what type of experiment is a case study

Case Study vs. Experiment

What's the difference.

Case studies and experiments are both research methods used in various fields to gather data and draw conclusions. However, they differ in their approach and purpose. A case study involves in-depth analysis of a particular individual, group, or situation, aiming to provide a detailed understanding of a specific phenomenon. On the other hand, an experiment involves manipulating variables and observing the effects on a sample population, aiming to establish cause-and-effect relationships. While case studies provide rich qualitative data, experiments provide quantitative data that can be statistically analyzed. Ultimately, the choice between these methods depends on the research question and the desired outcomes.

Further Detail

Introduction.

When conducting research, there are various methods available to gather data and analyze phenomena. Two commonly used approaches are case study and experiment. While both methods aim to provide insights and answers to research questions, they differ in their design, implementation, and the type of data they generate. In this article, we will explore the attributes of case study and experiment, highlighting their strengths and limitations.

A case study is an in-depth investigation of a particular individual, group, or phenomenon. It involves collecting and analyzing detailed information from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, documents, and archival records. Case studies are often used in social sciences, psychology, and business research to gain a deep understanding of complex and unique situations.

One of the key attributes of a case study is its ability to provide rich and detailed data. Researchers can gather a wide range of information, allowing for a comprehensive analysis of the case. This depth of data enables researchers to explore complex relationships, identify patterns, and generate new hypotheses.

Furthermore, case studies are particularly useful when studying rare or unique phenomena. Since they focus on specific cases, they can provide valuable insights into situations that are not easily replicated or observed in controlled experiments. This attribute makes case studies highly relevant in fields where generalizability is not the primary goal.

However, it is important to note that case studies have limitations. Due to their qualitative nature, the findings may lack generalizability to broader populations or contexts. The small sample size and the subjective interpretation of data can also introduce bias. Additionally, case studies are time-consuming and resource-intensive, requiring extensive data collection and analysis.

An experiment is a research method that involves manipulating variables and measuring their effects on outcomes. It aims to establish cause-and-effect relationships by controlling and manipulating independent variables while keeping other factors constant. Experiments are commonly used in natural sciences, psychology, and medicine to test hypotheses and determine the impact of specific interventions or treatments.

One of the key attributes of an experiment is its ability to establish causal relationships. By controlling variables and randomly assigning participants to different conditions, researchers can confidently attribute any observed effects to the manipulated variables. This attribute allows for strong internal validity, making experiments a powerful tool for drawing causal conclusions.

Moreover, experiments often provide quantitative data, allowing for statistical analysis and objective comparisons. This attribute enhances the precision and replicability of findings, enabling researchers to draw more robust conclusions. The ability to replicate experiments also contributes to the cumulative nature of scientific knowledge.

However, experiments also have limitations. They are often conducted in controlled laboratory settings, which may limit the generalizability of findings to real-world contexts. Ethical considerations may also restrict the manipulation of certain variables or the use of certain interventions. Additionally, experiments can be time-consuming and costly, especially when involving large sample sizes or long-term follow-ups.

While case studies and experiments have distinct attributes, they can complement each other in research. Case studies provide in-depth insights and a rich understanding of complex phenomena, while experiments offer controlled conditions and the ability to establish causal relationships. By combining these methods, researchers can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the research question at hand.

When deciding between case study and experiment, researchers should consider the nature of their research question, the available resources, and the desired level of control and generalizability. Case studies are particularly suitable when exploring unique or rare phenomena, aiming for depth rather than breadth, and when resources allow for extensive data collection and analysis. On the other hand, experiments are ideal for establishing causal relationships, testing specific hypotheses, and when control over variables is crucial.

In conclusion, case study and experiment are two valuable research methods with their own attributes and limitations. Both approaches contribute to the advancement of knowledge in various fields, and their selection depends on the research question, available resources, and desired outcomes. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each method, researchers can make informed decisions and conduct rigorous and impactful research.

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Case Study – Methods, Examples and Guide

Table of Contents

A case study is a research method that involves an in-depth examination and analysis of a particular phenomenon or case, such as an individual, organization, community, event, or situation.

It is a qualitative research approach that aims to provide a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the case being studied. Case studies typically involve multiple sources of data, including interviews, observations, documents, and artifacts, which are analyzed using various techniques, such as content analysis, thematic analysis, and grounded theory. The findings of a case study are often used to develop theories, inform policy or practice, or generate new research questions.

Types of Case Study

Types and Methods of Case Study are as follows:

Single-Case Study

A single-case study is an in-depth analysis of a single case. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to understand a specific phenomenon in detail.

For Example , A researcher might conduct a single-case study on a particular individual to understand their experiences with a particular health condition or a specific organization to explore their management practices. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as content analysis or thematic analysis. The findings of a single-case study are often used to generate new research questions, develop theories, or inform policy or practice.

Multiple-Case Study

A multiple-case study involves the analysis of several cases that are similar in nature. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to identify similarities and differences between the cases.

For Example, a researcher might conduct a multiple-case study on several companies to explore the factors that contribute to their success or failure. The researcher collects data from each case, compares and contrasts the findings, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as comparative analysis or pattern-matching. The findings of a multiple-case study can be used to develop theories, inform policy or practice, or generate new research questions.

Exploratory Case Study

An exploratory case study is used to explore a new or understudied phenomenon. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to generate hypotheses or theories about the phenomenon.

For Example, a researcher might conduct an exploratory case study on a new technology to understand its potential impact on society. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as grounded theory or content analysis. The findings of an exploratory case study can be used to generate new research questions, develop theories, or inform policy or practice.

Descriptive Case Study

A descriptive case study is used to describe a particular phenomenon in detail. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to provide a comprehensive account of the phenomenon.

For Example, a researcher might conduct a descriptive case study on a particular community to understand its social and economic characteristics. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as content analysis or thematic analysis. The findings of a descriptive case study can be used to inform policy or practice or generate new research questions.

Instrumental Case Study

An instrumental case study is used to understand a particular phenomenon that is instrumental in achieving a particular goal. This type of case study is useful when the researcher wants to understand the role of the phenomenon in achieving the goal.

For Example, a researcher might conduct an instrumental case study on a particular policy to understand its impact on achieving a particular goal, such as reducing poverty. The researcher collects data from multiple sources, such as interviews, observations, and documents, and uses various techniques to analyze the data, such as content analysis or thematic analysis. The findings of an instrumental case study can be used to inform policy or practice or generate new research questions.

Case Study Data Collection Methods

Here are some common data collection methods for case studies:

Interviews involve asking questions to individuals who have knowledge or experience relevant to the case study. Interviews can be structured (where the same questions are asked to all participants) or unstructured (where the interviewer follows up on the responses with further questions). Interviews can be conducted in person, over the phone, or through video conferencing.

Observations

Observations involve watching and recording the behavior and activities of individuals or groups relevant to the case study. Observations can be participant (where the researcher actively participates in the activities) or non-participant (where the researcher observes from a distance). Observations can be recorded using notes, audio or video recordings, or photographs.

Documents can be used as a source of information for case studies. Documents can include reports, memos, emails, letters, and other written materials related to the case study. Documents can be collected from the case study participants or from public sources.

Surveys involve asking a set of questions to a sample of individuals relevant to the case study. Surveys can be administered in person, over the phone, through mail or email, or online. Surveys can be used to gather information on attitudes, opinions, or behaviors related to the case study.

Artifacts are physical objects relevant to the case study. Artifacts can include tools, equipment, products, or other objects that provide insights into the case study phenomenon.

How to conduct Case Study Research

Conducting a case study research involves several steps that need to be followed to ensure the quality and rigor of the study. Here are the steps to conduct case study research:

• Define the research questions: The first step in conducting a case study research is to define the research questions. The research questions should be specific, measurable, and relevant to the case study phenomenon under investigation.
• Select the case: The next step is to select the case or cases to be studied. The case should be relevant to the research questions and should provide rich and diverse data that can be used to answer the research questions.
• Collect data: Data can be collected using various methods, such as interviews, observations, documents, surveys, and artifacts. The data collection method should be selected based on the research questions and the nature of the case study phenomenon.
• Analyze the data: The data collected from the case study should be analyzed using various techniques, such as content analysis, thematic analysis, or grounded theory. The analysis should be guided by the research questions and should aim to provide insights and conclusions relevant to the research questions.
• Draw conclusions: The conclusions drawn from the case study should be based on the data analysis and should be relevant to the research questions. The conclusions should be supported by evidence and should be clearly stated.
• Validate the findings: The findings of the case study should be validated by reviewing the data and the analysis with participants or other experts in the field. This helps to ensure the validity and reliability of the findings.
• Write the report: The final step is to write the report of the case study research. The report should provide a clear description of the case study phenomenon, the research questions, the data collection methods, the data analysis, the findings, and the conclusions. The report should be written in a clear and concise manner and should follow the guidelines for academic writing.

Examples of Case Study

Here are some examples of case study research:

• The Hawthorne Studies : Conducted between 1924 and 1932, the Hawthorne Studies were a series of case studies conducted by Elton Mayo and his colleagues to examine the impact of work environment on employee productivity. The studies were conducted at the Hawthorne Works plant of the Western Electric Company in Chicago and included interviews, observations, and experiments.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment: Conducted in 1971, the Stanford Prison Experiment was a case study conducted by Philip Zimbardo to examine the psychological effects of power and authority. The study involved simulating a prison environment and assigning participants to the role of guards or prisoners. The study was controversial due to the ethical issues it raised.
• The Challenger Disaster: The Challenger Disaster was a case study conducted to examine the causes of the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986. The study included interviews, observations, and analysis of data to identify the technical, organizational, and cultural factors that contributed to the disaster.
• The Enron Scandal: The Enron Scandal was a case study conducted to examine the causes of the Enron Corporation’s bankruptcy in 2001. The study included interviews, analysis of financial data, and review of documents to identify the accounting practices, corporate culture, and ethical issues that led to the company’s downfall.
• The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster : The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was a case study conducted to examine the causes of the nuclear accident that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan in 2011. The study included interviews, analysis of data, and review of documents to identify the technical, organizational, and cultural factors that contributed to the disaster.

Application of Case Study

Case studies have a wide range of applications across various fields and industries. Here are some examples:

Business and Management

Case studies are widely used in business and management to examine real-life situations and develop problem-solving skills. Case studies can help students and professionals to develop a deep understanding of business concepts, theories, and best practices.

Case studies are used in healthcare to examine patient care, treatment options, and outcomes. Case studies can help healthcare professionals to develop critical thinking skills, diagnose complex medical conditions, and develop effective treatment plans.

Case studies are used in education to examine teaching and learning practices. Case studies can help educators to develop effective teaching strategies, evaluate student progress, and identify areas for improvement.

Social Sciences

Case studies are widely used in social sciences to examine human behavior, social phenomena, and cultural practices. Case studies can help researchers to develop theories, test hypotheses, and gain insights into complex social issues.

Law and Ethics

Case studies are used in law and ethics to examine legal and ethical dilemmas. Case studies can help lawyers, policymakers, and ethical professionals to develop critical thinking skills, analyze complex cases, and make informed decisions.

Purpose of Case Study

The purpose of a case study is to provide a detailed analysis of a specific phenomenon, issue, or problem in its real-life context. A case study is a qualitative research method that involves the in-depth exploration and analysis of a particular case, which can be an individual, group, organization, event, or community.

The primary purpose of a case study is to generate a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the case, including its history, context, and dynamics. Case studies can help researchers to identify and examine the underlying factors, processes, and mechanisms that contribute to the case and its outcomes. This can help to develop a more accurate and detailed understanding of the case, which can inform future research, practice, or policy.

Case studies can also serve other purposes, including:

• Illustrating a theory or concept: Case studies can be used to illustrate and explain theoretical concepts and frameworks, providing concrete examples of how they can be applied in real-life situations.
• Developing hypotheses: Case studies can help to generate hypotheses about the causal relationships between different factors and outcomes, which can be tested through further research.
• Providing insight into complex issues: Case studies can provide insights into complex and multifaceted issues, which may be difficult to understand through other research methods.
• Informing practice or policy: Case studies can be used to inform practice or policy by identifying best practices, lessons learned, or areas for improvement.

Advantages of Case Study Research

There are several advantages of case study research, including:

• In-depth exploration: Case study research allows for a detailed exploration and analysis of a specific phenomenon, issue, or problem in its real-life context. This can provide a comprehensive understanding of the case and its dynamics, which may not be possible through other research methods.
• Rich data: Case study research can generate rich and detailed data, including qualitative data such as interviews, observations, and documents. This can provide a nuanced understanding of the case and its complexity.
• Holistic perspective: Case study research allows for a holistic perspective of the case, taking into account the various factors, processes, and mechanisms that contribute to the case and its outcomes. This can help to develop a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of the case.
• Theory development: Case study research can help to develop and refine theories and concepts by providing empirical evidence and concrete examples of how they can be applied in real-life situations.
• Practical application: Case study research can inform practice or policy by identifying best practices, lessons learned, or areas for improvement.
• Contextualization: Case study research takes into account the specific context in which the case is situated, which can help to understand how the case is influenced by the social, cultural, and historical factors of its environment.

Limitations of Case Study Research

There are several limitations of case study research, including:

• Limited generalizability : Case studies are typically focused on a single case or a small number of cases, which limits the generalizability of the findings. The unique characteristics of the case may not be applicable to other contexts or populations, which may limit the external validity of the research.
• Biased sampling: Case studies may rely on purposive or convenience sampling, which can introduce bias into the sample selection process. This may limit the representativeness of the sample and the generalizability of the findings.
• Subjectivity: Case studies rely on the interpretation of the researcher, which can introduce subjectivity into the analysis. The researcher’s own biases, assumptions, and perspectives may influence the findings, which may limit the objectivity of the research.
• Limited control: Case studies are typically conducted in naturalistic settings, which limits the control that the researcher has over the environment and the variables being studied. This may limit the ability to establish causal relationships between variables.
• Time-consuming: Case studies can be time-consuming to conduct, as they typically involve a detailed exploration and analysis of a specific case. This may limit the feasibility of conducting multiple case studies or conducting case studies in a timely manner.
• Resource-intensive: Case studies may require significant resources, including time, funding, and expertise. This may limit the ability of researchers to conduct case studies in resource-constrained settings.

