Strategies for Promoting Strong Inferences in Political Psychology Research

<p>The goals of this chapter are to first describe two common pitfalls of social psychological approaches to the study of ideological differences, specifically, a pre-occupation with explaining conservatives to the neglect of liberals and an over-reliance on positive test strategies. As guards against these potential pit falls, we recommend that researchers shift their orientation toward negative test strategies, something that can be facilitated by using a “grid” approach to hypothesis generation. The grid approach to hypothesis generation forces researchers to consider a set of competing explanations for liberal and conservative thoughts, feelings, and behavior, that vary in possible normative spin, which helps protect against possible researcher bias.</p>