Originally posted by Anarchy UK
A census actually provides sociological data for instance the demographic changes in a particular suburb, the decline of a particular religion, these are all hypothesis which census data can be used to support.
just to correct your terminology: A census refers to how data is collected. Someone can run statistical analysis on census data, but the census itself is not a test of anything. A p value is only ever used to describe how likely the results of a test are due to chance variation. So sure, one could do a percentile comparison t-test between census data year over year, and would get a p-value associated with that, however, the census itself is not the test and contains no such probabilities. This is a complex point and generally doesn't come around until one learns experimental design in senior level courses, if not grad level stats, so no worries. Its probably not fair for me to nit pick your stats....
Originally posted by Anarchy UK
Y-you don't know much about how studies using multiples sources are conducted by think tanks etc. do you? R = -9 no offence.
your crack about an R score doesn't make sense, as my lack of knowledge isn't being compared to something.
a R score refers to the strength of a correlation. A correlation refers to how much one variable changes when we see change in another variable. So, something like height and weight generally have a positive correlation: as a person gets taller, they get heavier, or: if a personal is heavier, they are likely taller. A negative correlation is the same, but deals with relationships that go in the opposite direction: as a person ages, their performance on memory gets worse, or: if a person performs poorly on a memory test, they are likely older. These are just examples off the top of my head, so don't take them as gospel (for instance, many older people only have memory defects compared to their younger selves, not in absolute). Also, it is important to note that a correlation is not causation, so in this regard, we couldn't say that height causes weight, or that age causes memory deficit. To say those types of things, proper experiments are required.
To make the insult work, something like "the number of words you use reflects how much you know, R= -.9". A single variable, "how much I know about data analysis", can't have an R score.
also, seriously, [sic]. Lets not measure penises here, but how well can you explain a multiple downward stepwise regression over third order polynomials? I'm not the forum member you want to compare data analysis ability to.
Originally posted by Anarchy UK
Actually by arguing the group dynamic is the same for every riot is ridiculous as some are possibly goal driven e.g. taking a telly and some are emotion driven e.g. an estate exploding because of a death. No single discipline explains something as complex as what has gone on in the U.K. not Economics, not Psychology, not Sociology or Philosophy. In relation to the results of rioting being the same, could you expand on that?
and ya, I think you missed my point on Ashe there... What I'm saying is, the Ashe conformity experiment is something that has been run hundreds, if not thousands of times and is highly robust, including studies where cultural differences have been examined. This is something people would learn in either psych 101, or a social psych 201 intro course, as the Ashe experiments are up there with Stanford and Milgram as some of the most famous psychological experiments ever. Thus, by bringing up Ashe I don't feel like I am presenting anything a layman on a message board would have difficulty talking about.
Now, there are many ways psychologists try to explain Ashe's results. One is conformity: people give the same false answer because seeing everyone else do so creates a form of cognitive dissonance preventing them from giving the right answer, another is belongingness: people want to be part of the group so they give the wrong answer, or another is self-doubt: seeing other people give the wrong answer makes one less sure of their own answer and therefore they go with the group because they feel the group probably know better.
Whether the Ashe experiment is explained by one of these theories or another is a very open field of debate in psych, but one that to have any meaningful discussion about, one would need to be familiar with psychological theories that aren't touched upon until much later in a psych degree, if not grad level or above (for instance, I'm not qualified to say with any certainty which one it is, because I haven't taken a social or personality based psych course in years). Distinguishing between social pressure and the desire to belong is not easy at all, and I don't envy people who have decided to do that as their profession.
My point was that, regardless of the mechanism through which Ashe's results occur, the result, that people conform based on social cues even when it reflects poorly on themselves and there is no actual group to which they are conforming, don't change. So whether people want to belong or just feel like everyone knows better than them really isn't important unless you want to have a very detailed discussion about minutia in social/personality psych. I'm glad to have that conversation if you want, but like I said, its not even really my own area.
The thing is, in relation to these riots, the mechanism is unimportant. In so far as Ashe is relevant to the riots, the relevance is in the fact that people conform, not the underlying psychological motivations they have in conforming. It doesn't matter if joining the riot reduces cognitive dissonance or makes the rioter sense they belong to a larger group, so long as we can look at the way people are known to conform and talk about those implications to the riots.
A similar point could be made about the Stanford experiment. It really is unknown what psychological mechanism caused even Zimbardo to fall subject to the impact of social context, however, the results indicate the importance of social context in human behaviour. The relevance to the riots are not in the mechanism, but in the results themselves.
That is my point about the results being the same. No matter which interpretation of Ashe you take, the results are the same and it is just as relevant to the riots. I suppose the exception would be, can you think of a way to interpret Ashe's results that make it non-relevant to the riots? If you do, submit that ***** for publication asap