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Psychology 320: Gender Psychology

Lecture 4

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Research Methods

1. What research methods do psychologists use to study gender? (continued)

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4. Case Studies

Designed to examine, in depth, the life of one person or the lives of a small group of individuals.

Assessment techniques include: direct observation, interviews, surveys, analysis of

written text.

What research methods do psychologists use to study gender? (continued)

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Example of a case study: Ehrhardt, Epstein, and Money (1968)

Assessed 15 girls diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a condition that results from embryonic exposure to elevated levels of androgens.

Participants showed: lower levels of anticipation of marriage, preference for career over marriage, less preference for doll play, less interest in infant care, a preference for boy’s clothes, and a great interest in outdoor activity.

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5. Meta-Analytic Studies

Designed to statistically combine the results of multiple studies.

Involves 3 steps:

(a) Obtain all published studies contrasting females and males on the characteristic of interest.

(c) Average the effect sizes across all studies.

(b) Compute an effect size for each study.

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There are two commonly used measures of effect size: r and d.

• r is the correlation between the classification variable (i.e., female vs. male; dichotomous score) and participants’ scores on the characteristic of interest (i.e., the DV; continuous score).

1. r

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• r values may be obtained directly from published reports. r values may also be computed from t-test values and F-test values (i.e., statistics that allow for group comparisons).

• In general, r values obtained from meta-analyses are interpreted as follows:r = .10 or -.10 reflects a small effect size.r = .25 or - .25 reflects a moderate effect size.r = .40 or -.40 reflects a large effect size.

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2. d

• d is the number of standard deviation units obtained between the mean score of females and the mean score of males.

• In general, a positive d indicates that males score higher than females on the characteristic of interest.In contrast, a negative d indicates that females score higher than males on the characteristic of interest.

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• In general, d values obtained from meta-analyses are interpreted as follows:d = .20 or -.20 reflects a small effect size.d = .50 or - .50 reflects a moderate effect size.d = .80 or -.80 reflects a large effect size.

• d may exceed +1.00 and -1.00 in magnitude.

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Example of a meta-analytic study: Byrnes, Miller, and Schafer (1999)

Examined risk-taking tendencies of female and male participants.

Obtained all published studies contrasting females and males on risk taking between 1967 and 1994, n = 150.

Computed d value for each study; averaged d values across all studies.

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Average d-value obtained across all studies: d = .13.

However, gender differences varied for distinct risk-taking behaviours:

Smoking: d = -.02Drinking/drug use: d = .04Sexual activities: d = .07Physical activity d = .16Gambling: d = .21Driving: d = .29Intellectual risk taking d = .40 Risky experiment: d = .41

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Moreover, the magnitude of d varied across age groups, with an overall decrease in the gender gap with increasing age:

3-9 years: d = .1910-13 years: d = .2614-17 years: d = .1118-21 years: d = .24Older than 21: d = .05

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Research Methods

1. What research methods do psychologists use to study gender? (continued)