Russel-Research-Method-in-Anthropology

Direct and Indirect Observation 423
scheme are published in Whiting et al. [1966]. See Whiting and Whiting
[1973] for a discussion of their methods for observing and recording
behavior.)
On average, every 10th observation was coded by two people, and these
pairs of ‘‘coding partners’’ were rotated so that coders could not slip into a
comfortable pattern with one another. Coders achieved 87% agreement on
children’s actions; that is, given a list of 12 kinds of things a child might be
doing, coders agreed 87% of the time. They also agreed 75% of the time on
the act that precipitated a child’s actions and 80% of the time on the effects
of a child’s actions (Whiting and Whiting 1975:55).
The database from the Six Culture Study consists of approximately 20,000
recorded acts, for 134 children, or about 150 acts per child, on average.
Very strong conclusions can be drawn from this kind of robust database.
For example, Whiting and Whiting (1975:179) note that nurturance, responsibility,
success, authority, and casual intimacy ‘‘are types of behavior that are
differentially preferred by different cultures.’’ They conclude that ‘‘these values
are apparently transmitted to the child before the age of six.’’ They found
no difference in amount of nurturant behavior among boys and girls 3–5 years
of age. After that, however, nurturant behavior by girls increases rapidly with
age, while boys’ scores on this trait remain stable.
By contrast, reprimanding behavior starts out low for both boys and girls
and increases with age equally for both sexes, across six cultures. The older
the children get, the more likely they are to reprimand anyone who deviates
from newly learned cultural rules. ‘‘Throughout the world,’’ the Whitings conclude,
‘‘two of the dominant personality traits of children between seven and
eleven are self-righteousness and bossiness’’ (1975:184). Anyone who grew
up with an older sibling already knows that, but the Whitings’ demonstration
of this cross-cultural fact is a major scientific achievement.
Using Video for Continuous Monitoring
Even with a fixed coding scheme, an observer in a CM situation has to
decide among alternatives when noting behavior—whether someone is acting
aggressively, or just engaging in rough play, for example. Recording behavior
on film or video lets several analysts study the behavior stream and decide at
leisure how to code it. It also makes your data available for coding by others,
now and in the future. (Human ethologists, like Irenäus Eibl-Eiblsfeldt [1989],
have amassed hundreds of miles of film and videotape of ordinary people
doing ordinary things across the world.)
In the 1970s, Marvin Harris and his students installed videotape cameras in