About the author

Muhammad Hassan

Researcher, Academic Writer, Web developer

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Writing a Case Study

What is a case study?

A Case study is: 

• An in-depth research design that primarily uses a qualitative methodology but sometimes​​ includes quantitative methodology.
• Used to examine an identifiable problem confirmed through research.
• Used to investigate an individual, group of people, organization, or event.
• Used to mostly answer "how" and "why" questions.

What are the different types of case studies?

Note: These are the primary case studies. As you continue to research and learn

about case studies you will begin to find a robust list of different types. 

Who are your case study participants?

What is triangulation ? 

Validity and credibility are an essential part of the case study. Therefore, the researcher should include triangulation to ensure trustworthiness while accurately reflecting what the researcher seeks to investigate.

How to write a Case Study?

When developing a case study, there are different ways you could present the information, but remember to include the five parts for your case study.

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Case Study Research Method in Psychology

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Case studies are in-depth investigations of a person, group, event, or community. Typically, data is gathered from various sources using several methods (e.g., observations & interviews).

The case study research method originated in clinical medicine (the case history, i.e., the patient’s personal history). In psychology, case studies are often confined to the study of a particular individual.

The information is mainly biographical and relates to events in the individual’s past (i.e., retrospective), as well as to significant events that are currently occurring in his or her everyday life.

The case study is not a research method, but researchers select methods of data collection and analysis that will generate material suitable for case studies.

Freud (1909a, 1909b) conducted very detailed investigations into the private lives of his patients in an attempt to both understand and help them overcome their illnesses.

This makes it clear that the case study is a method that should only be used by a psychologist, therapist, or psychiatrist, i.e., someone with a professional qualification.

There is an ethical issue of competence. Only someone qualified to diagnose and treat a person can conduct a formal case study relating to atypical (i.e., abnormal) behavior or atypical development.

 Famous Case Studies

• Anna O – One of the most famous case studies, documenting psychoanalyst Josef Breuer’s treatment of “Anna O” (real name Bertha Pappenheim) for hysteria in the late 1800s using early psychoanalytic theory.
• Little Hans – A child psychoanalysis case study published by Sigmund Freud in 1909 analyzing his five-year-old patient Herbert Graf’s house phobia as related to the Oedipus complex.
• Bruce/Brenda – Gender identity case of the boy (Bruce) whose botched circumcision led psychologist John Money to advise gender reassignment and raise him as a girl (Brenda) in the 1960s.
• Genie Wiley – Linguistics/psychological development case of the victim of extreme isolation abuse who was studied in 1970s California for effects of early language deprivation on acquiring speech later in life.
• Phineas Gage – One of the most famous neuropsychology case studies analyzes personality changes in railroad worker Phineas Gage after an 1848 brain injury involving a tamping iron piercing his skull.

Clinical Case Studies

• Studying the effectiveness of psychotherapy approaches with an individual patient
• Assessing and treating mental illnesses like depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD
• Neuropsychological cases investigating brain injuries or disorders

Child Psychology Case Studies

• Studying psychological development from birth through adolescence
• Cases of learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD
• Effects of trauma, abuse, deprivation on development

Types of Case Studies

• Explanatory case studies : Used to explore causation in order to find underlying principles. Helpful for doing qualitative analysis to explain presumed causal links.
• Exploratory case studies : Used to explore situations where an intervention being evaluated has no clear set of outcomes. It helps define questions and hypotheses for future research.
• Descriptive case studies : Describe an intervention or phenomenon and the real-life context in which it occurred. It is helpful for illustrating certain topics within an evaluation.
• Multiple-case studies : Used to explore differences between cases and replicate findings across cases. Helpful for comparing and contrasting specific cases.
• Intrinsic : Used to gain a better understanding of a particular case. Helpful for capturing the complexity of a single case.
• Collective : Used to explore a general phenomenon using multiple case studies. Helpful for jointly studying a group of cases in order to inquire into the phenomenon.

Where Do You Find Data for a Case Study?

There are several places to find data for a case study. The key is to gather data from multiple sources to get a complete picture of the case and corroborate facts or findings through triangulation of evidence. Most of this information is likely qualitative (i.e., verbal description rather than measurement), but the psychologist might also collect numerical data.

1. Primary sources

• Interviews – Interviewing key people related to the case to get their perspectives and insights. The interview is an extremely effective procedure for obtaining information about an individual, and it may be used to collect comments from the person’s friends, parents, employer, workmates, and others who have a good knowledge of the person, as well as to obtain facts from the person him or herself.
• Observations – Observing behaviors, interactions, processes, etc., related to the case as they unfold in real-time.
• Documents & Records – Reviewing private documents, diaries, public records, correspondence, meeting minutes, etc., relevant to the case.

2. Secondary sources

• News/Media – News coverage of events related to the case study.
• Academic articles – Journal articles, dissertations etc. that discuss the case.
• Government reports – Official data and records related to the case context.
• Books/films – Books, documentaries or films discussing the case.

3. Archival records

Searching historical archives, museum collections and databases to find relevant documents, visual/audio records related to the case history and context.

Public archives like newspapers, organizational records, photographic collections could all include potentially relevant pieces of information to shed light on attitudes, cultural perspectives, common practices and historical contexts related to psychology.

4. Organizational records

Organizational records offer the advantage of often having large datasets collected over time that can reveal or confirm psychological insights.

Of course, privacy and ethical concerns regarding confidential data must be navigated carefully.

However, with proper protocols, organizational records can provide invaluable context and empirical depth to qualitative case studies exploring the intersection of psychology and organizations.

• Organizational/industrial psychology research : Organizational records like employee surveys, turnover/retention data, policies, incident reports etc. may provide insight into topics like job satisfaction, workplace culture and dynamics, leadership issues, employee behaviors etc.
• Clinical psychology : Therapists/hospitals may grant access to anonymized medical records to study aspects like assessments, diagnoses, treatment plans etc. This could shed light on clinical practices.
• School psychology : Studies could utilize anonymized student records like test scores, grades, disciplinary issues, and counseling referrals to study child development, learning barriers, effectiveness of support programs, and more.

How do I Write a Case Study in Psychology?

Follow specified case study guidelines provided by a journal or your psychology tutor. General components of clinical case studies include: background, symptoms, assessments, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes. Interpreting the information means the researcher decides what to include or leave out. A good case study should always clarify which information is the factual description and which is an inference or the researcher’s opinion.

1. Introduction

• Provide background on the case context and why it is of interest, presenting background information like demographics, relevant history, and presenting problem.
• Compare briefly to similar published cases if applicable. Clearly state the focus/importance of the case.

2. Case Presentation

• Describe the presenting problem in detail, including symptoms, duration,and impact on daily life.
• Include client demographics like age and gender, information about social relationships, and mental health history.
• Describe all physical, emotional, and/or sensory symptoms reported by the client.
• Use patient quotes to describe the initial complaint verbatim. Follow with full-sentence summaries of relevant history details gathered, including key components that led to a working diagnosis.
• Summarize clinical exam results, namely orthopedic/neurological tests, imaging, lab tests, etc. Note actual results rather than subjective conclusions. Provide images if clearly reproducible/anonymized.
• Clearly state the working diagnosis or clinical impression before transitioning to management.

3. Management and Outcome

• Indicate the total duration of care and number of treatments given over what timeframe. Use specific names/descriptions for any therapies/interventions applied.
• Present the results of the intervention,including any quantitative or qualitative data collected.
• For outcomes, utilize visual analog scales for pain, medication usage logs, etc., if possible. Include patient self-reports of improvement/worsening of symptoms. Note the reason for discharge/end of care.

4. Discussion

• Analyze the case, exploring contributing factors, limitations of the study, and connections to existing research.
• Analyze the effectiveness of the intervention,considering factors like participant adherence, limitations of the study, and potential alternative explanations for the results.
• Identify any questions raised in the case analysis and relate insights to established theories and current research if applicable. Avoid definitive claims about physiological explanations.
• Offer clinical implications, and suggest future research directions.

5. Additional Items

• Thank specific assistants for writing support only. No patient acknowledgments.
• References should directly support any key claims or quotes included.
• Use tables/figures/images only if substantially informative. Include permissions and legends/explanatory notes.
• Provides detailed (rich qualitative) information.
• Provides insight for further research.
• Permitting investigation of otherwise impractical (or unethical) situations.

Case studies allow a researcher to investigate a topic in far more detail than might be possible if they were trying to deal with a large number of research participants (nomothetic approach) with the aim of ‘averaging’.

Because of their in-depth, multi-sided approach, case studies often shed light on aspects of human thinking and behavior that would be unethical or impractical to study in other ways.

Research that only looks into the measurable aspects of human behavior is not likely to give us insights into the subjective dimension of experience, which is important to psychoanalytic and humanistic psychologists.

Case studies are often used in exploratory research. They can help us generate new ideas (that might be tested by other methods). They are an important way of illustrating theories and can help show how different aspects of a person’s life are related to each other.

The method is, therefore, important for psychologists who adopt a holistic point of view (i.e., humanistic psychologists ).

Limitations

• Lacking scientific rigor and providing little basis for generalization of results to the wider population.
• Researchers’ own subjective feelings may influence the case study (researcher bias).
• Difficult to replicate.
• Time-consuming and expensive.
• The volume of data, together with the time restrictions in place, impacted the depth of analysis that was possible within the available resources.

Because a case study deals with only one person/event/group, we can never be sure if the case study investigated is representative of the wider body of “similar” instances. This means the conclusions drawn from a particular case may not be transferable to other settings.

Because case studies are based on the analysis of qualitative (i.e., descriptive) data , a lot depends on the psychologist’s interpretation of the information she has acquired.

This means that there is a lot of scope for Anna O , and it could be that the subjective opinions of the psychologist intrude in the assessment of what the data means.

For example, Freud has been criticized for producing case studies in which the information was sometimes distorted to fit particular behavioral theories (e.g., Little Hans ).

This is also true of Money’s interpretation of the Bruce/Brenda case study (Diamond, 1997) when he ignored evidence that went against his theory.

Breuer, J., & Freud, S. (1895).  Studies on hysteria . Standard Edition 2: London.

Curtiss, S. (1981). Genie: The case of a modern wild child .

Diamond, M., & Sigmundson, K. (1997). Sex Reassignment at Birth: Long-term Review and Clinical Implications. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine , 151(3), 298-304

Freud, S. (1909a). Analysis of a phobia of a five year old boy. In The Pelican Freud Library (1977), Vol 8, Case Histories 1, pages 169-306

Freud, S. (1909b). Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose (Der “Rattenmann”). Jb. psychoanal. psychopathol. Forsch ., I, p. 357-421; GW, VII, p. 379-463; Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis, SE , 10: 151-318.

Harlow J. M. (1848). Passage of an iron rod through the head.  Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 39 , 389–393.

Harlow, J. M. (1868).  Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head .  Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society. 2  (3), 327-347.

Money, J., & Ehrhardt, A. A. (1972).  Man & Woman, Boy & Girl : The Differentiation and Dimorphism of Gender Identity from Conception to Maturity. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Money, J., & Tucker, P. (1975). Sexual signatures: On being a man or a woman.

Further Information

• Case Study Approach
• Case Study Method
• Enhancing the Quality of Case Studies in Health Services Research
• “We do things together” A case study of “couplehood” in dementia
• Using mixed methods for evaluating an integrative approach to cancer care: a case study

What is case study research?

Last updated

8 February 2023

Reviewed by

Cathy Heath

Suppose a company receives a spike in the number of customer complaints, or medical experts discover an outbreak of illness affecting children but are not quite sure of the reason. In both cases, carrying out a case study could be the best way to get answers.

Organization

Case studies can be carried out across different disciplines, including education, medicine, sociology, and business.

Most case studies employ qualitative methods, but quantitative methods can also be used. Researchers can then describe, compare, evaluate, and identify patterns or cause-and-effect relationships between the various variables under study. They can then use this knowledge to decide what action to take. 

Another thing to note is that case studies are generally singular in their focus. This means they narrow focus to a particular area, making them highly subjective. You cannot always generalize the results of a case study and apply them to a larger population. However, they are valuable tools to illustrate a principle or develop a thesis.

Analyze case study research

Dovetail streamlines case study research to help you uncover and share actionable insights

• What are the different types of case study designs?

Researchers can choose from a variety of case study designs. The design they choose is dependent on what questions they need to answer, the context of the research environment, how much data they already have, and what resources are available.

Here are the common types of case study design:

Explanatory

An explanatory case study is an initial explanation of the how or why that is behind something. This design is commonly used when studying a real-life phenomenon or event. Once the organization understands the reasons behind a phenomenon, it can then make changes to enhance or eliminate the variables causing it. 

Here is an example: How is co-teaching implemented in elementary schools? The title for a case study of this subject could be “Case Study of the Implementation of Co-Teaching in Elementary Schools.”

Descriptive

An illustrative or descriptive case study helps researchers shed light on an unfamiliar object or subject after a period of time. The case study provides an in-depth review of the issue at hand and adds real-world examples in the area the researcher wants the audience to understand. 

The researcher makes no inferences or causal statements about the object or subject under review. This type of design is often used to understand cultural shifts.

Here is an example: How did people cope with the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami? This case study could be titled "A Case Study of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and its Effect on the Indonesian Population."

Exploratory

Exploratory research is also called a pilot case study. It is usually the first step within a larger research project, often relying on questionnaires and surveys . Researchers use exploratory research to help narrow down their focus, define parameters, draft a specific research question , and/or identify variables in a larger study. This research design usually covers a wider area than others, and focuses on the ‘what’ and ‘who’ of a topic.

Here is an example: How do nutrition and socialization in early childhood affect learning in children? The title of the exploratory study may be “Case Study of the Effects of Nutrition and Socialization on Learning in Early Childhood.”

An intrinsic case study is specifically designed to look at a unique and special phenomenon. At the start of the study, the researcher defines the phenomenon and the uniqueness that differentiates it from others. 

In this case, researchers do not attempt to generalize, compare, or challenge the existing assumptions. Instead, they explore the unique variables to enhance understanding. Here is an example: “Case Study of Volcanic Lightning.”

This design can also be identified as a cumulative case study. It uses information from past studies or observations of groups of people in certain settings as the foundation of the new study. Given that it takes multiple areas into account, it allows for greater generalization than a single case study. 

