PS474, Political Psychology, Strengths and Weaknesses of Different Methods

	Surveys	Experiments	Depth Interviews	Focus Groups
Strengths	External validity: Generalize findings from representative sample to population “Natural” setting	Internal validity: Identifying cause-and-effect relationships via random assign. of participants to diff. treatments or no treatment Less expensive	Insights: • “Soak & poke” in long interviews with a handful of respondents to see how they think and why. • Allow them to “reveal” meaning vs. inferring it from simple responses. • Less expensive	Insights: Beyond superficial responses How people think How different groups think Social influences Less expensive
Weaknesses	Internal validity: Identifying cause-&-effect relationships Superficial responses Response bias (social desirability) Expensive	External validity: Unrepresentativeness of subjects? Laboratory setting? Unrealistic procedures, stimuli?	External & Internal validity	External & Internal validity Generalizability of “sample,” social dynamics, setting.