer training may benefit from finer discrimination among wh‐ prompts. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Communicating Developmental Science to Nonscientists,or How to Write Something Even Your Family Will Want to Read

ABSTRACT

Developmental psychologists are increasingly writing articles, columns, books, and blogs for the general public, but this type of writing can be challenging. Here, I provide guidance on how to communicate scientific ideas to nonscientists, touching on what content to cover, how to organize that content, what language to use, and what tone to adopt. I highlight common shortcomings in how we package and describe our academic pursuits, and provide alternative strategies for writing about research in a clear and compelling manner.     

Service Delivery Issues and Program Evaluation in Pediatric Psychology

Presents a framework for categorizing pediatric psychology research into practice and service system outcomes and functioning. The questions of importance are (a) who is being served, (b) what services are provided, (c) how treatments are implemented, (d) how services are organized and staffed, (e) what are the outcomes of the services, (f) how do various consumers perceive services, (g) how services are reimbursed, and (h) what are alternatives and innovations? The framework of program evaluation is detailed for domains most germane to service delivery in pediatric/child health psychology. Such domains include diagnostic information on patients, types of intervention, behavioral/psychological outcome variables, costs of treatments, service system functioning, and perceptions of satisfaction from multiple sources. This framework may be useful in directing future research on the delivery of services in pediatric psychology settings, thereby adding to the value of the field.     

Subjective science: Kenneth Spence's human learning research program

This article examines Kenneth Spence's human learning research from 1949 to 1967. His works show the conditioning field to be in turmoil over basic issues during this time. These issues included whether determinism should be accepted, how to interpret a psychological test score, what psychometric properties a test should have, and how to use theoretical constructs. Turmoil occurred because behaviors and events had different meanings and degrees of importance to different investigators. Thus, what appeared as "objective" scientific change in the conditioning field was really the adaptation of personal preferences in word meanings, research goals, and research methods. These issues also indicate disputes about definitions and purposes of scientific activity during Spence's era.     

Procedural misconceptions and informed consent: insights from empirical research on the clinical trials industry

This paper provides a simultaneously reflexive and analytical framework to think about obstacles to truly informed consent in social science and biomedical research. To do so, it argues that informed consent often goes awry due to procedural misconceptions built into the research context. The concept of procedural misconception is introduced to describe how individuals respond to what is familiar in research settings and overlook what is different. In the context of biomedical research, procedural misconceptions can be seen to function as root causes of therapeutic misconceptions.     

How Can We Do it Right? Ethical Uncertainty in Swedish Sami Research

Research related to indigenous peoples in Sweden and elsewhere has a history marked by discriminatory practice and unequal research processes. Sweden has still not been very visible in terms of openly debating, developing and implementing ethical strategies specifically suited for indigenous research. The present study explores how research ethics is discussed among scholars within the Sami research field in contemporary Sweden. Fifty-six research proposals deriving from eight different research institutions and 160 individual researchers are analyzed, discovering how scholars relate to research ethics when planning for new research projects related to the indigenous Sami. The results demonstrate that ethical guidelines for research are often referred to, but that a common view on what guidelines to use is lacking, leading to a notable variety between different researchers. Ethical discussions are present in the vast majority of the proposals, however there are notable differences between the theories around how to proceed in a culturally safe, ethical manner, and the proposed methods that are to be used to implement theory in practice. In conclusion, there exists a great uncertainty among scholars on where to seek ethical guidance, how to relate to current legislation around research ethics and at the same time act ethically in a culturally appropriate manner. This uncertainty leads to questioning whether discussions of ethics are relevant in the first place, what they are supposed to include, how they are meant to be undertaken and what consequences can be expected from the presence or absence of ethics in indigenous research.     

Quality Criteria Under Methodological Pluralism: Implications for Conducting and Evaluating Research

Many community psychologists adhere to a methodological pluralist orientation to research; however, it is often unclear what such a position means in practice. This paper draws out the practical implications of methodological pluralism for community research. It proposes four sets of criteria for how research might be appraised under a pluralistic ethos: criteria applicable to all research, research-relevant community psychology values and principles, criteria specifically applicable to quantitative research, and criteria specifically applicable to qualitative research. The paper also addresses how pluralistic community research may be conducted, at each of three levels: integrating methods within a single study, using different approaches within a research program, and pluralism in the field as a whole.     

