1. Read this instruction for assignment Operationalization Many variables studie
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Question
1. Read this instruction for assignment
Operationalization
Many variables studied by psychologists are straightforward and simple to measure. These include sex, age, height, weight, and birth order. You can almost always tell whether someone is male or female just by looking. You can ask people how old they are and be reasonably sure that they know and will tell you. Although people might not know or want to tell you how much they weigh, you can have them step onto a bathroom scale. Other variables studied by psychologists—perhaps the majority—are not so straightforward or simple to measure. We cannot accurately assess people’s level of intelligence by looking at them, and we certainly cannot put their self-esteem on a bathroom scale. These kinds of variables are called constructsand include personality traits (e.g., extroversion), emotional states (e.g., fear), attitudes (e.g., toward taxes), and abilities (e.g., athleticism).
Psychological constructs cannot be observed directly. One reason is that they often represent tendencies to think, feel, or act in certain ways. For example, to say that a particular college student is highly extroverted does not necessarily mean that she is behaving in an extroverted way right now. In fact, she might be sitting quietly by herself, reading a book. Instead, it means that she has a general tendency to behave in extroverted ways (talking, laughing, etc.) across a variety of situations. Another reason psychological constructs cannot be observed directly is that they often involve internal processes. Fear, for example, involves the activation of certain central and peripheral nervous system structures, along with certain kinds of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors—none of which is necessarily obvious to an outside observer. Notice also that neither extroversion nor fear “reduces to” any particular thought, feeling, act, or physiological structure or process. Instead, each is a kind of summary of a complex set of behaviors and internal processes.
The conceptual definition of a psychological construct describes the behaviors and internal processes that make up that construct, along with how it relates to other variables. For example, a conceptual definition of neuroticism would be that it is people’s tendency to experience negative emotions such as anxiety, anger, and sadness across a variety of situations. This definition might also include that it has a strong genetic component, remains fairly stable over time, and is positively correlated with the tendency to experience pain and other physical symptoms.
Students sometimes wonder why, when researchers want to understand a construct like self-esteem or neuroticism, they do not simply look it up in the dictionary. One reason is that many scientific constructs do not have counterparts in everyday language (e.g., working memory capacity). More important, researchers are in the business of developing definitions that are more detailed and precise—and that more accurately describe the way the world is—than the informal definitions in the dictionary. They do this by proposing conceptual definitions, testing them empirically, and revising them as necessary. Sometimes they throw them out altogether. This is why the research literature often includes different conceptual definitions of the same construct. In some cases, an older conceptual definition has been replaced by a newer one that works better. In others, researchers are still in the process of deciding which of various conceptual definitions is the best.
An operational definition is a definition of a variable in terms of precisely how it is to be measured. These measures generally fall into one of three broad categories. Self-report measures are those in which participants report on their own thoughts, feelings, and actions. Behavioral measures are those in which some other aspect of participants’ behavior is observed and recorded. This is an extremely broad category that includes the observation of people’s behavior both in highly structured laboratory tasks and in more natural settings.
For any given variable or construct, there will be multiple operational definitions. Stress is a good example. A rough conceptual definition is that stress is an adaptive response to a perceived danger or threat that involves physiological, cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. But researchers have operationally defined it in several ways. The Social Readjustment Rating Scale is a self-report questionnaire on which people identify stressful events that they have experienced in the past year and assigns points for each one depending on its severity. For example, a man who has been divorced (73 points), changed jobs (36 points), and had a change in sleeping habits (16 points) in the past year would have a total score of 125. The Daily Hassles and Uplifts Scale is similar but focuses on everyday stressors like misplacing things and being concerned about one’s weight. The Perceived Stress Scale (see below) is another self-report measure that focuses on people’s feelings of stress (e.g., “How often have you felt nervous and stressed?”). Researchers have also operationally defined stress in terms of several physiological variables including blood pressure and levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Perceived Stress Scale
The questions in this scale ask you about your feelings and thoughts during the last month. In each case, you will be asked to indicate by circling how often you felt or thought a certain way.
