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From: jgro@ur-tut.UUCP (Jeremy Grodberg)
Newsgroups: sci.research
Subject: Re: MALE SEXUALITY RESEARCH
Message-ID: <826@ur-tut.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 00:11:05 EST
Article-I.D.: ur-tut.826
Posted: Thu Nov  6 00:11:05 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Nov-86 20:52:14 EST
References: <620@dg_rtp.UUCP> <526@cci632.UUCP> <656@dg_rtp.UUCP> <595@cci632.UUCP> <668@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Reply-To: jgro@ur-tut.UUCP (Jeremy Grodberg)
Organization: Univ. of Rochester Computing Center
Lines: 68


In article <668@dg_rtp.UUCP> throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
[about the question "Do you agree with the following statement:
  (something like) A woman wants a man to lay down the law to her." and 
  that questions usefulness on psychological questionaire]
>> As you point out, a "Ralph Crampden" type might even include brutality
>> in his definition of "laying down the law".  A more moderate person
>> might feel that "laying down the law" means stating your "rules" and
>> expecting them to be followed.  In fact, to determine how this was
>> interpreted, there was also a question about whether women liked to
>> be "roughed up".
>
>because 1) "and expecting them to be followed" was never stated anywhere
>in the question I used as an example...

No one said it was stated. The comment was that it might be inferred.

>I still strongly maintain that before I can agree or disagree with a
>statement, I must know what the statement means.  And further, before I
>know what someone who has stated agreement or disagreement with this
>statement "really" thinks, I must know what *THEY* thought the statement
>meant.  Lacking the first, I can't honestly participate in the survey,
>and lacking the second will make me distrust any results.
>

    I think the key problem with your argument is the implication that such
questions can be put unambiguously.  The question (".. lays down the law...")
posed would reveal a deeper attitude about how women want to be treated than
simply whether or not they want to be beaten.  While different people would
interpret the question differently, their choice of interpretation is part of
the test.  The answer will reveal simply if the person feels women want to be
controlled by a man.  Unfortunately, any way of phrasing the question will be
interpreted differently by different people.  The people reading my statement
will already have different opinions about my interpretation of the question 
based on what they thought I meant by "controlled."  A man who feels women 
want to be physically dominated might not feel they want to be "controlled," 
because to him the word suggests _removing_ female initiative, rather than 
keeping it within boundaries.
    Any question that will be broadly understood (remember a huge number of 
people read below "sixth grade" level) will be ambiguous.  The best you can
do on a questionaire is to channel the ambiguity in a known direction with
meaningful results.  Of course it would be better to spend a year of analysis
with each of 1000 randomly selected people, but obviously not as likely
to find researchers, funding, or 1000 randomly selected people willing to 
participate.  A theoretically perfect study is only thoretical.

>....  But I view the survey as being a group of assertions like these:
>
>    Women always furglumple.
>    When a man and a woman glignarltz, they often also froosniple.
>    Men want blatzmimp from women.
>
>I contend that the use of context-dependant phrases like "lay down the
>law", "men only want one thing", and so on in a context-impoverished
>survey is equivalent to loading the questions with nonsense words like
>"blatzmimp".  Blatzmimp could be sex, companionship, money, shoes,
>children, cold feet, panty hose, or abusive domination.

I find it hard to belive that "lay down the law" is as ambiguous as blatzmimp.

          
"The only thing perfectly clear is a vacuum."
        --Jeremy Grodberg

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