Betty Cooper at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy and the American Geisha: How Effective is Participant Observation?

Riddhi Rai 

Can researchers completely detach themselves from their former lives and embody the role required to be a participant-observer? Given that all humans look at the world through a lens tinted by their personal perspective which they develop throughout their lifetime, a complete detachment from the ‘self’ is impossible. In light of this, I aim to highlight the lack of objectivity and validity of the conclusions drawn from participant observations- a qualitative research method used by psychologists.

Betty Cooper, the protagonist of Riverdale, a television series is forced to enrol herself with the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, an institution for those considered ‘abnormal’ by society. Post failed attempts to escape, she begins to feign mental illness to discover the malpractices being carried out at the mental asylum. She manages to unravel their secrets and helps her fellow patients escape. This as an attempt at disguised participant observation. Similarly, Liza Dalby, a trained researcher impersonated a Japanese Geisha to gain an in-depth understanding of their culture.

An analysis of both attempts highlights common issues regarding the objectivity and validity of participant observation as a research method. There exists a conflict between the researcher’s personal views and a need to objectively evaluate situations. Every researcher undertakes a research project based on a theoretical framework or simply, based on their gut feeling. Nevertheless, researchers, being mere humans remain consciously or unconsciously inclined to one possibility of the answer. This inclination acts as a hindrance in objective assessment and can alter results. For instance, although Betty Cooper’s accusations were backed by evidence, she observed the asylum from the standpoint of an entrapped ‘normal’ person. Similarly, Liza Dalby also admits to facing difficulties in forgetting her current position in life and embodying the role of a Geisha ((Lacono, Brown & Holtham, 2009)). “The researcher is a ‘positioned subject’, whose ‘life experiences both enable and inhibit particular kinds of insight’ ((Lacono, Brown & Holtham, 2009)). Since Betty’s approach was not an objective one, she failed to recognize the positives of being enrolled at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy such as shelter. As a result, once she helped her fellow patients escape, most lived as homeless drug addicts and suffered hallucinations. Moreover, a personal bond established between the observer and participants also influences the information being extracted. For instance, Betty’s bitter history with the nuns led to harsher treatment and extra vigilance on their end to preserve their secrets. Similarly, Liza Dolby recalls being labelled as an outsider and being conscious of their altered behaviour with her despite her best attempt to live the Geisha life (Lacono, Brown & Holtham, 2009).  

Certain researchers may also conduct a disguised participant observation to avoid observer expectancy bias. However, this can prove to be inadequate for highly secretive groups of people such as those belonging to the underworld. This is because it is not natural for humans to explicitly state their deepest thoughts to someone they have met recently. In the case of entering a criminal gang, for instance, they may not entrust the ‘new participant’ with any confidential information or tasks for an extremely long period.

 Apart from the difficulty in extracting accurate information, one also questions the compilation and analysis of this information under participant observation. The information is not collected based on a “constructed protocol” (Krahn & Eisert, 2000) but is collected in the form of an arbitrary narrative making it susceptible to the bias of the observer. Moreover, when one analyses different experiences by different participants, each of them is valid and equally “true”. This produces a rather heterogeneous pattern between subjects being studied and prevents the establishment of a “singular truth” (Krahn & Eisert, 2000). Hence, findings. using observational methods often remain restricted to that particular context and have reduced external validity.

A counterargument would suggest the introduction of several techniques over the years to minimize observer bias and maximize the reliability of the information. Some may also suggest a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods (Krahn & Eisert, 2000). However, training does not enable a researcher to become a hundred per cent objective and ignorant of their preconceived notions on gender, culture etc. Moreover, the advantage of extracting raw information through participant observation and quantifying them also suffers the corresponding disadvantage of how it is interpreted by the observer at sight.

Therefore, while participant observation helps to extract information about cultures and groups of people in its most natural form, such information lacks external validity and objectivity making participant observation a highly questionable research method.

References:

      Aguirre-Sacasa, R. (2017) Riverdale [Television Series].

      Krahn, G., & Eisert, D. (2000). Qualitative Methods in Clinical Psychology. In Handbook of Research in Pediatric and Clinical Child Psychology (pp. 145-156). Springer Science+Business Media New York 2000. 

     Boykin, R., & Nelson, R. (1981). The effects of instructions and calculation procedures on observers' accuracy, agreement, and calculation correctness. Journal Of Applied Behavior Analysis, 14(4), 479-489.

     Lacono, J., Brown, A., & Holtham, C. (2009). Research Methods – a Case Example of Participant Observation. Electronic Journal Of Business Research Methods, 7, 39-42.