Class Consciousness and False Consciousness

Means of Production

The way we produce goods. (Factories and farms → owned by the wealthy few who hire workers)

Class Divide Theory by Karl Marx

Workers in the working class don’t realize they’re being exploited and oppressed by this capitalistic model of working.

Class consciousness

Workers become aware that they share common interests and are collectively oppressed by the ruling class → leads them to unite to challenge the system and seek control over the means of production

False consciousness

Unlike class consciousness, instead of seeing they have solidarity with one another, they’re unable to see their oppression.

• Owners can promote this false consciousness by controlling classes, making it more difficult for workers to see their oppression statistics.

Regression

All variables examined are continuous

• Linear regression - degree of dependence between one variable and another. Data is on scatter plot

Correlation

All variables examined are continuous. Unlike regression makes no assumptions about which variable is influencing the other

• If correlation coefficient is 1, perfect.

• if -1 opposite

• 0, random

Chi-square

When all variables are categorical, looks at if 2 distributions of categorical data differ from each other

• Null hypothesis vs. alternative hypothesis

T - test

Compares mean values of a continuous variable (dependent) between 2 categories/groups

• One-tailed = one direction

• Two-tailed = possibility of relationship in both directions

ANOVA

Similar to t-test, compare distributions of continuous variable between groups of categorical variable, but can be used for 3+ groups.

• If a value doubles, 100% increase

Cross-sectional study

Look at a group of different people at one moment in time

Cohort study

Following a subset of population over a lifetime. A cohort is a group of people who share a common characteristic (ex. people born and exposed to same pollutant/drug/etc.) in period of time.

Longitudinal study

Data is gathered for the same subjects repeatedly over a period of time, can take years or decades.

Case-control study

Observational study where 2 groups differing in outcome are identified and compared to find a causal factor. Ex. comparing people with the disease with those who don’t but are otherwise similar.

Clinical trial

Highly controlled interventional studies

Randomized Controlled Trial

People studied randomly given one of treatments under study, used to test efficacy/side effects of medical interventions like drugs. Gold standard for a clinical trial.

Internal Validity

Extent to which a causal conclusion based on a study is warranted. Decreased by Confounding factors

External Validity

Whether results of the study can be generalized to other situations and other people. To protect external validity, sample must be completely random, and all situational variables must be tightly controlled.

Construct Validity

Whether a tool is measuring what it is intended to measure

Regression to the mean

If first measurement is extreme, second measurement will be closer to the mean

Confounding Variables

Changes in dependent variable may be due to existence of variations in a third variable

Temporal confounds

Time related confounding variables

Vehicular Control

What experimental group does without the directly desired impact

Positive Control

Treatment with known response

Negative Control

Group with no response expected