Zachary Estes
Experimental Methods: From Ideation to Publication
Zachary Estes (PhD in Psychology, Princeton University) is Associate Professor of Marketing at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. He previously served as Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia (USA), and as Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Warwick (UK). He is currently Associate Editor of Cognitive Science, and has served on the editorial boards of several other journals. His research on cognition, emotion, and consumer behavior has been awarded research grants from the British Academy (UK) and from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), and has been published in psychology and marketing journals including Cognitive Psychology, Emotion, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Psychological Science, and Psychology & Marketing. He has taught courses and workshops on Experimental Methods for both academics and practitioners at the University of Warwick (UK), University of Birmingham (UK), University of Innsbruck (Austria), and Bocconi University (Italy).
Contents
The prevalence of experimental research is increasing across the social sciences. The aim of this workshop therefore is to provide a sound and thorough understanding of experimental research, from the initial stage of idea generation to the final stage of academic publication. The five daily sessions are designed as a step-by-step, practical guide to experimental research, with an emphasis on behavioral experiments. Each session will consist of approximately half-time for general instruction and half-time for hands-on tutorials to discuss or develop workshop participants' own experimental research.
- Session 1: Generating Ideas and Designing Experiments to Test Them. This session will consider strategies for generating research ideas, and will introduce or review the fundamentals of experimental research methods (e.g., variables, controls, validity, reliability, sampling, designs).
- Session 2: Programming Experiments. This session will provide practical guidance on how to program and present an experiment with commonly available software (e.g., Qualtrics, E-Prime).
- Session 3: Conducting Experiments. This session will provide practical guidance on how to obtain participant samples and collect data in the laboratory, in the classroom, online (e.g., Mechanical Turk), or in the field.
- Session 4: Analyzing Experimental Data. This session will provide practical guidance on how to interpret and use common statistics for experimental research, including mediation and moderation analyses.
- Session 5: Publishing Experimental Research. This session will provide practical guidance on how to report experimental research for academic publication. We will also discuss the academic publication process more generally, including consideration of ethical issues in experimental research.
Bibliography
Required Readings
- Session 1: Kamenica, E., Naclerio, R., & Malani, A. (2013). Advertisements impact the physiological efficacy of a branded drug. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 12931-12935.
- Session 3: Mason, W., & Suri, S. (2012). Conducting behavioral research on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Behavior Research Methods, 44, 1-23. (optional: pages 11-13 + appendix)
- Session 4: Zhao, X., Lynch, J. G., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myth and Truth about Mediation Analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 37, 197-206.
- Session 5: Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22, 359-1366.
Optional Readings
- Session 3: Chandler, J., Mueller, P., & Paolacci, G. (2014). Nonnaïveté among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers: Consequences and solutions for behavioral researchers. Behavior Research Methods, 46, 112-130. [This paper discusses sampling issues concerning Mechanical Turk.]
- Session 4: Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis. Guilford: London. [This is the most important text on mediation and moderation analyses.]
- Session 4: Atalay, A. S., Bodur, H. O., & Rasolofoarison, D. (2012). Shining in the center: Central gaze cascade effect on product choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 39, 848-866. [This paper provides an example of the use and reporting of mediation analyses.]
Prerequisites
The readings listed above are recommended but not required prior to the workshop. Familiarity with Qualtrics, E-Prime, Mechanical Turk, SPSS, and Hayes' PROCESS script is also beneficial but not required.