Of course, obtaining large, cross-cultural, and representative samples has become far easiersince the advent of the internet and the proliferation of web-based survey platforms—suchas Qualtrics—and participant recruitment platforms—such as Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Andalthough some researchers harbor doubts about the representativeness of online samples,studies have shown that internet samples are in many waysmorediverse and representativethan samples recruited from human subject pools (e.g., with respect to gender; Gosling et al.,2004). Online samples also compare favorably with traditional samples on attentiveness whilecompleting the survey, reliability of data, and proportion of non-respondents (Paolacci et al.,2010).Subtle/Nonconscious Research MethodsThe methods we have considered thus far—field experiments, naturalistic observation, andResearch Methods in Social Psychology44
surveys—work well when the thoughts, feelings, or behaviors being investigated are consciousand directly or indirectly observable. However, social psychologists often wish to measure ormanipulate elements that are involuntary or nonconscious, such as when studying prejudicialattitudes people may be unaware of or embarrassed by. A good example of a technique thatwas developed to measure people’s nonconscious (and often ugly) attitudes is known as theimplicit association test (IAT)(Greenwald et al., 1998). This computer-based task requiresparticipants to sort a series of stimuli (as rapidly and accurately as possible) into simple andcombined categories while their reaction time is measured (in milliseconds). For example, anIAT might begin with participants sorting the names of relatives (such as “Niece” or“Grandfather”) into the categories “Male” and “Female,” followed by a round of sorting thenames of disciplines (such as “Chemistry” or “English”) into the categories “Arts” and “Science.”A third round might combine the earlier two by requiring participants to sort stimuli into either“Male or Science” or “Female and Arts” before the fourth round switches the combinations to“Female or Science” and “Male and Arts.” If across all of the trials a person is quicker ataccurately sorting incoming stimuli into the compound category “Male or Science” than into“Female or Science,” the authors of the IAT suggest that the participant likely has a strongerassociation between males and science than between females and science. Incredibly, thisspecific gender-science IAT has been completed by more than half a million participants across34 countries, about 70% of whom show an implicit stereotype associating science with malesmore than with females (Nosek et al., 2009). What’s more, when the data are grouped bycountry, national differences in implicit stereotypes predict national differences in theachievement gap between boys and girls in science and math. Our automatic associations,apparently, carry serious societal consequences.
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Abstract
Past empirical research into the history of racially motivated mob violence in the American South has relied almost exclusively on the record of completed lynchings. In this article, we propose that a better definition of “racialized terrorism” would also include the record of lynching threats. Using a newly available confirmed inventory of lynching threats for 11 Southern states from 1880 to 1929, we demonstrate that the total quantum of racialized terrorism nearly doubles when completed lynchings and lynching threats are combined, with some states and decades affected more than others. Parallel analyses suggest that previous conclusions regarding important environmental predictors of Southern mob violence, such as agricultural specialty, political party strength, and racial population composition, are robust to an expansion of racialized terrorism to include threatened lynchings. However, sufficient differences are found between the predictors of completed and threatened lynchings to suggest the need for future researchers to consider broadening the measurement of racialized terrorism.
Journal Information
Social Science History seeks to advance the study of the past by publishing research that appeals to the journal's interdisciplinary readership of historians, sociologists, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and geographers. The journal invites articles that blend empirical research with theoretical work, undertake comparisons across time and space, or contribute to the development of quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis. Social Science History is the official journal of the Social Science History Association.
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Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org) is the publishing division of the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s leading research institutions and winner of 81 Nobel Prizes. Cambridge University Press is committed by its charter to disseminate knowledge as widely as possible across the globe. It publishes over 2,500 books a year for distribution in more than 200 countries. Cambridge Journals publishes over 250 peer-reviewed academic journals across a wide range of subject areas, in print and online. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. For more information, visit //journals.cambridge.org.
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