Being a therapist in eating disorder treatment trials: constraints and creativity

This paper gives a brief overview of the sequence and content of the eating disorder treatment trials at the Maudsley Hospital in London, and describes the experience of the author working as a research therapist on these trials. It considers the different ways research constraints affected the therapist, how she learnt to make creative use of what appeared to be therapeutic restrictions, and how having her clinical freedom curtailed taught her to be more flexible and showed her new ways of understanding her patients.     

Asymmetries between victims' and transgressors' perspectives following interpersonal transgressions

When interpersonal transgressions occur, the involved parties try to understand what occurred and how justice should be restored. However, research has documented that victims and transgressors often diverge in their accounts of what transpired. In this paper, I review and summarize empirical research on victims' and transgressors' asymmetric perceptions of interpersonal transgressions and the different justice‐restoring responses each party subsequently desires. By conceptualizing transgressions in terms of the social roles of victim and transgressor, I contend that justice responses can be thought of as attempts to correct inequitable distributions of material and symbolic resources. This social exchange perspective enables us to understand each party's motives and how various justice responses might satisfy them. I argue that because of these asymmetric perspectives, reconciliation is difficult, and conflict is liable to be perpetuated rather than resolved.     

Commentary: Why Do Research on Spirituality and Health, and What Do the Results Mean?

I address two related questions in this article. First, why conduct research on religion/spirituality (R/S) and health? Second, what are the dangers of misinterpreting or misapplying the results from such research? If relationships are found, so what? What is the practical value or clinical relevance of such information? Why should investigators spend time and scarce financial resources to explore such connections? What might health care professionals do differently as a result? How would people live their lives differently in light of such information? Questions like these need solid answers for the field to continue to move forward. Related to the "So what?" question is the issue of how results from research in this area are translated into popular understanding and application. After discussing why conducting research on religion and health is important, I identify a recently published research report that focuses on the relationship between R/S and self-control, an article that received considerable media press coverage. I present the results reported by the authors of this study and then examine a column written about the study that appeared in the New York Times. Finally, I explore what the findings mean, how the media portrayed the findings, and problems that might result depending on how people applied those findings.     

Silent voices: Notes from a young Muslim woman on acculturation in the United States

This paper examines the gap between a researcher's positionality and theory building; seeing research through the lens of women of color in academia. Drawing on the autobiographical approach in feminist geography, I argue how a researcher's background and life events influence how we produce knowledge in the field by sharing my personal journey. Specifically, I share what it means to be a Middle Eastern Muslim academic conducting research on female immigrants' cultural adaptation process in the U.S. I urge readers to uncover the power of self-reflection, embodied subjectivity and emotions in expanding geographic research and conclude how the future research will benefit from the motives behind each study, as well as giving a reflexive researcher a platform to be heard.     

When is Nothing Something? Editorial for the Null Results Special Issue of Journal of Business and Psychology

This special issue is focused on how null results can meaningfully advance science and practice. This editorial describes some of the unique aspects of creating a special issue devoted to null results, offers opinions regarding why and under what conditions null results should be valued, and offers recommendations for key stakeholders (i.e., editors, reviewers, and authors) in the publication enterprise with respect to submitting and evaluating research with null findings. This editorial also provides summaries of the papers included in this special issue with emphasis on how they serve as example for what constitutes meaningful null results.     

走向深层发展伦理学——贝克风险社会理论的发展伦理学意蕴

对发展伦理学而言,贝克“风险社会理论”的根本方法论意义,在于启发我们思考这样一个问题:“应该用什么方法、在什么层面上建构发展伦理学”?贝克风险社会理论对明确发展伦理学的研究视域、学理层次、研究平台等具有重要方法论启示。     

Developments in Research in Personality Assessment

Progress in personality research requires an adequate data analysis link between concepts of what people are like and observations of how they are likely to behave. Advances in computer technology have strengthened this link but also have made it necessary for investigators to be wary of lack of selectivity and trivialization in their research designs.     

How leaders really emerge

Comments on the article by R. J. Hackman and R. Wageman which offered several research questions that should be productive for furthering leadership research. This comment summarizes some recent progress on one of those questions, "Not what are the traits of leaders, but how do leaders' personal attributes interact with situational properties to shape outcomes?"     

Developments in research in personality assessment

Progress in personality research requires an adequate data analysis link between concepts of what people are like and observations of how they are likely to behave. Advances in computer technology have strengthened this link but also have made it necessary for investigators to be wary of lack of selectivity and trivialization in their research designs.