Using the Scientific Method to Explore Satisfaction in Interpersonal Relationships

Author(s)

Sarah Kavanagh, The New York Times Learning Network

Bridget Anderson, The Bank Street College of Education in New York City

Grades: 6-8, 9-12

Subjects: Health, Science

Interdisciplinary Connections

Overview of Lesson Plan:In this lesson students will explore what qualities must be present in order for people to be satisfied with their interpersonal relationships. They will create hypotheses and experiments to test the relationship between these qualities and people’s levels of satisfaction with their relationships.

Review the Academic Content Standards related to this lesson.

Suggested Time Allowance:1 hour

Objectives:

Students will:

1. Discuss what qualities must be present in relationships in order for participants to feel satisfied.

2. Examine the relationship between someone’s responses to his or her partner’s successes and the partner’s overall satisfaction with the relationship by reading and discussing “For Couples, Reaction to Good News Matters More Than Reaction to Bad.”

3. Create their own hypotheses, agree upon one, and design questionnaires to test the importance of certain qualities in regard to overall satisfaction within relationships.

4. Collect data to test the hypothesis selected by the class.

Resources / Materials:

-student journals

-paper

-pens/pencils

-classroom board

-copies of “For Couples, Reaction to Good News Matters More Than Reaction to Bad” (found online at http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20061205tuesday.html) (one per student)

Activities / Procedures:

1. WARM-UP/DO-NOW: In their journals, students respond to the following prompt (written on the board prior to class): “What qualities must be present in a romantic relationship in order for you to feel satisfied? What qualities must be present in a friendship in order for you to feel satisfied? What qualities must be present in a familial relationship in order for you to feel satisfied? What qualities are important to have in all three types of relationships?” After students have finished writing, have them share their responses. What qualities did most people mention? If any, what common qualities remained unmentioned (respect, humor, attraction, shared interests, shared goals, shared morals, shared values, honesty, etc…)? Ask the class to decide upon a few of the most important qualities for successful relationships. Why are these qualities the most important? As students share their responses note them on the board.

2. As a class, read and discuss the article “For Couples, Reaction to Good News Matters More Than Reaction to Bad” (found online at http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/featured_articles/20061205tuesday.html), focusing on the following questions:

a. What were the findings of the recent study found in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology?

b. What does Art Aron mean when he says that this study fits “with this whole thrust in the field, focusing on how to make things better rather than trying to avoid making them worse?”

c. What types of couples were excluded from this study?

d. In what different ways did the scientists involved in this study collect data?

e. How is the laboratory similar to life?

f. What does the author of the article mean when he says that “you get more bang for your buck by amplifying life’s rewards?”

g. Why is your ego on the line when you share good news?

h. If couples in trouble read this article, how might they change their behaviors in order to save their relationships?

3. Conduct a short discussion with the class about hypotheses. (The United States Environmental Protection Agency has valuable information about Hypotheses and the Scientific Method at http://www.epa.gov/maia/html/scientific.html.) Have students brainstorm the possible hypotheses that scientists involved in this study might have held before collecting their data.

Inform students that they will be creating their own hypotheses regarding what makes people feel satisfied in relationships. Divide the class into pairs. Instruct students to reflect on their personal experiences and to consider the “observations” noted on the board to help them formulate their hypotheses about what makes people feel satisfied in relationships; for their purposes all types of relationships will be included: family, friendship, and romantic relationships. Remind students that making observations is the first step in the scientific method. Instruct them to formulate their hypotheses in ways that are testable using the scientific method. Have students answer the following guiding questions to help them formulate testable hypotheses:

-What claim are you attempting to prove or disprove?

-What is the opposite notion of your hypothesis?

-What data will you need to collect in order to prove or disprove your hypothesis?

Inform students that if they cannot answer one or more of these questions they may need to adjust their hypotheses to make them testable. For example, a hypothesis that would be hard to test might be: “People are satisfied by their relationships when they are treated nicely.” In this example “nicely” is not defined and so it is not testable. A testable hypothesis might look something like this: “When two people spend more than three hours a week together, they are more satisfied by their relationship.” In this hypothesis, the variable is quantifiable and therefore testable.

Once each pair has come up with a testable hypothesis, have students reconvene to share ideas. Their task is to listen to all of the hypotheses and decide which is the most testable and most interesting. Inform students that they will be testing each hypothesis as it can be applied to three different types of relationships: Romantic, Friendships, and Familial. Which hypothesis do they think is best suited for the purposes of the class? After all hypotheses have been presented, students vote on the one they would most like to test.

