Forum 3 research methods - Essay Example

Article Summary School Article Summary This research was conducted to identify the attitudes of public toward the hate crime laws as wellas their possible causes. A path model supported by data was used. The sex, age, education, race, and income of the respondents were the basic demographic variables chosen for the study. Data was acquired by asking the respondents five questions in total. Results of the research indicated that the prime factor that played a decisive role in the people’s approval or denial of a hate crime law was the inclusion of the category of homosexuals into the protected groups.

It was found that people who wanted the inclusion of homosexuals into the protected group supported the hate crime law whereas others that wanted homosexuals out of the protected group rejected the hate crime law. As contained by the theory of identity politics, the data-supported path model helped the researchers find that the people who considered the hate crimes a source of fear among the victim group’s members as well as the economic and social liberals raised their support for the inclusion of the homosexuals into the hate crime laws.

Rest of the research findings were not consistent with the theory of identity politics that considers the movement a united front. A surprising finding of the research was that the likelihood of belief in the increase of hate crimes was found to be more in the social conservatives as compared to the economic conservatives. All variables possibly having some kind of indirect or direct relationship with the dependent model included in the study were displayed in the form of a skeletal model shown in the article as Fig. 1. The skeletal model’s fundamental dependent variable was the general extent of support of a respondent for a hate crime law containing the condition of penalty enhancement.

The definition of a variable as the dependent or independent variable depended upon the regression. In total, seven regressions were performed. In the first regression, the dependent variable in the skeletal model i.e. general hate crime law attitude was shown towards the extreme right with all of the independent variables towards the left. In the subsequent six regressions, “the dependent variables were homosexual inclusion, verbal aggression inclusion, hate crimes increased, fear among other group members, social liberalism/conservatism, and economic liberalism/conservatism” (Johnson and Byers, 2003, p. 232), whereas the independent variables in these six regressions were all variables towards the left of but not above or below the dependent variable chosen for a particular regression.

No objective evidence was found to support the relationship between the dependent variable and the independent variables in the start. Inclusion of other variables in the skeletal model with the dependent variable was based on the “possibility” that they could be indirectly or directly linked with the dependent variable. However, this possibility of relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable was derived from the past research works that elaborated these relationships, and were thus cited into the authors’ research.

For example, the variable of “homosexual inclusion” was derived from the research of Herek (1989). So the evidence for the relationship between the direct variable and the indirect variables in each regression was primarily the findings of the past researchers. References:Herek, G. M. (1989). Hate crimes against lesbians and gay men: Issues for research and policy. American Psychologist. 44(6): 948 – 955. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2751155. Johnson, S. D., and Byers, B. D. (2003).

Attitudes toward hate crime laws. Journal of Criminal Justice. 31: 227-235. Retrieved from http://learn.uci.edu/media/F07/00001/johnson_byers.pdf.