The researchers also get an in-depth look at a particular subject from different viewpoints.  Here is an example: “Case Study of how PTSD affected Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Differently Due to Advances in Military Technology.”

Critical instance

A critical case study incorporates both explanatory and intrinsic study designs. It does not have predetermined purposes beyond an investigation of the said subject. It can be used for a deeper explanation of the cause-and-effect relationship. It can also be used to question a common assumption or myth. 

The findings can then be used further to generalize whether they would also apply in a different environment.  Here is an example: “What Effect Does Prolonged Use of Social Media Have on the Mind of American Youth?”

Instrumental

Instrumental research attempts to achieve goals beyond understanding the object at hand. Researchers explore a larger subject through different, separate studies and use the findings to understand its relationship to another subject. This type of design also provides insight into an issue or helps refine a theory. 

For example, you may want to determine if violent behavior in children predisposes them to crime later in life. The focus is on the relationship between children and violent behavior, and why certain children do become violent. Here is an example: “Violence Breeds Violence: Childhood Exposure and Participation in Adult Crime.”

Evaluation case study design is employed to research the effects of a program, policy, or intervention, and assess its effectiveness and impact on future decision-making. 

For example, you might want to see whether children learn times tables quicker through an educational game on their iPad versus a more teacher-led intervention. Here is an example: “An Investigation of the Impact of an iPad Multiplication Game for Primary School Children.” 

• When do you use case studies?

Case studies are ideal when you want to gain a contextual, concrete, or in-depth understanding of a particular subject. It helps you understand the characteristics, implications, and meanings of the subject.

They are also an excellent choice for those writing a thesis or dissertation, as they help keep the project focused on a particular area when resources or time may be too limited to cover a wider one. You may have to conduct several case studies to explore different aspects of the subject in question and understand the problem.

• What are the steps to follow when conducting a case study?

1. Select a case

Once you identify the problem at hand and come up with questions, identify the case you will focus on. The study can provide insights into the subject at hand, challenge existing assumptions, propose a course of action, and/or open up new areas for further research.

2. Create a theoretical framework

While you will be focusing on a specific detail, the case study design you choose should be linked to existing knowledge on the topic. This prevents it from becoming an isolated description and allows for enhancing the existing information. 

It may expand the current theory by bringing up new ideas or concepts, challenge established assumptions, or exemplify a theory by exploring how it answers the problem at hand. A theoretical framework starts with a literature review of the sources relevant to the topic in focus. This helps in identifying key concepts to guide analysis and interpretation.

3. Collect the data

Case studies are frequently supplemented with qualitative data such as observations, interviews, and a review of both primary and secondary sources such as official records, news articles, and photographs. There may also be quantitative data —this data assists in understanding the case thoroughly.

4. Analyze your case

The results of the research depend on the research design. Most case studies are structured with chapters or topic headings for easy explanation and presentation. Others may be written as narratives to allow researchers to explore various angles of the topic and analyze its meanings and implications.

In all areas, always give a detailed contextual understanding of the case and connect it to the existing theory and literature before discussing how it fits into your problem area.

• What are some case study examples?

What are the best approaches for introducing our product into the Kenyan market?

How does the change in marketing strategy aid in increasing the sales volumes of product Y?

How can teachers enhance student participation in classrooms?

How does poverty affect literacy levels in children?

Case study topics

Case study of product marketing strategies in the Kenyan market

Case study of the effects of a marketing strategy change on product Y sales volumes

Case study of X school teachers that encourage active student participation in the classroom

Case study of the effects of poverty on literacy levels in children

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What is a case study?

A case study is a type of research method. In case studies, the unit of analysis is a case . The case typically provides a detailed account of a situation that usually focuses on a conflict or complexity that one might encounter in the workplace.

• Case studies help explain the process by which a unit (a person, department, business, organization, industry, country, etc.) deals with the issue or problem confronting it, and offers possible solutions that can be applied to other units facing similar situations.
• The information presented in case studies is usually qualitative in nature - gathered through methods such as interview, observation, and document collection.
• There are different types of case study, including  intrinsic, instrumental, naturalistic,  and  pragmatic.

This research guide will assist you in finding individual case studies, as well as providing information on designing case studies. If you need assistance locating information, please Ask a Librarian .

• Next: Case Study Research >>
• Last Updated: Nov 2, 2023 2:39 PM
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What Is a Case Study?

Weighing the pros and cons of this method of research

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.

Verywell / Colleen Tighe

• Pros and Cons

What Types of Case Studies Are Out There?

Where do you find data for a case study, how do i write a psychology case study.

A case study is an in-depth study of one person, group, or event. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes of behavior. Case studies can be used in many different fields, including psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work.

The point of a case study is to learn as much as possible about an individual or group so that the information can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective, and it is sometimes difficult to generalize results to a larger population.

While case studies focus on a single individual or group, they follow a format similar to other types of psychology writing. If you are writing a case study, we got you—here are some rules of APA format to reference.  

At a Glance

A case study, or an in-depth study of a person, group, or event, can be a useful research tool when used wisely. In many cases, case studies are best used in situations where it would be difficult or impossible for you to conduct an experiment. They are helpful for looking at unique situations and allow researchers to gather a lot of˜ information about a specific individual or group of people. However, it's important to be cautious of any bias we draw from them as they are highly subjective.

What Are the Benefits and Limitations of Case Studies?

A case study can have its strengths and weaknesses. Researchers must consider these pros and cons before deciding if this type of study is appropriate for their needs.

One of the greatest advantages of a case study is that it allows researchers to investigate things that are often difficult or impossible to replicate in a lab. Some other benefits of a case study:

• Allows researchers to capture information on the 'how,' 'what,' and 'why,' of something that's implemented
• Gives researchers the chance to collect information on why one strategy might be chosen over another
• Permits researchers to develop hypotheses that can be explored in experimental research

On the other hand, a case study can have some drawbacks:

• It cannot necessarily be generalized to the larger population
• Cannot demonstrate cause and effect
• It may not be scientifically rigorous
• It can lead to bias

Researchers may choose to perform a case study if they want to explore a unique or recently discovered phenomenon. Through their insights, researchers develop additional ideas and study questions that might be explored in future studies.

It's important to remember that the insights from case studies cannot be used to determine cause-and-effect relationships between variables. However, case studies may be used to develop hypotheses that can then be addressed in experimental research.

Case Study Examples

There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of  Freud's work and theories were developed through individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:

• Anna O : Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
• Phineas Gage : Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
• Genie : Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language learning was possible, even after missing critical periods for language development. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.

Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific abuse denied her the opportunity to learn a language at critical points in her development.

This is clearly not something researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.

There are a few different types of case studies that psychologists and other researchers might use:

• Collective case studies : These involve studying a group of individuals. Researchers might study a group of people in a certain setting or look at an entire community. For example, psychologists might explore how access to resources in a community has affected the collective mental well-being of those who live there.
• Descriptive case studies : These involve starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
• Explanatory case studies : These   are often used to do causal investigations. In other words, researchers are interested in looking at factors that may have caused certain things to occur.
• Exploratory case studies : These are sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses .
• Instrumental case studies : These occur when the individual or group allows researchers to understand more than what is initially obvious to observers.
• Intrinsic case studies : This type of case study is when the researcher has a personal interest in the case. Jean Piaget's observations of his own children are good examples of how an intrinsic case study can contribute to the development of a psychological theory.

The three main case study types often used are intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Intrinsic case studies are useful for learning about unique cases. Instrumental case studies help look at an individual to learn more about a broader issue. A collective case study can be useful for looking at several cases simultaneously.

The type of case study that psychology researchers use depends on the unique characteristics of the situation and the case itself.

There are a number of different sources and methods that researchers can use to gather information about an individual or group. Six major sources that have been identified by researchers are:

• Archival records : Census records, survey records, and name lists are examples of archival records.
• Direct observation : This strategy involves observing the subject, often in a natural setting . While an individual observer is sometimes used, it is more common to utilize a group of observers.
• Documents : Letters, newspaper articles, administrative records, etc., are the types of documents often used as sources.
• Interviews : Interviews are one of the most important methods for gathering information in case studies. An interview can involve structured survey questions or more open-ended questions.
• Participant observation : When the researcher serves as a participant in events and observes the actions and outcomes, it is called participant observation.
• Physical artifacts : Tools, objects, instruments, and other artifacts are often observed during a direct observation of the subject.

If you have been directed to write a case study for a psychology course, be sure to check with your instructor for any specific guidelines you need to follow. If you are writing your case study for a professional publication, check with the publisher for their specific guidelines for submitting a case study.

Here is a general outline of what should be included in a case study.

Section 1: A Case History

This section will have the following structure and content:

Background information : The first section of your paper will present your client's background. Include factors such as age, gender, work, health status, family mental health history, family and social relationships, drug and alcohol history, life difficulties, goals, and coping skills and weaknesses.

Description of the presenting problem : In the next section of your case study, you will describe the problem or symptoms that the client presented with.

Describe any physical, emotional, or sensory symptoms reported by the client. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions related to the symptoms should also be noted. Any screening or diagnostic assessments that are used should also be described in detail and all scores reported.

Your diagnosis : Provide your diagnosis and give the appropriate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code. Explain how you reached your diagnosis, how the client's symptoms fit the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s), or any possible difficulties in reaching a diagnosis.

Section 2: Treatment Plan

This portion of the paper will address the chosen treatment for the condition. This might also include the theoretical basis for the chosen treatment or any other evidence that might exist to support why this approach was chosen.

• Cognitive behavioral approach : Explain how a cognitive behavioral therapist would approach treatment. Offer background information on cognitive behavioral therapy and describe the treatment sessions, client response, and outcome of this type of treatment. Make note of any difficulties or successes encountered by your client during treatment.
• Humanistic approach : Describe a humanistic approach that could be used to treat your client, such as client-centered therapy . Provide information on the type of treatment you chose, the client's reaction to the treatment, and the end result of this approach. Explain why the treatment was successful or unsuccessful.
• Psychoanalytic approach : Describe how a psychoanalytic therapist would view the client's problem. Provide some background on the psychoanalytic approach and cite relevant references. Explain how psychoanalytic therapy would be used to treat the client, how the client would respond to therapy, and the effectiveness of this treatment approach.
• Pharmacological approach : If treatment primarily involves the use of medications, explain which medications were used and why. Provide background on the effectiveness of these medications and how monotherapy may compare with an approach that combines medications with therapy or other treatments.

This section of a case study should also include information about the treatment goals, process, and outcomes.

When you are writing a case study, you should also include a section where you discuss the case study itself, including the strengths and limitiations of the study. You should note how the findings of your case study might support previous research. 

In your discussion section, you should also describe some of the implications of your case study. What ideas or findings might require further exploration? How might researchers go about exploring some of these questions in additional studies?

Need More Tips?

Here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind when formatting your case study:

• Never refer to the subject of your case study as "the client." Instead, use their name or a pseudonym.
• Read examples of case studies to gain an idea about the style and format.
• Remember to use APA format when citing references .

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach .  BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011;11:100.

Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach . BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-100

Gagnon, Yves-Chantal.  The Case Study as Research Method: A Practical Handbook . Canada, Chicago Review Press Incorporated DBA Independent Pub Group, 2010.

Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . United States, SAGE Publications, 2017.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

• How it works

A Quick Guide to Case Study with Examples

Published by Alvin Nicolas at August 14th, 2021 , Revised On August 29, 2023

A case study is a documented history and detailed analysis of a situation concerning organisations, industries, and markets.

A case study:

• Focuses on discovering new facts of the situation under observation.
• Includes data collection from multiple sources over time.
• Widely used in social sciences to study the underlying information, organisation, community, or event.
• It does not provide any solution to the problem .

When to Use Case Study? 

You can use a case study in your research when:

• The focus of your study is to find answers to how and why questions .
• You don’t have enough time to conduct extensive research; case studies are convenient for completing your project successfully.
• You want to analyse real-world problems in-depth, then you can use the method of the case study.

You can consider a single case to gain in-depth knowledge about the subject, or you can choose multiple cases to know about various aspects of your  research problem .

What are the Aims of the Case Study?

• The case study aims at identifying weak areas that can be improved.
• This method is often used for idiographic research (focuses on individual cases or events).
• Another aim of the case study is nomothetic research (aims to discover new theories through data analysis of multiple cases).

Types of Case Studies

There are different types of case studies that can be categorised based on the purpose of the investigation.

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How to Conduct a Case Study?

• Select the Case to Investigate
• Formulate the Research Question
• Review of Literature
• Choose the Precise Case to Use in your Study
• Select Data Collection and Analysis Techniques
• Collect the Data
• Analyse the Data
• Prepare the Report

Step1: Select the Case to Investigate

The first step is to select a case to conduct your investigation. You should remember the following points.

• Make sure that you perform the study in the available timeframe.
• There should not be too much information available about the organisation.
• You should be able to get access to the organisation.
• There should be enough information available about the subject to conduct further research.

Step2: Formulate the Research Question

It’s necessary to  formulate a research question  to proceed with your case study. Most of the research questions begin with  how, why, what, or what can . 

You can also use a research statement instead of a research question to conduct your research which can be conditional or non-conditional. 

Step 3: Review of Literature

Once you formulate your research statement or question, you need to extensively  review the documentation about the existing discoveries related to your research question or statement.

Step 4: Choose the Precise Case to Use in your Study

You need to select a specific case or multiple cases related to your research. It would help if you treated each case individually while using multiple cases. The outcomes of each case can be used as contributors to the outcomes of the entire study.  You can select the following cases. 

• Representing various geographic regions
• Cases with various size parameters
• Explaining the existing theories or assumptions
• Leading to discoveries
• Providing a base for future research.

Step 5: Select Data Collection and Analysis Techniques

You can choose both  qualitative or quantitative approaches  for  collecting the data . You can use  interviews ,  surveys , artifacts, documentation, newspapers, and photographs, etc. To avoid biased observation, you can triangulate  your research to provide different views of your case. Even if you are focusing on a single case, you need to observe various case angles. It would help if you constructed validity, internal and external validity, as well as reliability.

Example: Identifying the impacts of contaminated water on people’s health and the factors responsible for it. You need to gather the data using qualitative and quantitative approaches to understand the case in such cases.

Construct validity:  You should select the most suitable measurement tool for your research. 

