Methodological access constraints explain psychology’s neglect of emergencies
Evidence
There are many challenges in studying emergencies and disasters, and it seems likely that these challenges are among the reasons that the topic has been neglected in social psychology. Indeed, until recently, many of the pioneering developments in the field have been left to other disciplines, especially sociology. Difficulties of access affect the quality and quantity of data that can be gathered. Thus most studies of emergencies and disasters, like those described here, are not able to gather data in the immediate context of the event. We have made extensive use of post hoc interviews. These can provide powerful experiential accounts, but are likely to involve issues of social desirability and accountability, as well as memory (see Cocking & Drury, 2014). In some of our studies, the use of naturalistic secondary data, sometimes produced immediately after the event, helps to mitigate some of these negative features, although such data may not address topics of interest (such as shared social identity). — John Drury, The role of social identity processes…, 152
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the epistemic tradeoffs of post hoc interviews versus naturalistic secondary data that frame the whole emergency literature’s evidentiary status.