In the past three decades, methods that go by the generic name of everyday-experience methods have matured from the status of promising innovations to standard, widely used tools. This term refers to a paradigm that examines social psychological theories and phenomena in the ebb and flow of everyday activity, as it is displayed in its natural context. This technique, which includes daily diary studies, experience sampling, and ecological momentary assessment, has become remarkably popular in the past two decades, so much so that all researchers must be familiar with its advantages and limitations. The current chapter aims to help budding researchers become familiar with this tool and its potential for expanding the validity, relevance, and usefulness of our research.

Meta-analysis is the quantitative analysis of results of a research literature. Typically, meta-analysis is paired with a systematic review that fully documents the search process, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and study characteristics. A key feature of meta-analysis is the calculation of effect sizes – metric-free indices of study outcome that allow the mathematical combination of effects across studies. The methodological literature on meta-analysis has grown rapidly in recent years, yielding an abundance of resources and sophisticated analytic techniques. These developments are improvements to the field but can also be overwhelming to new aspiring meta-analysts. This chapter therefore aims to demystify some of that complexity, offering conceptual explanations instead of mathematical formulas. We aim to help readers who have not conducted a meta-analysis before to get started, as well as to help those who simply want to be intelligent consumers of published meta-analyses.

This chapter describes a common set of challenges faced in interdisciplinary research and strategies for addressing each of these challenges. These strategies are shown to be quite distinct from the disciplinary methods addressed in other chapters in this Handbook. Importantly, strategies are outlined for several distinct steps in the interdisciplinary research process. A set of challenges associated with team research is also identified, and a set of strategies for addressing these is presented. Having described how interdisciplinary research is performed, we are then able to clarify our definition of interdisciplinarity. The chapter closes with discussions of the relationship between interdisciplinarity and creativity, appropriate standards for evaluating interdisciplinary research, important concerns regarding the impact of interdisciplinary research on career progress, and the value of employing integrative strategies within disciplines. In all, the chapter urges a symbiotic relationship between specialized and interdisciplinary research.

In this chapter, we review theory and research regarding sources and predictors of parental knowledge. Specifically, we focus on adolescents’ information management, parenting and parent–adolescent relationships, parents’ and adolescents’ characteristics, and family context as sources and predictors of parental knowledge of adolescents’ activities, whereabouts, and associations. The findings show that disclosure and secrecy are fundamental sources of parental knowledge and that when parent–adolescent relationships are positive (e.g. warm, trusting, and autonomy supportive), parents are more likely to acquire accurate knowledge about their adolescents’ daily lives. The impact of parental solicitation and rule-setting on parental knowledge often depends on many other factors such as parenting or cultural context. Parental knowledge also differs as a function of parent gender, adolescent age and gender, adolescent well-being, family structure, ethnic background, and cultural values. We provide future directions for research and emphasize the need for theory-driven research.

All social and behavioral sciences research is conducted within a cultural context. This chapter highlights the role of culture in research, focusing on important ethical and methodological considerations. It is important to explicitly define culture when conducting culturally focused research and to include researchers with significant knowledge of a cultural context as partners in identifying ethical concerns, designing research studies, and contextualizing research findings. We identify a number of ethical concerns that are foundational to the design of cultural research and yet are rarely included in research training, such as recognizing power differences, developing awareness of local sensitivities and vulnerabilities, identifying appropriate review boards to evaluate and oversee culturally focused research, and considering elements of consent when working with diverse populations. We discuss the importance of operationalizing culture, translating words, methods, or constructs across cultures, specific considerations associated with identifying and recruiting participants, and collecting and analyzing data. Although explicitly identified as cross-cultural concerns, we argue that considering these issues is important for all researchers working in human sciences.

We provide a practical overview of the most important steps of behavioral observation and coding, with a focus on how these processes are typically executed within social and personality psychology. The chapter has six main sections. We begin by explaining what is meant by behavioral observation and coding, and we outline the strengths and challenges of this method. We then describe two guiding principles that apply throughout observation and coding. Next, we highlight several aspects of observation and coding for researchers to consider, many of which vary along a continuum. We also discuss practical questions regarding coding, such as the number of coders needed. We describe the analysis of behavioral data – from establishing inter-rater agreement to running models with the coded behaviors as outcomes of interest. Lastly, we discuss concerns related to automated processing of videos and text and topics related to the open-science movement.

Interviews can shed light on how people make sense of their daily lives and their experiences with phenomena through the intentional exchange of questions and responses and thematic explorations. The process of preparing for, conducting, and wrapping up an interview requires a delicate dance in which both the researcher and the interview participant engage. Furthermore, decisions made during each phase of the interview process have significant implications for the trustworthiness of findings and the relationships between researchers and interview participants. In this chapter, we highlight key steps in the interview process that facilitate producing a high-quality interview, transcript, and related analyses and deliverables. We also consider new and emerging reflections that emphasize innovation, reciprocity, care, and critical knowledge.

Adequate measurement of psychological phenomena is a fundamental aspect of theory construction and validation. Forming composite scales from individual items has a long and honored tradition, although, for predictive purposes, the power of using individual items should be considered. We outline several fundamental steps in the scale construction process, including (1) choosing between prediction and explanation; (2) specifying the construct(s) to measure; (3) choosing items thought to measure these constructs; (4) administering the items; (5) examining the structure and properties of composites of items (scales); (6) forming, scoring, and examining the scales; and (7) validating the resulting scales.