Internal validity:   You should use various methodological tools to  triangulate  the data. Try different methods to study the same hypothesis.

External validity:  You need to effectively apply the data beyond the case’s circumstances to more general issues.

Reliability:   You need to be confident enough to formulate the new direction for future studies based on your findings.

Also Read:  Reliability and Validity

Step 6: Collect the Data

Beware of the following when collecting data:

• Information should be gathered systematically, and the collected evidence from various sources should contribute to your research objectives.
• Don’t collect your data randomly.
• Recheck your research questions to avoid mistakes.
• You should save the collected data in any popular format for clear understanding.
• While making any changes to collecting information, make sure to record the changes in a document.
• You should maintain a case diary and note your opinions and thoughts evolved throughout the study.

Step 7: Analyse the Data

The research data identifies the relationship between the objects of study and the research questions or statements. You need to reconfirm the collected information and tabulate it correctly for better understanding. 

Step 8: Prepare the Report

It’s essential to prepare a report for your case study. You can write your case study in the form of a scientific paper or thesis discussing its detail with supporting evidence. 

A case study can be represented by incorporating  quotations,  stories, anecdotes,  interview transcripts , etc., with empirical data in the result section. 

You can also write it in narrative styles using  textual analysis  or   discourse analysis . Your report should also include evidence from published literature, and you can put it in the discussion section.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Case Study

Frequently asked questions, what is the case study.

A case study is a research method where a specific instance, event, or situation is deeply examined to gain insights into real-world complexities. It involves detailed analysis of context, data, and variables to understand patterns, causes, and effects, often used in various disciplines for in-depth exploration.

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• How It Works

Case Study vs. Experiment: What's the Difference?

Key Differences

Comparison chart, generalization, preferred fields, case study and experiment definitions, when is a case study used, what is an experiment, how do case studies gather data, can case studies be generalized, what fields commonly use case studies, what type of data do experiments produce, can a case study include quantitative data, what is a case study, what is the main purpose of an experiment, is bias a concern in case studies, are experiments replicable, in which fields are experiments predominant, how do experiments impact scientific knowledge, what is a longitudinal case study, can experiments be conducted in natural settings, what is the role of control in experiments, how long can a case study last, what ethical considerations are involved in experiments, can case studies be used to test hypotheses, how is replicability ensured in experiments.

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What types of studies are there.

Created: June 15, 2016 ; Last Update: September 8, 2016 ; Next update: 2020.

There are various types of scientific studies such as experiments and comparative analyses, observational studies, surveys, or interviews. The choice of study type will mainly depend on the research question being asked.

When making decisions, patients and doctors need reliable answers to a number of questions. Depending on the medical condition and patient's personal situation, the following questions may be asked:

• What is the cause of the condition?
• What is the natural course of the disease if left untreated?
• What will change because of the treatment?
• How many other people have the same condition?
• How do other people cope with it?

Each of these questions can best be answered by a different type of study.

In order to get reliable results, a study has to be carefully planned right from the start. One thing that is especially important to consider is which type of study is best suited to the research question. A study protocol should be written and complete documentation of the study's process should also be done. This is vital in order for other scientists to be able to reproduce and check the results afterwards.

The main types of studies are randomized controlled trials (RCTs), cohort studies, case-control studies and qualitative studies.

• Randomized controlled trials

If you want to know how effective a treatment or diagnostic test is, randomized trials provide the most reliable answers. Because the effect of the treatment is often compared with "no treatment" (or a different treatment), they can also show what happens if you opt to not have the treatment or diagnostic test.

When planning this type of study, a research question is stipulated first. This involves deciding what exactly should be tested and in what group of people. In order to be able to reliably assess how effective the treatment is, the following things also need to be determined before the study is started:

• How long the study should last
• How many participants are needed
• How the effect of the treatment should be measured

For instance, a medication used to treat menopause symptoms needs to be tested on a different group of people than a flu medicine. And a study on treatment for a stuffy nose may be much shorter than a study on a drug taken to prevent strokes.

“Randomized” means divided into groups by chance. In RCTs participants are randomly assigned to one of two or more groups. Then one group receives the new drug A, for example, while the other group receives the conventional drug B or a placebo (dummy drug). Things like the appearance and taste of the drug and the placebo should be as similar as possible. Ideally, the assignment to the various groups is done "double blinded," meaning that neither the participants nor their doctors know who is in which group.

The assignment to groups has to be random in order to make sure that only the effects of the medications are compared, and no other factors influence the results. If doctors decided themselves which patients should receive which treatment, they might – for instance – give the more promising drug to patients who have better chances of recovery. This would distort the results. Random allocation ensures that differences between the results of the two groups at the end of the study are actually due to the treatment and not something else.

Randomized controlled trials provide the best results when trying to find out if there is a cause-and-effect relationship. RCTs can answer questions such as these:

• Is the new drug A better than the standard treatment for medical condition X?
• Does regular physical activity speed up recovery after a slipped disk when compared to passive waiting?
• Cohort studies

A cohort is a group of people who are observed frequently over a period of many years – for instance, to determine how often a certain disease occurs. In a cohort study, two (or more) groups that are exposed to different things are compared with each other: For example, one group might smoke while the other doesn't. Or one group may be exposed to a hazardous substance at work, while the comparison group isn't. The researchers then observe how the health of the people in both groups develops over the course of several years, whether they become ill, and how many of them pass away. Cohort studies often include people who are healthy at the start of the study. Cohort studies can have a prospective (forward-looking) design or a retrospective (backward-looking) design. In a prospective study, the result that the researchers are interested in (such as a specific illness) has not yet occurred by the time the study starts. But the outcomes that they want to measure and other possible influential factors can be precisely defined beforehand. In a retrospective study, the result (the illness) has already occurred before the study starts, and the researchers look at the patient's history to find risk factors.

Cohort studies are especially useful if you want to find out how common a medical condition is and which factors increase the risk of developing it. They can answer questions such as:

• How does high blood pressure affect heart health?
• Does smoking increase your risk of lung cancer?

For example, one famous long-term cohort study observed a group of 40,000 British doctors, many of whom smoked. It tracked how many doctors died over the years, and what they died of. The study showed that smoking caused a lot of deaths, and that people who smoked more were more likely to get ill and die.

• Case-control studies

Case-control studies compare people who have a certain medical condition with people who do not have the medical condition, but who are otherwise as similar as possible, for example in terms of their sex and age. Then the two groups are interviewed, or their medical files are analyzed, to find anything that might be risk factors for the disease. So case-control studies are generally retrospective.

Case-control studies are one way to gain knowledge about rare diseases. They are also not as expensive or time-consuming as RCTs or cohort studies. But it is often difficult to tell which people are the most similar to each other and should therefore be compared with each other. Because the researchers usually ask about past events, they are dependent on the participants’ memories. But the people they interview might no longer remember whether they were, for instance, exposed to certain risk factors in the past.

Still, case-control studies can help to investigate the causes of a specific disease, and answer questions like these:

• Do HPV infections increase the risk of cervical cancer?
• Is the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (“cot death”) increased by parents smoking at home?

Cohort studies and case-control studies are types of "observational studies."

• Cross-sectional studies

Many people will be familiar with this kind of study. The classic type of cross-sectional study is the survey: A representative group of people – usually a random sample – are interviewed or examined in order to find out their opinions or facts. Because this data is collected only once, cross-sectional studies are relatively quick and inexpensive. They can provide information on things like the prevalence of a particular disease (how common it is). But they can't tell us anything about the cause of a disease or what the best treatment might be.

Cross-sectional studies can answer questions such as these:

• How tall are German men and women at age 20?
• How many people have cancer screening?
• Qualitative studies

This type of study helps us understand, for instance, what it is like for people to live with a certain disease. Unlike other kinds of research, qualitative research does not rely on numbers and data. Instead, it is based on information collected by talking to people who have a particular medical condition and people close to them. Written documents and observations are used too. The information that is obtained is then analyzed and interpreted using a number of methods.

Qualitative studies can answer questions such as these:

• How do women experience a Cesarean section?
• What aspects of treatment are especially important to men who have prostate cancer?
• How reliable are the different types of studies?

Each type of study has its advantages and disadvantages. It is always important to find out the following: Did the researchers select a study type that will actually allow them to find the answers they are looking for? You can’t use a survey to find out what is causing a particular disease, for instance.

It is really only possible to draw reliable conclusions about cause and effect by using randomized controlled trials. Other types of studies usually only allow us to establish correlations (relationships where it isn’t clear whether one thing is causing the other). For instance, data from a cohort study may show that people who eat more red meat develop bowel cancer more often than people who don't. This might suggest that eating red meat can increase your risk of getting bowel cancer. But people who eat a lot of red meat might also smoke more, drink more alcohol, or tend to be overweight. The influence of these and other possible risk factors can only be determined by comparing two equal-sized groups made up of randomly assigned participants.

That is why randomized controlled trials are usually the only suitable way to find out how effective a treatment is. Systematic reviews, which summarize multiple RCTs, are even better. In order to be good-quality, though, all studies and systematic reviews need to be designed properly and eliminate as many potential sources of error as possible.

• German Network for Evidence-based Medicine. Glossar: Qualitative Forschung.  Berlin: DNEbM; 2011. 
• Greenhalgh T. Einführung in die Evidence-based Medicine: kritische Beurteilung klinischer Studien als Basis einer rationalen Medizin. Bern: Huber; 2003. 
• Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG, Germany). General methods . Version 5.0. Cologne: IQWiG; 2017.
• Klug SJ, Bender R, Blettner M, Lange S. Wichtige epidemiologische Studientypen. Dtsch Med Wochenschr 2007; 132:e45-e47. [ PubMed : 17530597 ]
• Schäfer T. Kritische Bewertung von Studien zur Ätiologie. In: Kunz R, Ollenschläger G, Raspe H, Jonitz G, Donner-Banzhoff N (eds.). Lehrbuch evidenzbasierte Medizin in Klinik und Praxis. Cologne: Deutscher Ärzte-Verlag; 2007.

IQWiG health information is written with the aim of helping people understand the advantages and disadvantages of the main treatment options and health care services.

Because IQWiG is a German institute, some of the information provided here is specific to the German health care system. The suitability of any of the described options in an individual case can be determined by talking to a doctor. We do not offer individual consultations.

Our information is based on the results of good-quality studies. It is written by a team of health care professionals, scientists and editors, and reviewed by external experts. You can find a detailed description of how our health information is produced and updated in our methods.

• Cite this Page InformedHealth.org [Internet]. Cologne, Germany: Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG); 2006-. What types of studies are there? 2016 Jun 15 [Updated 2016 Sep 8].

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• Case Study | Definition, Examples & Methods

Case Study | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on 5 May 2022 by Shona McCombes . Revised on 30 January 2023.

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organisation, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating, and understanding different aspects of a research problem .

Table of contents

When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyse the case.

A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.

Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.

You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.

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Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:

• Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
• Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
• Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
• Open up new directions for future research

Unlike quantitative or experimental research, a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.

If you find yourself aiming to simultaneously investigate and solve an issue, consider conducting action research . As its name suggests, action research conducts research and takes action at the same time, and is highly iterative and flexible. 

However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience, or phenomenon.

While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:

• Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
• Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
• Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions

To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.

There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews, observations, and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data .

The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.

In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.

How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis, with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results , and discussion .

Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyse its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).

In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.

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What Is a Case Study? Definition, Examples, Types & Methods

What is the definition of a case study.

A case study is typically a research paper to generate an in-depth and multi-faced understanding of any complicated issue in a life scenario. It is a well-written research design that is very commonly used in a wide range of disciplines.

Looking for fast and professional case study assignment help online ? Choose Casestudyhelp.com and enjoy high-quality case study assistance and the lowest rate!

Also Read:  A Complete Guide to Writing an Effective Case Study

Case Study Examples

• Marketing case study examples: Case studies in marketing are written to show your success, and you must always prominently showcase your buoyant suits. You can use bright, bold colours with many contesting fonts, shapes, and simple icons to highlight your case study.
• You need to highlight your big win on the 2nd page with a bright orange colour with highlighted circles.
• Make the essential data stand out exceptionally to track your prospective customers.
• Marketing all the critical data is very important in your marketing case study.

Use a straightforward and crystal clear layout of the case study.

• Using a straightforward layout in any case study is very effective. For example, keeping a spotless white background and drawing slim lines helps to separate these sections in a specific way for formatting the case study.
• Making the information clear helps draw attention to the results and helps to improve the accessibility of the design.
• The case study examples must sit nicely with more extended reports and a consistent layout.

Need Help with Writing a Case Study?

Casestudyhelp.com is the right place that can help you.

What Are the Types of Case Studies?

Case studies can be categorized into several types based on their focus and purpose. Here are some common types of case studies:

• Collective Case Studies : These types of case studies involve investigating any group of individuals. Here, the researchers need to study a group of people in a specific setting or any community. Ex: Psychologists must explore how access to the resources in any society can affect people’s mental wellness.
• Descriptive Case Studies: These involve starting with any descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the gathered information is compared to the preexisting approaches.
• Explanatory Case Studies: These types of case studies are primarily used to conduct any casual investigation. Here, the researchers are more interested in looking for the factors that caused specific results.
• Exploratory Case Studies : These case studies are conducted when researchers want to explore a new or relatively unexplored topic. They are more open-ended and aim to generate hypotheses and ideas for further research.
• Instrumental Case Studies : These case studies are selected because they provide insights into a broader issue or theory. The case is used as a means to investigate a more general phenomenon.
• Intrinsic Case Studies : In these case studies, the case itself is of particular interest due to its uniqueness or rarity. The goal is not to generalize findings to a larger population but to understand the specific case deeply.
• Pilot Case Studies : Pilot case studies are conducted as a preliminary investigation before launching a larger study. They help researchers refine their research questions, methods, and procedures.
• Problem-Oriented Case Studies : These case studies focus on solving a specific problem or addressing a particular issue. Researchers aim to provide practical solutions based on their analysis of the case.
• Ethnographic Case Studies : Ethnographic case studies involve immersing the researcher in the subject’s environment to gain an in-depth cultural understanding. This is often used in anthropology and sociology.
• Longitudinal Case Studies : Longitudinal studies involve observing and analyzing a case over an extended period of time. This allows researchers to track changes, developments, and trends that occur over time.
• Comparative Case Studies : Comparative case studies involve comparing two or more cases to draw similarities, differences, and patterns between them. This type of study is often used to test hypotheses or theories.
• Critical Instance Case Studies : Critical instance cases are chosen because they represent a crucial or pivotal event that can provide insights into a larger issue or theory.

