Week 4

Agenda 2/4

The building blocks of empirical research

1. Variables
2. Unit of Analysis
3. Hypotheses
1. What makes a good hypothesis?
2. Bad hypothesis/good hypothesis

New Office Hours: MW 1:30-3:30 (or by appt. - email in advance)

For Wednesday:

1. Before reading Arkes & Tetlock:
   1. Take the Implicit Association Test on Race (10 minutes)
   2. Report your results HERE: https://goo.gl/forms/OJpYcV6cpbw5Rinb2

Agenda 2/6

Contested concepts: Implicit attitudes & implicit bias

1. Contested concepts
2. What are attitudes and how are they operationalized?
3. Arkes & Tetlock
   1. What criticisms do Arkes & Tetlock raise about the IAT/studies on implicit attitudes?
   2. Can we distinguish “association” from “attitude” from “preference”?
   3. Can we distinguish “preference” from “bias” from “prejudice”?
   4. Is it fair to say that an average difference in reaction time (~100s milliseconds) is evidence of “implicit bias” or “implicit prejudice” against a certain group?
   5. What if someone who scores high on the race IAT doesn’t demonstrate racist behavior?
   6. Can a bias be a bias if it never bubbles out into the real world?
   7. How confident can we be in the IAT’s conclusions/implications?

For Friday: Bring your list of sources/bibliography & any notes/drafts for your literature review

Agenda 2/8

1. Intro to Conceptualization & Operationalization
   1. What is democracy?
   2. What dimensions, attributes, or principles constitute “rule by the people?”
   3. What factors could indicate/measure dimensions/attributes of democracy?
2. Workshop
   1. What's your current RQ?
   2. What are you working on right now? Where are you with the LR?
   3. Have you found any useful resources? What are they?
   4. What challenges are you facing?
   5. What are the next actions for your LR?