Everyday Research Methods

A way to get people be pro-environment

Maica / iStock Photo

Drastic changes to the earth's oceans are in the news, along with a reminder that by changing their behaviors, people can potentially reverse the impact of global warming.  This story in Pacific Standard suggests a way to encourage people to take actions that are pro- environment.

Two psychological scientists, Lisa Zaval and Elke Weber, tested whether people would be more pro-environment if they considered their legacy, that is, how they wanted to be remembered after they died. According to their theory, when people think about their own legacy, they also start to think about the well-being of other people in that future.

Here's how the journalist described the study conducted by Zaval and Weber:

[Half of the participants]  began by writing “a short essay describing what they want to be remembered for by future generations.” They were instructed to consider “ways in which you will have a positive impact on other people, skills or knowledge you will teach others, or aspects of your personality that you would like to be remembered for.”

Members of that group spent an average of six minutes on their essay. The others skipped directly to the second part of the study, in which all participants responded to a series of statements ....

Specifically, they expressed their level of agreement or disagreement with such statements as “I am in favor of national policies and regulations that decrease fossil fuel burning, even if they increase energy and electricity costs today.” And they indicated how often they intended to perform a series of environmentally friendly behaviors over the following three months, including taking public transportation and buying “green” products.

Questions

a) This study is a simple experiment. But which kind? (Post-test only? Pretest posttest? Repeated measures? Concurrent measures?)

b) What are the variables in this experiment?  List each of the variables, and identify each one as an independent or dependent variable.

c) Is the independent variable between-subjects or within subjects?

d) Here's a description of the results. Can you sketch a graph depicting what they found?

Those who had written about their legacy expressed significantly greater belief in climate change, and significantly stronger intentions to behave in Earth-friendly ways.

Like many experiments do, this one had more than one dependent variable. I particularly like this additional DV because it measures real behavior, not just self-report of green attitudes.  Here's how the second dependent variable was described:

... all participants were automatically entered into a lottery to win a $10 bonus. After filling out the survey, they were given the option to donate some or all of those winnings to the environmental organization Trees for the Future. Those who had thought about their legacy gave an average of $3.34, compared to $2.31 for those who had not.

e) You could sketch a graph of this outcome, too. Usually, when a study has more than one DV, you'll need one graph per DV result.

f) Finally, the scientists were quoted making the following causal claim in the piece. Is it justified? 

"Prompts that encourage people to think about how they would want to be remembered (or perhaps what they don’t want to be remembered for) may effectively promote environmental behavior.”

Apply the three causal criteria to the claim above.

 

Cell phones only--whom should polls call?

My favorite polling organization, Pew Research, has reported that people have become more and more likely to have "cell phones only," with no landline phones.  Here is a graph showing the percentage of American adults who have cell-phone only households:

Scott Keeter and Kyley McGeeney. “Pew Research will call more cellphones in 2015.” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (January 7, 2015). http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/07/pew-research-will-call-more-cellphones-in-2015/ , accessed on January 8, 2015.

Questions

a) This figure provides a good opportunity to interpret a graph. Study the figure carefully. The figure seems to be illustrating two main points--one about time, and one about age. What are these two points?

Here's another figure from the story:

Scott Keeter and Kyley McGeeney. “Pew Research will call more cellphones in 2015.” Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (January 7, 2015). http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/07/pew-research-will-call-more-cellphones-in-2015/ , accessed on January 8, 2015.

b) This figure, as well, seems to be illustrating two main points. What are the two main takeaway messages from this figure? (Hint: One takeaway message is the same here as in Question a.)

Given the data presented in this figure, Pew Research reports that it will call a higher proportion of cell-phone only households this year. Here is a quote from their website:

To keep pace with this rapid trend, the Pew Research Center will increase the percentage of respondents interviewed on cellphones in its typical national telephone surveys to 65%; 35% of interviews will be conducted by landline. Last year, we increased the ratio to 60% cellphone, with 40% conducted on landline. Back in 2008, when we first started routinely including cellphones in our phone surveys, just one-fourth (25%) of all interviews were done by cellphone.

c) Remind yourself that external validity (through generalizable sampling techniques) is especially important for frequency claims.  Give two or three examples of research questions that fit this kind of claim.

d) Explain why it is important for polling organizations to know which households are cell-phone only and which are not.  What specific kinds of political and social questions might be especially affected by cell-phone only proportions, given the data presented above? 

e) Here's an interesting question: How might an organization like Pew Research obtain an accurate estimate of the number of cell-phone only households in the first place?  What kind of sample would you need to get this estimate? How would you contact this sample?

Finally, here's an interesting description from Pew Research, discussing whether it would be smart to conduct polls only on cell phones, not land lines:

The question naturally arises: Why not interview everyone on a cellphone? In fact, at least one major national survey is going to do just that. The Surveys of Consumers, conducted by the University of Michigan, will begin calling only cellphones this month.

But we are not ready to make that change just yet, for at least two reasons. One is that there remains a small share of the public that is not reachable by cellphone. In the newly released data from the National Center for Health Statistics, 7% of adults live in households with a landline phone but no wireless phone. In addition, some people with landlines and cellphones may turn their cellphones on only to make calls or when they are expecting to be called. If these kinds of people are demographically different from those who are more easily reached on a cellphone, then the resulting sample will be less representative of the full population.

Thanks, Pew Research, for your transparency!