Each type of case study serves a different purpose and is designed to answer specific research questions. Researchers choose the type of case study that best aligns with their objectives and the nature of the phenomenon they are investigating.

Also, Check Out –  Why Is Everyone Talking About Case Study Help?

What Are the Methods of a Case Study?

A   case study research   is a qualitative research design. It is often used in the social sciences since it involves observing the cases or subjects in their settings with the most minor interference from the researcher.

In the case study method, the researchers pose a definite question raging any individual or group for testing their hypotheses or theories. This is done by gathering data from the interviews with the essential data.

Case study research is a perfect way to understand the nuances of any matter often neglected in quantitative research methods. A case study is distinct from any other qualitative study in the following ways:

• Focused on the effect of any set of circumstances in any group or any individual
• It mostly begins with any specific question regarding one or more cases
• It usually focuses on the individual accounts and its experiences

The primary features of case study research methods are as follows:

• The case study methods   must involve the researcher asking a few questions of one person or a small group of people who are known as the respondents for testing the survey.
• The case study in the research mythology might apply triangulation to collect data. It is then analyzed and interpreted to form a hypothesis to be tested through further research or validated by other researchers.
• Concepts are defined using objective language with references to the Preconceived Notions. These individuals may have about them. A researcher sets out to discover by asking any specific question on how people think about their findings.
• The case study method needs a clear concept and theory to guide the processes. A well-organized research question is fundamental while conducting any case study since its results depend on it. The best approach for answering the research questions is challenging the preexisting theories, assumptions or hypotheses.

Benefits and Limitations of Case Studies

The benefits of case studies are as follows:

• Case studies give many details to be collected and will be easily obtained by the other research designs. The collected data is mostly richer than that can be funded via different experimental methods.
• Case studies are primarily conducted on the rare cases where more extensive samples of similar participants are unavailable.
• Within certain case studies, scientific experiments can also be conducted.
• The case studies can also help the experimenters adapt the ideas and produce novel hypotheses for later testing.

Disadvantages of Case Studies

• One of the main criticisms in case studies is that the collected data cannot necessarily be generated for any broader population. This can lead to data being collected over any case study that is only sometimes relevant or useful.
• Some of the case studies still need to be scientific. Many scientists used case studies for conducting several experiments, the results of which were only sometimes very successful.
• Case studies are primarily based on one person, so it can be only one experimenter who is collecting the data. This can lead to a bias in data collection that can influence the results in frequent designs.
• Drawing any definite cause or effect from many case studies is sometimes challenging.

Importance of Case Study

• A case study is a particular research h method involving an up-close and in-depth investigation of any subject, and it is related to a contextual position. These are produced by following a research form. The case study helps in bringing the understanding of any complex issue. This can extend experience or add strength to the already existing knowledge via the previous research. The contextual analysis revolves around a small number of events or situations.
• Researchers have used case studies for an extended period, and they have been successfully applied in various disciplines like social sciences.

Writing the best case study paper on any subject is a challenging task. Thus, you will always need the best service provider in this regard. The  CaseStudyHelp.com   is the top choice for you.

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What is a Case Study? [+6 Types of Case Studies]

By Ronita Mohan , Sep 20, 2021

Case studies have become powerful business tools. But what is a case study? What are the benefits of creating one? Are there limitations to the format?

If you’ve asked yourself these questions, our helpful guide will clear things up. Learn how to use a case study for business. Find out how cases analysis works in psychology and research.

We’ve also got examples of case studies to inspire you.

Haven’t made a case study before? You can easily  create a case study  with Venngage’s customizable templates.

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What is a case study, what is the case study method, benefits of case studies, limitations of case studies, types of case studies, faqs about case studies.

Case studies are research methodologies. They examine subjects, projects, or organizations to tell a story.

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Numerous sectors use case analyses. The social sciences, social work, and psychology create studies regularly.

Healthcare industries write reports on patients and diagnoses. Marketing case study examples , like the one below, highlight the benefits of a business product.

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Now that you know what a case study is, we explain how case reports are used in three different industries.

What is a business case study?

A business or marketing case study aims at showcasing a successful partnership. This can be between a brand and a client. Or the case study can examine a brand’s project.

There is a perception that case studies are used to advertise a brand. But effective reports, like the one below, can show clients how a brand can support them.

Hubspot created a case study on a customer that successfully scaled its business. The report outlines the various Hubspot tools used to achieve these results.

Hubspot also added a video with testimonials from the client company’s employees.

So, what is the purpose of a case study for businesses? There is a lot of competition in the corporate world. Companies are run by people. They can be on the fence about which brand to work with.

Business reports  stand out aesthetically, as well. They use  brand colors  and brand fonts . Usually, a combination of the client’s and the brand’s.

With the Venngage  My Brand Kit  feature, businesses can automatically apply their brand to designs.

A business case study, like the one below, acts as social proof. This helps customers decide between your brand and your competitors.

Don’t know how to design a report? You can learn  how to write a case study  with Venngage’s guide. We also share design tips and examples that will help you convert.

Related: 55+ Annual Report Design Templates, Inspirational Examples & Tips [Updated]

What is a case study in psychology?

In the field of psychology, case studies focus on a particular subject. Psychology case histories also examine human behaviors.

Case reports search for commonalities between humans. They are also used to prescribe further research. Or these studies can elaborate on a solution for a behavioral ailment.

The American Psychology Association  has a number of case studies on real-life clients. Note how the reports are more text-heavy than a business case study.

Famous psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and Anna O popularised the use of case studies in the field. They did so by regularly interviewing subjects. Their detailed observations build the field of psychology.

It is important to note that psychological studies must be conducted by professionals. Psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists should be the researchers in these cases.

Related: What Netflix’s Top 50 Shows Can Teach Us About Font Psychology [Infographic]

What is a case study in research?

Research is a necessary part of every case study. But specific research fields are required to create studies. These fields include user research, healthcare, education, or social work.

For example, this UX Design  report examined the public perception of a client. The brand researched and implemented new visuals to improve it. The study breaks down this research through lessons learned.

Clinical reports are a necessity in the medical field. These documents are used to share knowledge with other professionals. They also help examine new or unusual diseases or symptoms.

The pandemic has led to a significant increase in research. For example,  Spectrum Health  studied the value of health systems in the pandemic. They created the study by examining community outreach.

The pandemic has significantly impacted the field of education. This has led to numerous examinations on remote studying. There have also been studies on how students react to decreased peer communication.

Social work case reports often have a community focus. They can also examine public health responses. In certain regions, social workers study disaster responses.

You now know what case studies in various fields are. In the next step of our guide, we explain the case study method.

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A case analysis is a deep dive into a subject. To facilitate this case studies are built on interviews and observations. The below example would have been created after numerous interviews.

Case studies are largely qualitative. They analyze and describe phenomena. While some data is included, a case analysis is not quantitative.

There are a few steps in the case method. You have to start by identifying the subject of your study. Then determine what kind of research is required.

In natural sciences, case studies can take years to complete. Business reports, like this one, don’t take that long. A few weeks of interviews should be enough.

The case method will vary depending on the industry. Reports will also look different once produced.

As you will have seen, business reports are more colorful. The design is also more accessible . Healthcare and psychology reports are more text-heavy.

Designing case reports takes time and energy. So, is it worth taking the time to write them? Here are the benefits of creating case studies.

• Collects large amounts of information
• Helps formulate hypotheses
• Builds the case for further research
• Discovers new insights into a subject
• Builds brand trust and loyalty
• Engages customers through stories

For example, the business study below creates a story around a brand partnership. It makes for engaging reading. The study also shows evidence backing up the information.

We’ve shared the benefits of why studies are needed. We will also look at the limitations of creating them.

Related: How to Present a Case Study like a Pro (With Examples)

There are a few disadvantages to conducting a case analysis. The limitations will vary according to the industry.

• Responses from interviews are subjective
• Subjects may tailor responses to the researcher
• Studies can’t always be replicated
• In certain industries, analyses can take time and be expensive
• Risk of generalizing the results among a larger population

These are some of the common weaknesses of creating case reports. If you’re on the fence, look at the competition in your industry.

Other brands or professionals are building reports, like this example. In that case, you may want to do the same.

There are six common types of case reports. Depending on your industry, you might use one of these types.

Descriptive case studies

Explanatory case studies, exploratory case reports, intrinsic case studies, instrumental case studies, collective case reports.

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We go into more detail about each type of study in the guide below.

Related:  15+ Professional Case Study Examples [Design Tips + Templates]

When you have an existing hypothesis, you can design a descriptive study. This type of report starts with a description. The aim is to find connections between the subject being studied and a theory.

Once these connections are found, the study can conclude. The results of this type of study will usually suggest how to develop a theory further.

A study like the one below has concrete results. A descriptive report would use the quantitative data as a suggestion for researching the subject deeply.

When an incident occurs in a field, an explanation is required. An explanatory report investigates the cause of the event. It will include explanations for that cause.

The study will also share details about the impact of the event. In most cases, this report will use evidence to predict future occurrences. The results of explanatory reports are definitive.

Note that there is no room for interpretation here. The results are absolute.

The study below is a good example. It explains how one brand used the services of another. It concludes by showing definitive proof that the collaboration was successful.

Another example of this study would be in the automotive industry. If a vehicle fails a test, an explanatory study will examine why. The results could show that the failure was because of a particular part.

Related: How to Write a Case Study [+ Design Tips]

An explanatory report is a self-contained document. An exploratory one is only the beginning of an investigation.

Exploratory cases act as the starting point of studies. This is usually conducted as a precursor to large-scale investigations. The research is used to suggest why further investigations are needed.

An exploratory study can also be used to suggest methods for further examination.

For example, the below analysis could have found inconclusive results. In that situation, it would be the basis for an in-depth study.

Intrinsic studies are more common in the field of psychology. These reports can also be conducted in healthcare or social work.

These types of studies focus on a unique subject, such as a patient. They can sometimes study groups close to the researcher.

The aim of such studies is to understand the subject better. This requires learning their history. The researcher will also examine how they interact with their environment.

For instance, if the case study below was about a unique brand, it could be an intrinsic study.

Once the study is complete, the researcher will have developed a better understanding of a phenomenon. This phenomenon will likely not have been studied or theorized about before.

Examples of intrinsic case analysis can be found across psychology. For example, Jean Piaget’s theories on cognitive development. He established the theory from intrinsic studies into his own children.

Related: What Disney Villains Can Tell Us About Color Psychology [Infographic]

This is another type of study seen in medical and psychology fields. Instrumental reports are created to examine more than just the primary subject.

When research is conducted for an instrumental study, it is to provide the basis for a larger phenomenon. The subject matter is usually the best example of the phenomenon. This is why it is being studied.

Assume it’s examining lead generation strategies. It may want to show that visual marketing is the definitive lead generation tool. The brand can conduct an instrumental case study to examine this phenomenon.

Collective studies are based on instrumental case reports. These types of studies examine multiple reports.

There are a number of reasons why collective reports are created:

• To provide evidence for starting a new study
• To find pattens between multiple instrumental reports
• To find differences in similar types of cases
• Gain a deeper understanding of a complex phenomenon
• Understand a phenomenon from diverse contexts

A researcher could use multiple reports, like the one below, to build a collective case report.

Related: 10+ Case Study Infographic Templates That Convert

What makes a case study a case study?

A case study has a very particular research methodology. They are an in-depth study of a person or a group of individuals. They can also study a community or an organization. Case reports examine real-world phenomena within a set context.

How long should a case study be?

The length of studies depends on the industry. It also depends on the story you’re telling. Most case studies should be at least 500-1500 words long. But you can increase the length if you have more details to share.

What should you ask in a case study?

The one thing you shouldn’t ask is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions. Case studies are qualitative. These questions won’t give you the information you need.

Ask your client about the problems they faced. Ask them about solutions they found. Or what they think is the ideal solution. Leave room to ask them follow-up questions. This will help build out the study.

How to present a case study?

When you’re ready to present a case study, begin by providing a summary of the problem or challenge you were addressing. Follow this with an outline of the solution you implemented, and support this with the results you achieved, backed by relevant data. Incorporate visual aids like slides, graphs, and images to make your case study presentation more engaging and impactful.

Now you know what a case study means, you can begin creating one. These reports are a great tool for analyzing brands. They are also useful in a variety of other fields.

Use a visual communication platform like Venngage to design case studies. With Venngage’s templates, you can design easily. Create branded, engaging reports, all without design experience.

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Case studies are effective research methods that focus on one specific case over time. This gives a detailed view that's great for learning.

Writing a case study is a very useful form of study in the educational process. With real-life examples, students can learn more effectively. 

A case study also has different types and forms. As a rule of thumb, all of them require a detailed and convincing answer based on a thorough analysis.

In this blog, we are going to discuss the different types of case study research methods in detail.

So, let’s dive right in!

• 1. Understanding Case Studies
• 2. What are the Types of Case Study?
• 3. Types of Subjects of Case Study 
• 4. Benefits of Case Study for Students

Understanding Case Studies

Case studies are a type of research methodology. Case study research designs examine subjects, projects, or organizations to provide an analysis based on the evidence.

It allows you to get insight into what causes any subject’s decisions and actions. This makes case studies a great way for students to develop their research skills.

A case study focuses on a single project for an extended period, which allows students to explore the topic in depth.

What are the Types of Case Study?

Multiple case studies are used for different purposes. The main purpose of case studies is to analyze problems within the boundaries of a specific organization, environment, or situation. 

Many aspects of a case study such as data collection and analysis, qualitative research questions, etc. are dependent on the researcher and what the study is looking to address. 

Case studies can be divided into the following categories:

Illustrative Case Study

Exploratory case study, cumulative case study, critical instance case study, descriptive case study, intrinsic case study, instrumental case study.

Let’s take a look at the detailed description of each type of case study with examples. 

An illustrative case study is used to examine a familiar case to help others understand it. It is one of the main types of case studies in research methodology and is primarily descriptive. 

In this type of case study, usually, one or two instances are used to explain what a situation is like. 

