Methodological Issues When Interpreting Changes in Social Phenomena Over Time: Perceptions of Relative Difference, Absolute Difference, and Time Distance

Katja Prevodnik and Vasja Vehovar

Sociological Methods & Research, 2023, vol. 52, issue 2, 803-840

Abstract: When comparing social science phenomena through a time perspective, absolute and relative difference (RD) are the two typical presentation formats used to communicate interpretations to the audience, while time distance (TD) is the least frequently used of such formats. This article argues that the chosen presentation format is extremely important because the various formats suggest different substantive interpretations. To elaborate upon this issue, researchers from the National Statistical Office, National Health Institute, and general academia were invited to participate in an experiment with alternative presentation formats that describe changes in certain social science phenomena over time. The results revealed a prevailing tendency of respondents to rely on interpretations related to absolute differences, which was additionally reinforced with graphical presentation formats. Therefore, whenever RD or TD is more proper for substantive interpretations, the corresponding presentation format must be designed with special attention.

Keywords: comparative analysis; manipulation; absolute difference; relative difference; time distance; perception; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0049124120914948 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:somere:v:52:y:2023:i:2:p:803-840

DOI: 10.1177/0049124120914948

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Sociological Methods & Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().