Socilogy Research Post

The first thing that comes to mind when I hear the words, “common sense” is the American colloquialism regarding assumptions, “When you assume something, you make an ASS-of U &-ME.”  The validity of this saying is what makes it commonplace, as it is not only unwise to make assumptions, it is also unjust. I view the reliance upon common sense information in relation to the field of sociology, as similar to that of assumptions.  Common sense can be defined as, a form of knowledge not based on formal investigation, but instead, knowledge gained by ideas taken from our social circle mixed with abstractions from our own life experiences.   Though at times common sense information is true, many times it is also inaccurate, since one individual’s common sense is not necessarily the same as another’s, evidencing the issue of inadequacy as it applies to common sense.  The better way to verify information is by performing a method of sociological research to test the validity and accuracy of the information or ideas. 

According to society rape is a medicalized social problem, suggesting that rapists are psychologically damaged, and thus unable to control their behavior. I believe this illustrates the faulty use of “common sense”.  The assumption that rape is a medicalized social problem is in direct contradiction to empirical evidence that links sexual aggression to environmental variables, indicating it is learned behavior and not due to psychopathology. Additionally,  it has been determined that there is no consistent pattern to discriminate rapists from other groups of men, and the statistical frequency of rape  makes it doubtful that the act is committed by only a small psycho-pathological subset of society. In order to answer the question of why men rape, it is necessary to pose another question, “what do men gain from the act of rape?”  The overarching reason for why men rape, appears to be the cultural promotion of sexual aggression as rewarding. Additional motivators or factors have proved to be; revenge, punishment, domination, control and even male camaraderie, as is the case in gang rape scenarios.  In some instances of rape victims are viewed not as an individual person, but instead are objectified as commodities, or seen as a category representative of all women, all of whom are deserving of punishment.  Conversely, victims are also used as substitutes for a specific woman in the rapist’s life on whom he wishes to enact revenge.  In the case of “date rape” what the rapist gains is conquest of what was not offered, to him a justifiable means of compensation.  Sexual access has also been determined a factor in why men rape.  Victims are deliberately chosen due to the belief that in “normal” circumstances the victim, being of higher status, would not be attracted to him, as is the case of some interracial rapes, also a sad reflection of our society’s contemporary racism.   Rapists have described the violations they perpetrate against women as having a positive impact on their own feelings, likely due to the success of domination and control of the victim. Scully and Marola end their article re-framing the original question to instead ask men who do not rape, why they don’t.  Personally, I believe men that do not rape, probably do not find sexual aggression exciting, and also likely have a strong respect for women in general, possibly due to a good maternal, or other female authority relationship, and the benefit of growing up with healthy male role modeling.

Of the six types of sociological research methods, those that would most appeal to me personally are secondary analysis and experimental research.  Secondary analysis involves using data from previous research conducted by other sociologists, and studying it for correlative aspects. This method of research seems like the researcher starts out with an advantage, much of the work has already been done.  The second method, experimentation, is very rare for sociologists to use, due to the possibility of harm to subjects, and the general desired focus of sociology lying in broad features of society.  Experimentation research is conducted for the purpose of identifying cause and effect relationships. In order to measure the occurrence of change, before starting the experiment the researcher must measure the dependant variable, and again after the introduction of the independent variable. The experimentation process involves the division of the subject population into two groups, the experimental group, which is to be introduced to independent variables, those factors that are changed, and the control group, which is not to be exposed to the independent variables.   This research method answers the experiment hypothesis statement by studying the cause and effect relationships.  Changes (the effect of the relationship) in the dependent variable, those factors that are changed, are due to what the experimental group was introduced to, the independent variable, (the cause of the change).