Here is an example to help you understand it better:

Illustrative Case Study Example

An exploratory case study is usually done before a larger-scale research. These types of case studies are very popular in the social sciences like political science and primarily focus on real-life contexts and situations.

This method is useful in identifying research questions and methods for a large and complex study. 

Let’s take a look at this example to help you have a better understanding:

Exploratory Case Study Example

A cumulative case study is one of the main types of case studies in qualitative research. It is used to collect information from different sources at different times.

This case study aims to summarize the past studies without spending additional cost and time on new investigations. 

Let’s take a look at the example below:

Cumulative Case Study Example

Critical instances case studies are used to determine the cause and consequence of an event. 

The main reason for this type of case study is to investigate one or more sources with unique interests and sometimes with no interest in general. 

Take a look at this example below:

Critical Instance Case Study Example

When you have a hypothesis, you can design a descriptive study. It aims to find connections between the subject being studied and a theory.

After making these connections, the study can be concluded. The results of the descriptive case study will usually suggest how to develop a theory further.

This example can help you understand the concept better:

Descriptive Case Study Example

Intrinsic studies are more commonly used in psychology, healthcare, or social work. So, if you were looking for types of case studies in sociology, or types of case studies in social research, this is it.

The focus of intrinsic studies is on the individual. The aim of such studies is not only to understand the subject better but also their history and how they interact with their environment.

Here is an example to help you understand;

Intrinsic Case Study Example

This type of case study is mostly used in qualitative research. In an instrumental case study, the specific case is selected to provide information about the research question.

It offers a lens through which researchers can explore complex concepts, theories, or generalizations.

Take a look at the example below to have a better understanding of the concepts:

Instrumental Case Study Example

Review some case study examples to help you understand how a specific case study is conducted.

Types of Subjects of Case Study 

In general, there are 5 types of subjects that case studies address. Every case study fits into the following subject categories. 

• Person: This type of study focuses on one subject or individual and can use several research methods to determine the outcome. 
• Group: This type of study takes into account a group of individuals. This could be a group of friends, coworkers, or family. 
• Location: The main focus of this type of study is the place. It also takes into account how and why people use the place. 
• Organization: This study focuses on an organization or company. This could also include the company employees or people who work in an event at the organization. 
• Event: This type of study focuses on a specific event. It could be societal or cultural and examines how it affects the surroundings. 

Benefits of Case Study for Students

Here's a closer look at the multitude of benefits students can have with case studies:

Real-world Application

Case studies serve as a crucial link between theory and practice. By immersing themselves in real-world scenarios, students can apply theoretical knowledge to practical situations.

Critical Thinking Skills

Analyzing case studies demands critical thinking and informed decision-making. Students cultivate the ability to evaluate information, identify key factors, and develop well-reasoned solutions – essential skills in both academic and professional contexts.

Enhanced Problem-solving Abilities

Case studies often present complex problems that require creative and strategic solutions. Engaging with these challenges refines students' problem-solving skills, encouraging them to think innovatively and develop effective approaches.

Holistic Understanding

Going beyond theoretical concepts, case studies provide a holistic view of a subject. Students gain insights into the multifaceted aspects of a situation, helping them connect the dots and understand the broader context.

Exposure to Diverse Perspectives

Case studies often encompass a variety of industries, cultures, and situations. This exposure broadens students' perspectives, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the world and the challenges faced by different entities.

So there you have it!

We have explored different types of case studies and their examples. Case studies act as the tools to understand and deal with the many challenges and opportunities around us.

Case studies are being used more and more in colleges and universities to help students understand how a hypothetical event can influence a person, group, or organization in real life. 

Not everyone can handle the case study writing assignment easily. It is even scary to think that your time and work could be wasted if you don't do the case study paper right. 

Our professional paper writing service is here to make your academic journey easier. 

Let us worry about your essay and buy case study today to ease your stress and achieve academic success.

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Laughter and effective presidential leadership: A case study of Ronald Reagan as the ‘great communicator’

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Project administration, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected] (PAS); [email protected] (CS)

Affiliation Department of Political Science, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, United States of America

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Political Science, George Washington University, Washington, DC, United States of America

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Psychology, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

• Patrick A. Stewart, 
• Reagan G. Dye, 
• Carl Senior

• Published: April 17, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301324
• Reader Comments

Former United States President Ronald Reagan’s use of media and his charismatic connection with viewers earned him the moniker “the great communicator”. One aspect of his charisma, the influence of elicited laughter, during a highly critical 5-minute news story by CBS reporter Leslie Stahl during the 1984 US presidential election is examined here. Two experiments examining the effects of audience laughter on perceptions of charismatic leadership are reported. In the first experiment the effects of audience laughter in response to Reagan’s comments were investigated. Here, Reagan’s perceived warmth as an effective leader significantly diminished when strong laughter is removed, whereas perceptions of competence remained unaffected. The second study carried out on an older cohort replicated and extended the first in a pre-registered design by considering the perception of trait charisma. Here, the presence or absence of audience laughter did not affect judgements of charisma. Additionally, the affective response before, and then after, the presentation of the news story was measured. Emotions associated with a positive appraisal all decreased after being shown the news story while emotions associated negative appraisal all increased. However, only participant anger was significantly increased when audience laughter was removed. Taken together the findings of both studies converge on the fact that subtle changes in media presentation of political leaders can have a significant effect on viewers. The findings show that even after 40 years in office the social psychological effects of presidential charisma can still influence observers.

Citation: Stewart PA, Dye RG, Senior C (2024) Laughter and effective presidential leadership: A case study of Ronald Reagan as the ‘great communicator’. PLoS ONE 19(4): e0301324. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301324

Editor: Hans H. Tung, National Taiwan University, TAIWAN

Received: April 24, 2023; Accepted: March 14, 2024; Published: April 17, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Stewart et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data for study 1 are publicly accessible by contacting the authors. Study 2 is a preregistered replication and is available here ( https://osf.io/cq5d8/?view_only=fdab9c5c07f94ea0b9c6d01f706121f5 ).

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

One of the most important areas of study regarding politics and social psychology considers how social behaviours affect political interaction and, more specifically, how nonverbal signals influence perceptions of political leaders, especially as presented in television news. With the introduction of high-definition portrayals and ubiquitous hand-held devices, the role of the visual media in the portrayal of political leaders has grown. Experimental research on the visual primacy effect has also demonstrated that when there is conflicting information between the verbal and nonverbal channels in an audio-visual presentation, viewers have difficulty processing the verbal attributes of television news reports and remember the visuals with far more fidelity [ 1 ]. More attention is also paid to affectively important nonverbal communication when the nonverbal attributes of televised leader displays appear inappropriately matched to the rhetorical context [ 2 – 4 ].

The majority of research concerning the influence of nonverbal leader communication on social perception focuses on how visual attributes of posture, body movements, and facial display behaviours affect viewer perceptions and trait attributions [ 5 ]. At the same time, there is a small but growing literature that considers the role played by audible signals. Specifically, research considering the influence of the observable audience response to political figures suggests there is a significant intra-audience effect of emotional and evaluative signalling on other audience members while watching mediated events [ 6 ]. Applause-cheering, laughter, booing, chanting and combinations of these audible signals significantly influence how audience members view the televised political event or news coverage [ 6 ]. Viewers may unknowingly monitor and respond to the expressed intensity and type of follower utterance in support or opposition to the speaker and their stated political positions [ 7 ]. Media audiences, whether streaming debates, watching on television, or viewing through other media platforms, and perhaps more crucially, journalists who may be reporting on the event, may likewise be influenced by information conveyed via this audible channel. In other words, the social influence asserted through a specific audience response is similar to emotional contagion effects [ 6 ] and can affect viewer and listener perceptions with or without express awareness. However, the specific influence of different audience responses such as applause-cheering, laughter, and booing has yet to be studied in depth.

Despite the influence that observable audience responses may have on perceptions of leaders, systematic evaluation of these behaviours to political figures and how they affect the efficacy of politician narratives is limited. The few studies providing insight into the social influence of audience behaviour on political figures and policy issues tend to incorporate both audible and visually observable responses. Wiegman’s field experiment involved a videotaped studio audience either reacting positively, negatively, or neutrally to a well-known Dutch politician through audible utterances and different visible nonverbal behaviours [ 8 ]. Likewise, Fein and colleagues’ experiments considering Ronald Reagan’s second 1984 presidential debate performance did not differentiate between applause and laughter nor the moderator’s verbal and nonverbal response [ 9 ]. A study by Axsom and colleagues considering the verbal channel alone with regards to specific policy issues (e.g., imprisonment/probation) provided for comparison of “enthusiastic applause-cheering” to unenthusiastic and polite applause with occasional derisive cries [ 10 ] and found a tendency towards a simple consensus heuristic to make social judgments. Thus, while the limited research regarding political candidates and issues provides useful insights, it does not differentiate between different observable audience response types and often conflates visual and audible stimuli. In the work that follows we focus on one form of observable audience response–laughter–considering first its evolutionary roots and social influence briefly before focusing on its presence in politics and the types of humour that might elicit this type of behavioural response. We then evaluate group laughter’s role in providing a heuristic by which individuals may evaluate a political figure in ambiguous situations.

Laughter has been studied extensively across a broad range of social contexts with a wide range of approaches and techniques. Indeed, it is one of the few positive emotions considered in great detail, likely due to the social and survival benefits it confers. Across such species as canines [ 11 ], rats [ 12 ], and multiple primate species [ 13 ]–including humans–laughter signals playfulness, and with it benign intent [ 14 ]. In other words, social animals are more likely to cooperate and learn when in a playful state of mind as signalled by laughter.

Within humans, laughter emerges early and is seen across different cultures. Spontaneous laughter is observed in infants as young as 17 to 26 days [ 15 ], well before socially stimulated laughter occurs at three-to-four months of age [ 16 ]. Laughter is also observed within individuals who are blind since birth suggesting a possible adaptive function in social bonding [ 17 ].

The study of laughter is thus rightfully situated as a social phenomenon and would benefit from application of multiple different types of inquiry techniques; despite this, the primary method for analysing laughter has been naturalistic observational studies. Here, the effects of laughter tend to be studied in its social ecology. For instance, the ground-breaking work of Provine and colleagues took a “side-walk scientist” approach to laughter, finding that its role as a social lubricant by which mutual conversational grooming occurred was underappreciated, whereas its role as response to humorous comments was over-stated [ 16 ].

Laughter can be seen as socially influential due in large part to it being reliably identified through audible and visual characteristics. When nonverbal signals are easily and accurately identified, the more they are likely to affect perceptions and behaviour by being part of a highly learned (near automatic) repertoire of behaviours and responses that are likely to have been evolutionarily selected for survival purposes [ 18 ]. Thus, accurate recognition of the emotional state and behavioural intent of communicators provides relevant social information that influences perceptions and evaluations of others [ 19 ].

Reliable indicators of emotion may be defined as first, leading to an accurate recognition of the emotional state of the communicator, along with their resultant behavioural intent (e.g., bonding), and second, providing an index of the sender’s underlying state as one that is costly to produce [ 20 ]. Such signals are emotionally costly to produce due to their communicating underlying physiological states potentiating specific behaviour; furthermore, even when such signals are faked, physiological change can and does occur through the posing or acting out of these display behaviours.

Laughter may be classified as a costly, and hence reliable, signal when evoked or when it is difficult to control; even when faked, the initially emitted laughter leads to physiological change [ 21 ]. Individual laughter likewise serves as a social emollient by affecting perceiver mood states by dampening negative affect, increasing positive affect (and pain tolerance), while increasing social cooperation and group identity [ 22 ]. Laughter thus serves as a highly reliable social signal regarding behavioural intent [ 14 ].

Laughter across differing social contexts

Because laughter provides a mechanism for the facilitation of affiliative social interactions that go beyond physical contact and is inclusive of large numbers of individuals, it should be easily and accurately recognized to indicate the underlying behavioural intent of the senders. Socially important utterances, such as laughter, can be seen as stereotyped activities by having coherent and identifiable vocalic, facial and even postural displays reliably associated with them. As pointed out by Gaspar and colleagues, the multimodal nature of this affiliative display behaviour, together with its early emergence in ontogenetic development and its stability throughout an individual’s lifespan, make it a predictable and reliable signal even as context changes [ 13 ]. Thus, due to the important role it plays in facilitating extended social interaction laughter may be one of the most reliable of nonverbal signals [ 23 ].

That is not to say that laughter cannot function in varying contexts, or convey differing or nuanced information, rather, that it is reliably recognized across cultures. Research regarding laughter at the individual level focuses on the role of such expressiveness being a pervasive social signal during interpersonal interactions. Here, laughter may serve to punctuate speech and indicate turn-taking and transitions within conversations [ 24 , 25 ].

Laughter by individuals indicates social intent through the conveyance of vocalic qualities. Voiced laughter, with its sing-song characteristics, can communicate the experience of amusement, contempt, and even schadenfreude [ 26 , 27 ]. Unvoiced laughter on the other hand, with its gruntlike characteristics [ 28 ], can be seen as signalling more competitive intent by being connected with aggressive statements [ 29 ]. This is perhaps due to the interrelationship between vocalic and facial movements seen with laughter and the amusement smile; facial display behaviour immediately after laughter-eliciting comments help convey social intent by punctuating the preceding statement [ 30 ]. In summary, laughter at the individual level serves a multitude of social functions based upon reliable multi-modal nonverbal signalling that is easily recognized. At the same time, the nuanced expression of individual laughter allows for subtle differences in to be conveyed in its meaning.

Intra-audience effects of audience laughter

Laughter, as an important communicative signal, should also be socially contagious, or at least mimicked, to allow for the cohesion, broadening, and building of groups. Hatfield and colleagues [ 31 ] define social contagion as the “tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person’s and, consequently, to converge emotionally” (p. 169). Thus, laughter would meet the definition of a socially contagious behaviour and indeed might provide the modal behaviour by meeting each of the above criteria in the convergence of mimicry and emotional response [ 13 ]. While group laughter is readily identifiable and distinct from other types of audience responses, it does not appear to have distinguishable characteristics that allow for the differentiation of members of different social groups from each other [ 32 ], nor in identifying nuanced social intent, as is the case with individual laughter.

