Role play (psychological research)

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In psychological research methodology, role play refers to a special procedure for empirical research into human experience and behavior. The German psychologist Manfred Sader assigns this method - a special case of the psychological experiment - the main focus of its application to "the careful and comprehensive description of even more complex psychological experiences, processes and connections" (Sader 1986, p. 11). The social psychologist Herbert C. Kelman ( Harvard University ) was of the opinion as early as 1967 that “role-playing games are perhaps the most promising approach to alternative approaches for experimental psychological research”. John Derek Greenwood (1983) also emphasizes the importance of role play, especially for the development of experimental strategies in social psychology. According to Adrian Furnham (1997), simulation and role-play experiments are controversial in social psychology, as their obvious advantages are offset by a number of particular difficulties.

Historically, the first use of role-playing games to collect data is mostly attributed to JL Moreno in the 1920s, who subsequently developed his psychodrama therapy from it . The role play as an experimental psychological research method must be distinguished from this. In order to be suitable as a scientific survey instrument, the use of role-plays in data collection must meet strict methodological criteria, as Sader (1986), Furnham (1997), Yardley-Matwiejczuk (1997) and Stahlke (2001) work out. Sader evaluates the methodologically correct role-play as a sensible alternative to the deception processes in laboratory experiments - this alternative was already the subject of the US controversy over the possibilities of role-play in psychological experimental research in the 1970s.

As a research method, role-play is rarely mentioned explicitly in psychology, although a number of psychological research projects make use of role-play. People are either placed in situations in which they are (knowingly or unknowingly) confronted with role-playing people, or they are supposed to put themselves in certain roles. Sader (1986) presents meta-studies on the occurrence of different variants of role-playing games in psychological experimental research, a more recent overview can be found in Yardley-Matwiejczuk (1997).

The main starting point of the international specialist discourse on role play as a special form of experimental psychological research is the following problem:

The behavior of participants in psychological field and laboratory experiments is inevitably influenced by the fact that they are participants in the experiment, that is, they “play” the role of participants. They will behave more or less consciously as they think they are expected to do as participants in the experiment, or as they are encouraged to do by the experimenter. When it comes to the investigation of realistic psychological questions, this can lead to influences on the investigation results that are difficult to assess: investigation data are obtained from "role players" without being aware of this fact or at least without being able to control the influence of this circumstance on the investigation results. This is one of the manifold problems that are referred to in the psychological method discourse as the problem of "ecological viability" . As early as 1962, Martin T. Orne formulated the assumption that the behavior of a person in an experimental situation will be determined by two types of variables: on the one hand, by the variables traditionally defined as experimental variables and, on the other hand, by the encouraging characters that the experimental situation for the subject has. The respective strength of the second type of variable will determine the reproducibility of the experiment and the transferability of the test results to non-experimental contexts.

As one of the ways in which this problem can be dealt with (for other possibilities see: Problems of the Psychological Experiment ), the proponents of a scientifically and methodically reflected use of role-playing in psychological experiments advocate this hardly avoidable "hidden role-play" for certain questions to replace the test participant with suitable forms of the disclosed, explicit role play.

As a rule, it is not about new special experiments, but rather that the participants in psychological experiments are fully informed about the purposes and modalities of the experiment before they are carried out. They can then consciously play their role as participants in the experiment instead of being left in the dark about the situation and their role in it, as is the case with other experimental arrangements. After the experiment, you can contribute your experience as an informed participant to the evaluation. The test evaluation is therefore not only dependent on the observed behavior or measurement results. In order to check the advantages and disadvantages of this method, some well-known social psychological experiments were carried out again, modified in this way. Greenberg, for example, replicated in 1967 the well-known experiment by Stanley Schachter (1959), which was intended to test his hypothesis that firstborns and only children, even as adults, show a stronger need for belonging than others in frightening situations. In contrast to the original test arrangement, Greenberg informed the participants before the experiment that they were now going to take part in a role-play experiment and what it was about. It was only after this clarification that the same terrifying machines were built as in Schacher's original experiment, and it was announced that these machines would give off electric shocks. The results of this role-play variant of the experiment were compared with the results of the original experiment, which was based on deceiving the participants. The discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of these two variants continues.

Sader cites a study by Piliavin, Rodin & Piliavin (1969), in which 4,450 passengers on the New York subway were confronted with a scene in a large-scale experiment to illustrate the often unreflective use of role-playing games in the social-psychological experiment alleged passenger passed out while driving. This scene was used in different variations (passenger with crutches, passenger with alcohol smell, passenger with white or dark skin color, etc.). The experiment investigated phenomena of assistance provided and failure to provide assistance. Sader criticizes this and a number of similar studies for the “methodologically unquestioned execution of a given script”. Such an approach would not adequately reflect and implement the necessary scientific conditions for a controlled psychological experiment using role play. In contrast, Sader formulates a number of methodological criteria for a scientifically proven use of role play in psychological experiments.

literature

  • Siamak Movahedi (1977): Role Playing: An Alternative to What? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1977, 3, 489-497.
  • John Derek Greenwood (1983): Role-playing as an experimental strategy in social psychology . European Journal of Social Psychology, 13 (3), pp. 235-254.
  • Manfred Sader (1986): role play as a research method . Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, ISBN 978-3-531-11786-7 .
  • Adrian Furnham, Social Interaction, in: Andrew Baum et al. (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , Cambridge University Press 1997, 55-63. 2nd edition 2007, ISBN 978-0521605106 .
  • Krysia M. Yardley-Matwiejczuk (1997): Role Play: Theory and Practice . London - Thousand Oaks - New Delhi: SAGE Publications, ISBN 978-0803984516 .
  • Iris Stahlke (2001): The role play as a method of qualitative social research . Munster-New York: Waxmann. ISBN 3-89325-883-3 .
  • Dawn T. Robinson (2004): Role Playing . In: Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Alan Bryman & Tim Futing Liao, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods , Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, pp. 977-978.
  • William D. Crano, Marilynn B. Brewer, Andrew Lac (2014): Constructing Laboratory Experiments: Role-Playing Simulations. Pp. 113-117 in: Crano, Brewer & Lac, Principles and Methods of Social Research , Routledge.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see HC Kelman, Human use of human subjects, Psychological Bulletin, 67 , 1967.
  2. ↑ cf. Adrian Furnham, Social Interaction, in: Andrew Baum et al. (eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , Cambridge University Press 1997, 55-63; on simulation and role playing in psychological experiments: p. 59.
  3. ↑ cf. Andreas Bley, taking on perspectives in conflict situations . Diplomica 1987.
  4. ↑ For an overview of the literature, see Yardley-Matwiejczuk 1997 and p. 398 of: Thomas Blass 1991, Understanding Behavior in the Milgram Obedience Experiment, Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 60 (3), 398-413.
  5. ↑ cf. Orne, MT, On the social psychology of the psychological experiment: With particular reference to demand characteristics and their implications. American Psychologist , 1962, 17, 776-783. For the controversy in the American Psychologist on this issue in the 1970s, see Mohavedy 1977.
  6. ↑ cf. Orne 1962, p. 779.
  7. ↑ see on this and other experiments as well as the ongoing critical discussion on this topic: Heinz Schuler, Ethical Problems in Psychological Research , Academic Press 1982 and 2013, pp. 137–165.
  8. ↑ Piliavin, Rodin & Piliavin 1969, Good Samaritanism: An underground phenomenon? , presented in Sader 1986, p. 39f.
  9. ↑ Sader 1986, p. 40.