US Latinx adolescents strongly endorse familism, a salient cultural value characterized by close family relationships, interdependence between family members, and the prioritization of family over self. Cultural values, like familism, can serve as cultural scripts that inform behaviors, such as Latinx adolescents’ routine and self-disclosure. In this chapter, we examine routine and self-disclosure and/or domains of disclosure to parents among US Latinx youth while attending to parent and youth gender. Further, we explore associations between familism values and Latinx adolescents’ routine and self-disclosure and/or domains of disclosure to parents and siblings. Based on this literature review, we identify limitations of the current literature. We also recommend future research directions, for example, examining how associations differ based on involvement in US mainstream culture, exploring Latinx youth’s disclosure to extended family members, and investigating Latinx cultural values beyond familism.

Without doubt the validity of scientific theories and their usability for solving societal, economic, ecological, and health-related problems are contingent on the existence of robust and replicable empirical findings. However, a review of the recently published replication literature portrays a rather pessimistic picture of the replicability of even very prominent empirical results, as is evident both from large-scale meta-analytic replication projects and from distinct attempts to replicate selected examples of well-established key findings of personality and social psychology. The present chapter offers a twofold explanation for this undesirable state of affairs. On one hand, the widespread evidence on replication failures reflects to a considerable extent the neglect of logical and methodological standards in replication studies, which sorely ignore such essential issues as manipulation checks, reliability control, regressive shrinkage, and intricacies of multi-causality. On the other hand, however, the community of behavioral scientists must blame themselves for an intrinsic weakness of their corporate identity and their incentive and publication system, namely the tendency to mistake sexy and unexpected findings for original insights and neglect of the assets of cumulative science and theoretical constraints.

Smartphones and social media have considerably transformed adolescents’ media engagement. Adolescents consume, create, and share media content anywhere, anytime, and with anyone, often beyond parents’ oversight. Parents try to keep track of their adolescents’ media use by employing control, surveillance, and solicitation. This chapter explores the prevalence and predictors of such monitoring strategies, and their effectiveness in managing adolescents’ media use and shaping the potential consequences of adolescents’ media use for their mental health. In addition, the chapter discusses parents’ use of digital media for monitoring adolescents’ nonmedia activities, such as the use of location-tracking applications. Overall, evidence regarding the prevalence, predictors, and effectiveness of parental media monitoring is limited and inconclusive. The chapter underscores the need for refining conceptualizations of media monitoring. Moreover, it highlights the importance of understanding the effectiveness of media monitoring within an ever-evolving digital world.

This chapter is a personal account of choices and dilemmas I have faced when conducting case studies. From the very start of my career as a researcher, I have been attracted to getting my hands dirty and conducting case studies in the field. Case studies are not a straightforward research strategy, however. There are multiple choices and dilemmas on the way and there is no “right way” of doing them. Nevertheless, my long career as a case researcher has given me the courage to compile some reflections and recommendations. Throughout the chapter, I draw on some of the most prominent case researchers in the field and present their various approaches to conducting case studies. To give life to the text, I have included examples and illustrations from my own work, being as honest and open as I can about my choices and the difficulties and ethical dilemmas I met on my way.

Survey research is a method commonly used to understand what members of a population think, feel, and do. This chapter uses the total survey error perspective and the fitness for use perspective to explore how biasing and variable errors occur in surveys. Coverage error and sample frames, nonprobability samples and web panels, sampling error, nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias, and sources of measurement error are discussed. Different pretesting methods and modes of data collection commonly used in surveys are described. The chapter concludes that survey research is a tool that social psychologists may use to improve the generalizability of studies, to evaluate how different populations react to different experimental conditions, and to understand patterns in outcomes that may vary over time, place, or people.

This chapter provides an overview on the use and validity of student samples in the behavioral and social sciences. In some instances, data collected from students can be of limited value or even inappropriate; however, in other cases, this approach provides useful data. I offer three general ways to evaluate the use of student samples. First, consider the research design. Descriptive studies that rely on students to draw inferences about the overall population are likely problematic. Second, statistical controls such as multivariate analyses that adjust for other factors may reduce some of the biases that may be introduced through sampling. Third, consider the theorized mechanism – a clear theoretical mechanism that does not vary based on the demographics of the sample allows us to put more faith in constrained samples. Despite these approaches, and regardless of our methods, statistics, and theoretical mechanism, we should be cautious with generalizability claims.

This chapter considers parental monitoring behaviors through the lens of Communication Privacy Management theory (CPM; Petronio, 2002). This chapter details the personal, relational, and cultural factors that guide changes in family privacy boundaries during adolescence, drawing parallels with other prominent theories of social development. Youth can interpret both overt (parental solicitation and control) and covert (“snooping”) monitoring as invasive of privacy; these subjective invasion perceptions are intricately associated with adolescent’s attempts to manage their personal information and maintain desired levels of privacy, but prior research is inconsistent regarding the presence, directionality, and valence of effects. Cultural factors can potentially explain this heterogeneity, including independent versus interdependent orientations toward self-construal, horizontal versus vertical orientations toward privacy control, and power distance in family relationships. Future research should examine parental motivations for intrusive monitoring, the accuracy of youth reports about such practices, and how families should handle information uncovered through parental invasions.

Self-report measures are questions that are answered by respondents about themselves. They are essential to researchers and policy-makers; they provide a direct window for researchers and policy-makers to learn what people know, what they do, and how they think about an issue, a person, or an event. This chapter begins with an overview of how people go about answering survey questions. To answer a survey question, respondents must first understand what the question asks. Next, they retrieve relevant information required by the question and integrate it into an estimate or a judgment. Then, they map the estimate or the judgment to one of the response options provided to them. At each stage of this survey response process, respondents could run into problems that would negatively impact the accuracy and completeness of their answers. Lastly, the chapter discusses how the context in which a survey item is asked and the mode of data collection affect self-report measures. The chapter concludes with recommendations on how to improve the quality of self-report measures.