Experimental research considering how individuals respond to group laughter tends to focus mainly on perceptions of how funny a stimulus is, whether visually with cartoons and written jokes [ 33 – 37 ], audio tapes of jokes, funny stories and stand-up routines [ 38 – 46 ], bloopers [ 47 , 48 ], or scenes from television shows and movies [ 49 – 52 ]. When the source of the humour is taken into account, findings show that group laughter leads to individuals within the group being perceived more favourably across multiple dimensions relevant to leadership, including potential for success [ 45 ], authoritativeness, character, dynamism and interestingness [ 41 ], and credibility, likability, and lowered aggressiveness [ 53 ].

While each of the above studies were influenced by multiple factors, Vraga and colleagues [ 53 ] incisively comment that, “a humorous cue might be more important when faced with a more ambiguous context… as people have substantially less information on which to rely” (p. 145). Much of this research focuses on entertainment figures in which preconceptions either do not play a role due to low awareness, or by being so heterogeneous as to be randomly distributed. Political figures are different. Not only does their humour play a role in audience response, their group membership and social status predisposes perceptions [ 45 ]. Politicians, through their leadership role in society, belong to a clearly demarcated social group that is defined by a more restrictive set of social rules. Thus, the effects of receiving and perceiving laughter within a political context could be manifestly greater than in a non-political context, where it is expected and therefore part of the routine dialogue.

Political laughter

When one considers group level behaviour in political contexts, research regarding observable audience responses tends to focus on the target and intent of verbal statements rather than the social influence process that laughter facilitates [ 30 , 54 , 55 ]. Current analyses describe audience response to political figures, by considering the length, strength, and intensity of audience laughter during political events [ 6 , 56 , 57 ]; however, the results reflect descriptive and correlational findings regarding response to individual speakers rather than group-related outcomes.

In group interactions, laughter is arguably more stereotyped and easily identified than other types of observable audience responses. The vocalic utterances that constitute laughter are much shorter in duration than applause-cheering, for instance. Analysis shows that group laughter in political contexts lasts on average 1–3 seconds in comparison with 2–8 seconds for applause-cheering [ 56 – 59 ]. Booing, another form of observable audience response, is surprisingly rare in political contexts. Interestingly, when an audience shows their appreciation for a humourous comment, applause-cheering prolongs the laughing response [ 30 , 59 ]. This points to high levels of social mimicry in the case of group laughter, and then likely social contagiousness through its continuation via applause.

Studies regarding the use of humour during US presidential primary debates in 2008 [ 30 ] and the 2016 general election presidential debates [ 6 , 56 , 57 ] suggest that the main targets of humour during electoral campaigns tend to be out-group members. Here, ridicule and other forms of disparagement humour are used as a form of political rhetoric. In addition, self-deprecatory humour, where speakers poke fun at themselves or other in-group members, also occurs with regularity. The use of these different types of humour, ridicule and self-deprecation, likely holds strategic value, as ridicule can be used to derogate the competition or set normative boundaries on behaviour. On the other hand, self-deprecatory humour is useful for making a candidate more likable [ 60 ].

While there is an emerging body of research examining the type of humour employed by political candidates and the strength and duration of the laughter response, the correlational nature of this work limits the kinds of inferences that may be drawn. Furthermore, failed humour–which may be defined by the absence of laughter, its muted presence, or even booing–is rarely studied due to the difficulty of identifying enough occurrences for analysis [ 61 ].

The experimental research discussed in the previous section suggests that audience laughter certainly affects perceptions of humorousness and trait evaluations of the speaker. A number of scholars have shown that audience responses affect perceptions of political candidates [ 6 , 8 , 9 ]; however, the question remains as to how robust a role laughter, and the eliciting humour, plays in perceptions of political figures.

This question may be elaborated by considering what leadership traits are influenced by group laughter—and in what direction. The perception of competence and warmth are considered central to the identification and choice of leaders [ 62 – 66 ]. At the same time, these traits may be moderated or mediated by perceptions of leader charisma [ 67 – 72 ]. In the present study the effects of the observable audience response of laughter on the perception of trait charisma is examined by considering an individual considered to be amongst the most charismatic of presidents in United States history, Ronald Reagan.

Humour types and political laughter

When humour in conjunction with laughter has been experimentally studied, the stimuli has tended to have been presented to the participants in the written form [ 73 ]. In other words, vignette studies varying the type of humour used, in combination with the asserted presence of laughter (or its absence), indicates success or lack thereof. As observed by Bitterly, Brooks, and Schweitzer in their extensive analysis of the effect of humour on interpersonal status [ 73 ]:

Though humor can boost status , using humor is risky . Humor attempts can fail in several ways : by being too boring (i . e ., not funny) , too bold (i . e ., inappropriate) , or failing to elicit laughter from the audience . How the audience reacts profoundly influences perceptions . If the audience does not laugh , observers are less likely to view the humor attempt as appropriate or funny , and the joke teller may lose status . (p. 17)

While the work of Bitterly and colleagues’ is indeed informative, their use of written vignettes as experimental treatments limits generalizability. Likewise, their focus on inappropriate humour relied upon sexually-charged quips; while important for the workplace with mixed sexes and fluid power dynamics, this type of humour is not used much by politicians in our technologically mediated era [ 30 , 74 ]. Indeed, the use of sexualized humour in today’s political climate would probably be unsuccessful in eliciting laughter but would also likely alienate a substantial proportion of the electorate.

Regardless, their focus on perceptions of competence and status in response to humour–and the laughter that it elicits–is applicable to contests for leadership within politics. This is especially the case in viewer observations regarding leader competence, which in addition to perceptions of prestige is key to understanding why followers defer to, and confer status on, potential leaders.

Existing research in the use of humour by political figures suggest that it is used to either attack opponents, often through ridicule, or make light of oneself or allies [ 30 , 56 , 75 , 76 ]. Smith and Powell found in the case of other- and self-disparaging humour by group leaders that those making ridicule attempts directed downwards at lower status group members were perceived as less effective, less encouraging, less helpful, and less socially attractive than those using self-directed humour [ 77 ]. However, this investigation also showed that not using humour was perceived as leading to better outcomes; in almost all leadership-based attributions that were considered save for tension relief and opinion offering, leaders who did not attempt any humorous remarks were perceived in a more positive light.

Arguably, the key factor here is the presence or absence of the laughter that is recognized to be an observable audience response to the politician. In the case of other-deprecatory humour, ridicule may increase perceived competence by virtue of martialling an audience together in their response to a tangible target; likewise, failure would see its reduction, negatively affecting the joke-teller. On the other hand, self-deprecatory humour successfully eliciting audience laughter would presumably lead to greater perceptions of warmth and communication effectiveness for the joke-teller [ 77 ]. Ultimately, observable (here audible) support for specific leader comments helps followers to identify leadership potential and other related traits.

Ronald Reagan’s leadership style

Former US President Ronald Reagan’s moniker as “The Great Communicator” inspired a large body of literature assessing his communication style and its effects on public perceptions and the expectations of the American presidency [ 78 ]. As the first “celebrity” politician, Reagan provides insight into the role of media notoriety in politics. Consequently, re-examining Reagan’s relationship with the press and his ability to manipulate public perception is relevant in the current American political climate. The return of the celebrity presidency with the ascension of Donald Trump further warrants an historical examination of Reagan to glean insight into his unique communication style and public perception of populist leaders.

Reagan’s leadership style developed from his natural ability to connect with audiences and years of experience as a recognized film actor and television personality [ 79 ]. Upon entering national politics, Reagan was successful in enjoining his conservative agenda with the Republican Party establishment, garnering successful victories in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections, and passing supply side economic policies. Although he suffered from periods of public scrutiny during his time in office, he was known as the “Teflon president” for his ability to rebound from criticism and controversy and gainfully employed rhetorical strategies to develop a reputation as humorous, charismatic, and likeable [ 75 ]. Now some 30 years since the Reagan era, the study of Reagan’s communication and leadership style has much to offer our current understanding of the normative behaviour of presidents and candidates operating under conditions of constant media scrutiny. Whereas Reagan was adept at connecting with Americans through television, contemporary office holders (and presidential hopefuls) must be able to compete with the flood of media choices now available across numerous platforms [ 80 ] and the fast pace of the issue-attention cycle.

Now more than ever, Converse’s assertion that the public pays more attention to, and takes cues from individuals in politics, rather than to politics and policy making itself is apparent in the individual-centred nature of the contemporary political environment [ 81 ]. If politicians possess the capacity to control the political agenda and how they are perceived by voters, then they have the ability to “go public” without relying on the mass media to set the agenda [ 82 ]. The specific case of Leslie Stahl’s mini-documentary on Reagan from the 1984 campaign is exemplary of this ability to skirt around the media narrative and control perceptions simply through imagery and audience response. Reagan’s mastery of image management in relation to television, including the use of self-deprecatory humour and direct appeals to supporters, provides a blueprint for understanding how presidential contenders must operate to maximize effectiveness in today’s hybrid media era [ 83 ].

The case study approach employed provides a historically relevant example that is recognized by many political communication scholars as a turning point in how nonverbal behaviour and social signals are considered [ 84 , 85 ], it also presents an emotionally evocative stimuli that better reflects the “real world” of media consumption. Here, we test specific hypotheses concerning the influence of the observable audience response of laughter, leadership traits, and also perceived charisma. Reagan’s ability to elicit audience laughter sets up following hypothesis that are addressed in two studies:

• H1: Laughter in response to Reagan’s humorous comments will increase perceptions of his competence, warmth, and charisma.

Furthermore, due to Ronald Reagan’s effective and prolific use of a range of humour types with strategic intent, we can further test the effect of successful and unsuccessful humour, as marked by the presence of absence of laughter. Specifically, the literature reviewed suggests differential impact of Reagan’s use of self-deprecatory and ridicule humour.

• H2: Laughter in response to Reagan’s ridicule of audience members will increase perceptions of his competence.
• H3: Laughter in response to Reagan’s self-deprecatory comments will increase perceptions of his warmth.
• H4: Laughter in response to Reagan’s humour will increase perceptions of his charisma.

The perception of audience laughter to Reagan’s humour will increase judgments of his leadership competence and approachability. However, this will be dependent on whether the humour is self-depreciatory or directed to other parties. Thus, there will be a main effect of humour on judgments of leadership traits and an interaction between the different types of humour that Reagan displays.

Content coding of the Reagan-Stahl News Story (1984)

The key news story was shown on Thursday, October 4, 1984 via a CBS network primetime television news broadcast, one month before Reagan’s landslide election victory. The news story as analysed had a video clip length of five minutes and forty-five seconds (5:44.85/100s; 345 seconds) with the story length after the introduction by Dan Rather being five minutes and twelve seconds. In the five-minute (306 seconds) news story, Leslie Stahl narrated for just over three minutes (194 seconds), while Reagan had twenty-seven seconds of speaking time dispersed throughout five sound bites. These sound bites all took place during the second half of the news story.

Throughout the news story, two minutes and five seconds of audience applause cheering, laughter, and mixed response could be heard. Applause-cheering can be heard throughout almost two minutes of the story (111 seconds). This is notable because support from partisans in the form of audible responses took place in over one-third of a purportedly critical news-story. While Stahl talked over much of the applause-cheering and mixed applause-cheering and booing, laughter was presented without interruption. Indeed, of Reagan’s five sound bites, three were presented with elicited laughter uninterrupted. The first of these laughter events started at two minutes and forty-five seconds into Stahl’s story, whereas the last occurred just under 2 minutes (114 s) from the end. This news story contained a range of examples of Reagan’s performative style and is thus an ideal means to study the effects of the different types of humour used and the interaction between observable audience responses.

While the placement of the humorous comments did not give Reagan the first or final word in the story, these three laughter-eliciting comments provided him with punctuated support from the audience when he did talk. ANVIL content coding software was used to characterize and analyse the news story [ 86 ]. ANVIL allows for frame-by-frame analysis of speaking time and the ability to disambiguate the observable audience responses by considering both audible response by the audience [ 59 ], and camera shots of the audience [ 85 ]. Adobe Premier Pro software was then used to edit the video and develop the various experimental conditions.

A content analytic approach was applied to the visual coding of the key news report [ 85 ]. Specifically, the presence of large (16 of 59 camera shots; 80s and 26.2% of camera time) and approving audiences (15/59 shots; 62.12s and 20.3% of camera time) were coded. When the audible response by the audience is considered in tandem with these types of camera shots, it is found that large, yet non-responsive, audiences were presented in three shots (19.72s), whereas thirteen shots and just over a minute of applause-cheering (60.28s) was heard from large audiences. Audiences seen as approving were evident in fourteen shots for just under one minute (55.52s) where applause-cheering occurred, while laughter was seen in one nearly seven second shot (6.60s). It was expected that the applause-cheering would be most likely observed in media coverage of group settings such as political speeches [ 75 , 76 ] and intra-party debates [ 87 ]. This is due to such observable audience responses predominating in political discourse because of the ease with which candidates can evoke it among supporters in partisan settings. As a result, applause-cheering plays a role as an important barometer of a politicians’ individual appeal during speeches [ 76 , 88 ] or when in direct competition with other candidates during debates [ 59 ]. However, the production decision to incorporate applause-cheering as a major part of a critical news story may be seen as at odds with the perceived intent. So too was the decision to incorporate laughter in response to humorous comments by the then presidential candidate Ronald Reagan.

The objective of the first study is to examine the effects of the observable audience response of laughter and how it moderated the perception of Reagan as an effective presidential leader. It can be expected from the literature reviewed that audience laughter in response to Reagan’s humorous comments will affect perceptions of the leadership traits he holds, whether warmth or competence. The question is, to what extent will the presence or absence of laughter, indicating success or failure of Reagan’s humorous comments differentially affect perceptions of these traits.

While Stahl spoke over the great majority of applause, the first three of Reagan’s sound bites led to observable audience laughter in response to his quips. These occurrences were not spoken over and ensued during a middle portion of the story where Stahl commented on Reagan by stating, “This tight control has baffled those who think that Mr. Reagan is at his very best when he is spontaneous….” With this in mind, three edits totalling just under six seconds (5. 46/100s = 2. 93 +. 83 +1. 7 ) were made. The video was presented in a between subjects design with three different conditions. The first, presented unedited video as the control condition, with participants seeing what viewers of the CBS news story viewed in 1984. The second two treatments involved either the audience laughter being removed completely, with no noise from the video during the edits, or the audience laughter being faded-out to a level at just under fifty percent of that presented during the original news story. As a result, the treatment effect being considered equals 0.016% of audio-visual time (5.46s/344.83) for the total video.

