Studying norms in small groups by means of multi-group concordance analysis

Abstract

An experiment in the field of social psychology is presented, emphasising the application of some less renowned statistical methods for analysing ranked data. The experiment addresses two principal issues: the association between norm congruency and formation of peer groups and the internal (personal) vs. the external (behavioural) aspect of norms. This calls for analysing agreement within and between several groups of judges ranking several objects. After an overview of the interrelations between different forms and measures of rank-correlation and concordance is provided, the problem is tackled by means of ANACONDA (a procedure analogous to ANOVA, developed by Schucany and associates in the nineteen-seventies), whereby a solution is proposed for the previously unaddressed issue of testing overall (factor) effects. Finally, estimation of confidence intervals for concordance coefficient in the non-null case is illustrated.

Keywords

• norms
• concordance coefficients
• ANACONDA
• ranks