_____________________________________
0 = Never 1 = Almost Never 2 = Sometimes 3 = Fairly Often 4 = Very Often
1. In the last month, how often have you been upset
because of something that happened unexpectedly?...................................0 1 2 3 4
2. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable
to control the important things in your life?.....................................................0 1 2 3 4
3. In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and “stressed”? ..........0 1 2 3 4
4. In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability
to handle your personal problems?.................................................................0 1 2 3 4
5. In the last month, how often have you felt that things
were going your way?.....................................................................................0 1 2 3 4
6. In the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope
with all the things that you had to do? ............................................................0 1 2 3 4
7. In the last month, how often have you been able
to control irritations in your life?......................................................................0 1 2 3 4
8. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?.0 1 2 3 4
9. In the last month, how often have you been angered
because of things that were outside of your control? ....................................0 1 2 3 4
10. In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties
were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?..........................0 1 2 3 4
Scoring: Items 4, 5, 7, and 8 are positively stated items. PSS scores are obtained by reversing the scores on the positive items for ex: 0=4, 1=3, 2=2, 3=1 and 4=0.
There are no absolute scores but shows how unpredictable, uncontrollable and overloaded you find your life.
References
The PSS Scale is reprinted with permission of the American Sociological Association, from Cohen, S., Kamarck, T., and Mermelstein, R. (1983). A
global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24, 386-396.
Cohen, S. and Williamson, G. Perceived Stress in a Probability Sample of the United States. Spacapan, S. and Oskamp, S. (Eds.) The Social
Psychology of Health. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988.
When psychologists use multiple operational definitions of the same construct—either within a study or across studies—they are using converging operations. The idea is that the various operational definitions are “converging” on the same construct. When scores based on several different operational definitions are closely related to each other and produce similar patterns of results, this constitutes good evidence that the construct is being measured effectively and that it is useful. The various measures of stress, for example, are all correlated with each other and have all been shown to be correlated with other variables such as immune system functioning (also measured in a variety of ways) This is what allows researchers eventually to draw useful general conclusions, such as “stress is negatively correlated with immune system functioning,” as opposed to more specific and less useful ones, such as “people’s scores on the Perceived Stress Scale are negatively correlated with their white blood counts.”
Question:
2) For the terms/words listed in this assignment, pretend that these are the variables involved in your study and state their operational definitions. And then state how you might measure these variables. If you plan on asking questions to measure these variables, be precise and specific of the wording of your questions. You can also be creative in measuring these variables behaviorally/through observations. (Note: if you suspect difference in measurement when measured by different people using your operationalization and procedure, it means that the variables need to be re-operationalized.)
Terms are as follows:
1.Academic enthusiasm
2.Love
3. Popularity in class
4. Friendship
Explanation / Answer
Point scale score on a perceived stress scale as obtained in a statistical survey on a group of college students are given below:Scores in the range 0-13 is a low stress index, 14-26 moderate stress index, 27-40 high stress index. Perceived stress scale was introduced in 1983 to understand the emotions and attitude of people in life. The example can include the case study of Eli a 12 year old boy who played piano. He was born in Colombia but now lives in USA. He has a small fear of playing piano in front of a huge audience in life. He had a bad behavior and frequently engaged in bad angry emotions with confrontation with his mother. He argued when he did not achieve the desired grades in school. Wolcott approach of description was used for analyzing the situations in life. Music performance anxiety inventory for Adolescents was estabished to study behavior of children in family and school.
2)
Academic enthusiasm- It is the ability and creativity to teach and educate students in life.
2)
Love--it is a form of affection where one individual sympathasizes with the other person.
3)
Populairty in life--it is fame and fortune attained by a person in life.
4)
Friendship --It is a mutual understanding of feelings and emotions in life which one person shares with the other person in life.
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