After a hypothesis has been chosen, divide the class into three groups. Assign one group to explore Romantic Relationships, one to examine Friendships, and one to investigate Familial Relationships. Instruct each group to create a questionnaire that will help determine the accuracy of the hypothesis. The Romantic Relationship group´s questionnaire should ask participants to respond based on one current involvement. The Friendship group´s questionnaire should ask participants to respond based on one specific friendship. The Familial Relationship group´s questionnaire should ask participants to respond based on one specific familial tie. The answers to these questions will serve as scientific data to support or refute the hypothesis. Remind students that they may need to have participants in their studies fill out questionnaires more than once in order to collect the necessary data to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

Offer students copies of the study that they read about in the article in handout form (found at http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:ebkNwqi-ipAJ:www.tc.umn.edu/~tiberius/workshop_papers/minnesota.pdf+Gable+Will+You+Be+There+for+Me+When+Things+Go+Right%3F+Supportive+Responses+to+Positive+Event+Disclosures.&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1). Students should model their questionnaires as illustrated in the study. Note that scientists asked participants to rank things like “daily conflicts,” “daily positive activities,” “intimacy,” and “daily satisfaction” on a numerical scale. Students may want to create questions similar in structure to those used in the study. Remind students that when collecting data from human subjects, confidentiality is a big concern. How will they ensure the confidentiality of those participating? If they cannot ensure confidentiality, their subjects may not be truthful in their responses and their data may be skewed.

Once all three groups have composed the questionnaires to be used for data collection, have students share their work. Ask the class if these three questionnaires are effectively testing the same hypothesis. Have students suggest ways to improve all questionnaires so that the data collected will not be skewed and will relate directly to the hypothesis.

HOMEWORK/WRAP-UP: Students make copies of their questionnaires, five per group member, to administer to people outside the class. Each student should write a two page analysis predicting whether or not the hypothesis will be supported or refuted based on the data he or she obtained from the five questionnaires. The class will come together at future date to compile and analyze the complete data.

Further Questions for Discussion:

-What parts of interpersonal relationships escape scientific definition, if any?

-How might the findings of this study change people’s habits and customs, if at all?

-How might the findings of this study influence social psychology, if at all?

Evaluation / Assessment:

Students will be evaluated based on their initial journal entries, participation in class, pair, and small group discussions, assistance in creating hypotheses and questionnaires, and the complete collection of data outside of class.

Vocabulary:

searing, triumphs, psychology, passive, indifference, crucial, undermining, thrust, overwhelmed, battery, detachment, sarcasm, analysis, uninspiring, promotion, tremendous, belittling, amplifying, ego, distress

Extension Activities:

-Research the position of a psychologist and create a profile offering a complete job description.

-Create a poster showing how the brain responds to success and failure in the short and long term.

-Research what biological processes occur when a person feels attraction. How does biology affect the formation and dissolution of relationships?

Interdisciplinary Connections:

Language Arts- Analyze a relationship in a piece of literature using the findings of the study that you read about in class. Do the scientific findings that you read about in class hold true in literature?

Fine Arts- Express creatively how you feel about a relationship in your life through the medium of collage.

Media Studies- Explore a relationship depicted on television or in a movie using the findings of the study that you read about in class. Fill out the questionnaire you created using these characters as subjects.

American History- Write a profile of another social psychology study from a different time in history. How can these studies influence today’s society?

Teaching with The Times- Choose a specific New York Times article from the Science Times section that is of particular interest to you. Research a study mentioned in the article in further detail. Create a profile of this study to share with your class. To order The New York Times for your classroom, click here.

Other Information on the Web

-The text of the study “What Do You Do When Things Go Right? The Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Benefits of Sharing Positive Events” can be found at http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:ebkNwqi-ipAJ:www.tc.umn.edu/~tiberius/workshop_papers/minnesota.pdf+Gable+Will+You+Be+There+for+Me+When+Things+Go+Right%3F+Supportive+Responses+to+Positive+Event+Disclosures.&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1.

I’m trying to start with a measurement lab to see how accurate instruments are and compare sig figs. There are a few of those.

If you’re going to do a scientific method, any lab should work as long as scientific method is useful, I don’t think it is. One simple fun lab you could do is to see how far you can throw a paper airplane. Have the kids make different sized/shaped planes and see which go the furthest. You can analyze the data and such as well.

I’ve used it in elementary school to demonstrate color theory for art, but I always make the students write up the experiment as a science lesson. They have to write out their guesses about what will happen, list the supplies needed, explain the procedure, note their observations, and write a conclusion. This helps get them organized for scientific method.

Have the students work in groups of three or six. You only need six test tubes or beakers (for each group of students), food coloring (red, yellow, blue), and water. Discuss the results in class. Have the group submit one paper for their group.

I also use the same equipment plus a stop watch for hot and cold water so the students can see how temperature affects the mixing of colors. A thermometer helps, too, but it depends what the point of the lesson is.

Why not some Physics instead of chemistry?

– using prisms to make spectrums

– gravity: feather in a vacuum