Vignette (psychology)

A vignette in

impressions of events

.

random samples from the universe of stimuli for presentation to individual respondents, and pooling judgments by multiple respondents in order to sample the universe adequately. Main effects of predictor variables then can be assessed, though not all interactive effects.^[3]

Vignettes in the form of sentences describing actions have been used extensively to estimate impression formation equations in research related to affect control theory.^[4] In this case, different respondents are presented with each sentence, and some are asked to rate how the actor seems during the event, others rate the object of action, and other respondents rate how the overall action makes the behavior seem. Subgroups of respondents receive different sets of event sentences, and the subgroup data are pooled for final analyses.

Vignettes enable controlled studies of mental processes that would be difficult or impossible to study through observation or classical experiments. However, an obvious disadvantage of this method is that reading a vignette is different from experiencing a stimulus or action in everyday life.

References

^ Rossi, Peter H., and Steven L. Nock, Eds. Measuring Social Judgments: The Factorial Survey Approach (Sage, 1982); Rossi, P. H., and Richard A. Berk (1985). "Varieties of normative consensus" American Sociological Review 50: 333-347
^ Heise, David R. Surveying Cultures: Discovering Shared Conceptions and Sentiments (Wiley Interscience, 2010), p. 78
^ Heise, D. R. Surveying Cultures, p. 79
^ Heise, D. R., Surveying Cultures, pp. 86-120

References

See also