PREFACE
This book presents a broad general introduction to social science research
methodology. Despite increased education， very few people even today are
prepared to evaluate claims made on the basis of social science research.
We believe that underlying all social and behavio~e
logic of the scientific method itself: mastery and appl cat on of this logic is
w~atis principally needed to discriminate between trustworthy and invalid
sc!entific claims. Our primary aim in this book is to~f
science as applied to questions about behavior， especially human behavior.
We have assumed our readers do not have prior knowledge of any of the
technical matters we raise. Thus each of the statistical concepts we mention
is explained from scratch， every technical term is defined explicitly， and a
verbal \"translation\" is provided for the very few simple mathematical ex-
pressions we use. Within the confines of this strategy， we have tried in this
edition to present a reasonably complete survey of the concepts， methods
and issues that surround social and behavioral research.
This second edition is a major revision， with many additions and several
important changes in organization. We have revised the organization of the
book to follow the progression of scientific logic more closely than before.
Chapter 1 is now a much more complete overview of the history and nature
of behavioral science and of the recurring issues in research design (the
nature of causal analysis， the relationship between research and theory，
created vs. natural treatments， laboratory vs. field settings， basic and ap-
plied research， and individual differences). This overview chapter also has
an entirely new section on ethics in research involving human subjects and
includes a complete reprint of the ethical principles adopted for research
by the American Psychological Association.
Chapter 2 introduces the issues surrounding the collection of basic
descriptive data， including new sections dealing with scales of measurement，
reliability， validity and an introductory explanation of the concept of vari-
ability， all of which are built on later. In Chapter 3 we turn to data collection
and describe the often unseen hazards of reactivity in observations of human
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