SPSS Setup Project Goal: Get SPSS running on your home computer, or form a relationship with a computer in the Psychology computer lab.Do something useful with SPSS. Play with data. This is an individual project, but it can be performed in pairs as described below. This project assumes that you have purchased the textbook and you have an SPSS install disk in hand. Summary: A. Install SPSS A. Install SPSS SPSS is easy to install. If you are working with a real computer (i.e., a Mac), please contact me for special instructions. B. Collect the data Summary: The goal is to look at ethnic and gender differences in smiling and touching during social interaction. A real study would observe people in real life, but this project cannot take the time to do that. Instead, we will watch unreal people in American films, assuming that art reflects reality or that art reflects the "social construction of reality," that is, stereotypes. Another limitation on the study is that we will not attempt to make certain kinds of comparisons, however interesting, because it would require a more complex data collection. Students will choose either a film that portrays mainly white people, or a film that portrays mainly black people. The former are much more common, but good films featuring black families are available for rental. Some students will look at touching, and some at smiling. Because people both touch and smile in the same film, it would be reasonable and perhaps fun to pair off, watching the same film but noting different behavior. We will decide in class who will examine which types of films and behaviors. The project assumes you have access to a VCR or DVD player and have found the pause button. If you don't have such access, you can use a TV movie. 1. Pick a movie that you wouldn't mind watching, of the type (black/white) assigned.The movie must have a variety of characters (12 or more) although all need not have major roles. A drama would be most appropriate. Teen films and action films are generally not useful for this sort of data collection. 2. Because you have found the pause button, you can code the data "on the fly," that is, as you watch the film. (A similar study using real life people would not be as easy.) You can code the data either by simply tallying or through a more detailed scene-by-scene analysis. Tallying is easier: keep a running count of the behavior as you watch the film, pausing if you need time to think. Make a grid that includes rows for characters and space for keeping the tally. Fill in the characters as they appear. The problem with the tally approach is that is cannot control for the number of times a characters appears in the film. Lead characters will have more opportunities to exhibit behaviors, therefore the amount of behavior produced is confounded with (can't be separated from) the overall volume of behavior. Therefore, you need to keep two tallies for each character: (1) the behavior (see below); and (2) appearance in scenes. A scene-by-scene analysis is more difficult, especially if your film switches scenes quickly. Make a behavioral assessment sheet such as this example. Fill in the characters as they appear. Each column on the behavioral form is a scence in which the character appears. Some characters will be in more scenes than others. This method allows for more accuracy, but such a level of accuracy is not critical for this informal study. 3. As you watch the film, note two behaviors on the part of the characters: (1) did the character smile? or (2) did the character touch someone else in a non-aggressive, non-sexual manner? (In the case of romantically involved characters, non-sexual touching includes all touching that occurs outside of specifically sexual activity. You will need to determine how to make this distinction.) Before you begin coding behaviors, you must make some critical decisions, including:
4. Code the smiling or touching. For each scene, code whether or not a smile or touch occured at least once. Code a maximum of one behavioral event per scene, i.e., if the character smiles twice in one scene, only count it once.. 5. After the film is finished, rate the characters (not the actors) on two interesting variables of your choice, on a 1-10 scale. Use whatever you think might be interesting to compare to the behavioral measure. If you are working in a pair, you may share these coded variables with your partner (in which case you would discuss the ratings and arrive at concensual values). C. Create the dataset Average the smiling or touching for each character by dividing the number of behaviors by the number of scenes in which the character appeared. Create an SPSS dataset that includes one column for character (use a short string variable), a column for gender, a column for the averaged behavioral measure, and columns for the character ratings. D. Analyze the data Do these analyses: 1. Average behavioral measure, by gender 2. T-test between male and females on the behavior measure 3. Correlations among the behavioral measure and the rated variables Use the text insert facility in SPSS to write your name into the output files. E. Brief report We will not write an APA report for this project, since the focus is mainly on SPSS. Instead, write a one-page summary of what you did and what you found. Attach to the report:
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