The first edit took place at 3:19:02 (until 3:21:25) of the video clip after Reagan was shown commenting “I’ll raise his taxes” in response to audience members shown as heckling him. The audience, presumably at a campaign speech held during the Missouri State Fair (based upon the scene prior) responded with loud laughter followed by mixed cheering and applause. At the same time Reagan, shown with his suit jacket off in front of hay bales, displayed a smile of amusement after delivering his punchline and during the audience’s laughter and applause-cheering.

The second edit, of less than a second (3:26:29–3:27:21), took place after Stahl commented positively on Reagan’s ability for “tossing off one-liners,” Here Reagan, dressed in a suit and tie and presumably sitting down for an interview, quipped “I never get good reviews from TASS” after shaking his head, presumably to a difficult question. As a small group of individuals laughed at his response Reagan smiled in amusement.

The third edit (3:41:26–3:43:03) was set up by Stahl as Reagan being “masterful at deflecting a hostile question” when he responded to a reporter at a press conference commenting on his keeping Republican Party representatives in line. Here Reagan responded with a self-deprecatory comment, “How can you say that about a sweet fellow like me?” and laughed while displaying a smile of amusement.

Participants

Participants were recruited from introductory-level political science classes and were provided extra course credit for taking part in the study. Written consent to participate was obtained prior to taking part. A total of 317 participants took part in the study that lasted from March 2 to April 28, 2018. So as to ensure task compliance, those individuals who stopped engaging within the first 7 minutes and who did not respond to the open-ended prompt “(P)lease list some of the thoughts you had while watching the video clip” were removed from subsequent analysis, which resulted in a final sample of 283 participants. All procedures were approved by the University of Arkansas IRB.

Of these participants, 61.8% identified as female, 81.3% identified as Caucasian (with 5.3% African-American, 2.1% Asian, 8.5% Hispanic, .4% Native American, and 2.5% other ethnicity), and the average age was twenty-one years old (range 18–71, SD = 4.55). The majority of participants identified themselves as identifying with the Republican Party (40.3%), followed by Democratic Party identifiers (35.3%), as independent (15.2%), Libertarian Party (6.7%), Green Party (.7%) and other (1.8%). Random assignment of participants to the different treatments was balanced (unedited video/laughter-in/control [ n = 96], laughter faded out [ n = 95], and laughter removed [ n = 92]) across the three conditions. When tested for randomness in assignment to the treatment condition, we found no statistical bias (all p-values = ns) for sex, ethnicity, age, party identification, and political ideology (social, economic, overall conservative-liberal).

Prior to the taking part in the protocol, participants were asked to provide basic demographic information (age, sex, ethnicity), whether they were registered to vote, the political party they best identify with and their attitudes towards the main US political parties, as well as their own political ideology. At this point, participants were randomly assigned to one of the three different treatment categories (i.e., control condition, laughter faded out or no laughter).

Immediately after the video clips were viewed, participants were first asked to describe their thoughts on the video, how strongly they felt in reference to different emotions at that moment (anxious, proud, angry, reassured, fearful, irritated, disgusted, sad, and happy) on a 0–10 (not at all to extremely). They were then asked their evaluation of the reporter, Leslie Stahl, in terms of their overall impressions of her, as well as how credible, appropriate, and likable she was on a seven-point scale. These items were then combined into an additive index (Cronbach’s a = .873). A final measure, that of how aggressive Stahl was perceived to be, due to weak correlations with the other measures, was analysed separately.

Participants were then asked to evaluate Ronald Reagan’s leadership traits in terms of his competence , which was based upon measures of how sincere, aggressive, strong, active, competent he appeared to be (Cronbach’s a = .779); additional measures considered a scale of his warmth with questions regarding how intelligent, caring, trustworthy, agreeable, and warm (Cronbach’s a = .928) he appeared during the news story. Responses regarding evaluation of both Leslie Stahl and Ronald Reagan ranged from “Not at all” to “Extremely” on a seven-point (0–6) scale. Finally, to evaluate whether participants noticed the treatment, we asked “How believable did you find the video clip to be?” on the same seven-point scale. Throughout the reported statistical tests an alpha level of >0.05 is designated as n/s.

Emotional response to the video showed that, how anxious ( F = .283, p = ns), proud ( F = .465, p = ns), angry ( F = 1.448, p = ns), reassured ( F = .644, p = ns), fearful ( F = 1.848, p = ns), disgusted ( F = .632, p = ns), sad ( F = .192, p = ns), and happy ( F = .119, p = ns) participants felt was unaffected by the laughter. However, when least significant differences are considered, participants felt significantly less irritated ( F = 4.124, p = .017, partial η 2 = .029) when watching the original video ( M = 3.646) when compared with the treatment videos with laughter faded out ( M = 2.611, p = .008) and laughter completely removed ( M = 2.793, p = .029).

Participant ratings of Leslie Stahl in a similar manner suggested the treatment had little effect. Specifically, the index considering overall performance, perceived credibility, appropriateness, and likability, exhibited no significant violations of homogeneity ( F [2, 280] = 1.298, p = ns) according to the Levene’s test. Analysis of the index shows participants were largely unaffected by whether there was laughter present, faded, or removed entirely ( F [2, 280] = 0.480, p = ns). Likewise, Stahl’s perceived aggressiveness failed to reach statistical significance ( F [2, 280] = 2.722, p = ns).

Similarly, participants did not seem to notice a difference between the different videos. When asked “how believable did you find the video clip to be,” there was no significant difference between the treatments ( F = 1.005, p = ns). In combination with the preceding findings, there was not apparently a cognitively perceived effect from the video as participants were not aware of the treatment.

Analysis of the effect of laughter on evaluation of Ronald Reagan’s leadership traits tells a more nuanced story. Tests for homogeneity of variance regarding the competence index finds no significant violations ( F [2, 280] = 1.536, p = ns) as does the between-subjects ANOVA between the three groups: F [2, 280] = 2.677, p = ns. Although the patterns of response mirror those of perceived warmth (Laughter in M = 23.80; Laughter faded out M = 22.31; Laughter removed M = 22.20).

When Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance regarding the index of Reagan’s warmth is considered, no significant violations were found ( F [2, 280] = 1.699, p = ns). However a highly significant between-subjects effect across the three humour groups was revealed: F [2, 280] = 4.078, p = .018, partial η 2 = .028. Here, Reagan’s trait evaluations were enhanced by the presence of the loud laughter evident in the original news story, with post-hoc comparisons showing that the laughter remaining condition (M = 25.94, p = 0.05) was significantly greater than the faded-out condition (M = 23.39) and the complete removal of the laughter (M = 23.60). Thus, while perceptions of his warmth are all relatively high, they are significantly reduced by the laughter either being faded out or removed entirely (p = ns).

Finally, as a control item a single measure of how humorous participants thought Reagan to be was included. No significant violations of homogeneity were found ( F [2, 280] = 1.497, p = ns) and the pattern revealed was similar to that regarding Reagan’s warmth index. Namely, a significant between-subjects effect between the three humor groups, F [2, 280] = 3.411, p = .034, partial η 2 = .024. When post-hoc least significant differences are considered, there were no significant differences between the laughter faded out (M = 5.13) and laughter completely removed (M = 4.96) groups, as was the case with perceptions of Reagan’s warmth . However, Reagan was considered significantly more humorous with the laughter in (M = 5.52) at the .05-level.

The finding that observers’ emotion was largely unaffected by the treatment, with the exception of feeling irritated, is perhaps not unexpected. The treatment, which is comprised of less than five seconds of laughter across the three Reagan excerpts, is a subtle and unobtrusive stimulus that potentially would not have an observable effect on self-reports of introspective evaluation of emotional response. Furthermore, by only considering between-subjects effects we cannot tease out whether the news story had a greater influence on participant emotional response and how this might have differed across the treatments. Even though the sole finding concerning irritation was aligned too the expectations both in the pattern of response, with greater irritation felt by those either not hearing laughter or diminished laughter, suggesting a failed humour attempt, and the comparatively weak effect of the treatment, future studies should consider change in self-reported emotional state through within-subjects design.

The lack of significant effect on evaluation of the reporter, Leslie Stahl, is likely due to the average age of the participants, which may have rendered her work as a nationally known figure unknown. While Ronald Reagan is recognized as a Republican Party icon and is mentioned in both glowing and critical terms by participants, Stahl is not so well recognized. As noted by Vraga and colleagues [ 53 ] when comparing participant response to a famous U.S. talk show host and an unfamiliar moderator “… a laugh track has very different effects when a host is a well-known comedian versus an unknown talk show host." (p.143) In other words, the perceptions of newscaster Stahl and the presentation of Reagan’s (un)successful humour may be premised upon the humour being interpreted as a benign violation of expectations [ 89 ], as opposed to ridicule that is received as more aggressive and less socially acceptable.

Type of humour likely play a role in perceptions of Ronald Reagan and how he is portrayed in this news story. As noted by Baumgartner, not only does “prior knowledge of the target of the humour affects susceptibility to attitude change” but also the context of political humour plays a role [ 90 ]. Whether the humour is other-deprecatory and ridicule-oriented or self-deprecatory plays a role in its perceptions especially upon considering the audience [ 60 ] when Reagan ridicules an audience member. Because of Reagan’s standing as a Republican Party icon, the effect of the audience’s response to his rejoinder to the dissenter within the audience might be accentuated if participants perceive his response being received in a less than flattering manner. This finding is consistent with considerable prior research considering the target of the humour, especially political figures [ 60 , 90 – 94 ].

The first experimental study is extended here by including control and full treatment levels, with all three laughter events present or removed; this allows replication of the first hypotheses regarding responses to laughter in the evaluation of leadership competence and warmth. This study will also examine the presence of laughter in response to Ronald Reagan’s humour and the effect that it will have on his perceived charismatic traits. The influence of specific laughter-eliciting comments removing concomitant laughter to consider the influence of different types of (un)successful humour will also be examined here. As a result, the second experimental study will have five different levels.

Additionally, the charisma of presidents is driven in part by perceived leadership traits of competence and warmth [ 68 ]. Even with participants not knowledgeable about Reagan, the positive visuals as well as the extensive applause-cheering throughout the news report, whether included inadvertently or not, does convey his charismatic presence. However, whether charisma plays a moderating or mediating role in conjunction with the observable audience response of laughter is still in question.

The second study utilizes three edits that totalled just under six seconds (5.46/100s = 2.93+.83+1.7) with a five condition between-subjects design. The first condition presented unedited video as a control with participants seeing what the 1984 CBS news viewers saw. The second replication treatment removed all three observable audience responses of laughter completely, with no noise from the video during the edits leading to the treatment effect 5.46 seconds of the total video (344.83s).

The next three conditions involved the removal of laughter from the three specific humorous comments. The third treatment, taking place from 3:19:02 until 3:21:25 of the video, showed Reagan responding to a heckler with the comment “I’ll raise his taxes” eliciting loud laughter followed by mixed cheering and applause. The fourth treatment involved the removal of less than a second of laughter from a small group of individuals and occurred from 3:26:29–3:27:21 of the video when a seated Reagan quipped “I never get good reviews from (the Russian news agency) TASS” after shaking his head. The final treatment condition saw Reagan use self-deprecatory humour to deflect an aggressive journalist’s question, leading to brief laughter at 3:41:26–3:43:03 of the video.

A power analysis using G*Power was carried out to determine sample size. Here, the traditional power estimation parameters for the least explained variable, the trait of competence , (1 –β err probability = 80%; α error probability = .05; effect size of f = .136). Findings based upon the effect likely, given the means and standard deviations uncovered in experimental study one, suggests a sample size of 650 participants would be required.

Participants were recruited using a snowball sampling approach in which upper-division undergraduate students received course credit for taking part in and recruiting participants. To better reflect the general population, older participants were systematically recruited, leading to a more age diverse sample. A total of 1041 individuals entered the study that lasted from November 16, 2020 to November 11, 2021; of those 315 did not spend at least seven minutes (420 seconds) in the study and were removed as per the previous study parameters. An additional 60 participants were removed due to their not responding to the open-ended prompt and a further 15 for not answering any post-treatment questions, leaving a total of 651 participants in the study. All ethical considerations, including consenting of the participants were identical to that reported for study 1.

Of those taking part, 61.4% identified as female, 83.3% identified as Caucasian (with 3.7% African-American, 0.5% Asian, 7.5% Hispanic, 2.6% Native American, and 2.3% other ethnicity); the average year of birth was 1982 old (range 1934–2005, SD = 16.3). The majority of participants identified themselves as identifying with the Democratic Party (38.9%), followed by Republican Party identifiers (33.3%), as independent (16.7%), Libertarian Party (3.9%), Green Party (1.4%) and other (5.6%). Random assignment of participants to the different treatments was balanced. We first replicated study 1 by having the unedited video control condition [ n = 119] and the treatment condition with all laughter removed [ n = 139]. The other three conditions considered the effect of removing individual laughter events, with the first removing laughter from Reagan’s response to a heckler [ n = 126], the second removing small group laughter [ n = 131], and the third removing group laughter in Reagan’s response to journalistic aggression [ n = 136]. When tested for randomness in assignment to across the five treatment conditions, we found no statistical bias (p = ns in all cases) for sex, ethnicity, age, party identification, and political ideology (social, economic, overall conservative-liberal).

As was the case with the first experimental study, participants were asked basic demographic questions (age, sex, ethnicity), as well as questions about whether they were registered to vote, the political party they identify with and self-reported political ideology. Additionally, they were asked to state how familiar they were with President Ronald Reagan, especially as this more externally valid sample had a greater distribution of ages and experience with Reagan, potentially influencing response. The distribution of participants was therefore examined as a separate, exploratory, and hypothesis-generating model with this variable as a moderator.

However, as the first experiment suggested differences in response to the video treatments, participants were asked to state their feelings both prior to and immediately after the presentation of the stimuli in terms of their emotions at that moment (anxious, proud, angry, reassured, fearful, irritated, disgusted, sad, and happy) on a 0–10 (not at all to extremely) scale. The evaluation of perceived charisma was based upon whether “This leader…” “moves people toward a goal,” “has a vision,” “inspire dares to take risks,” and “elicits a feeling of involvement in me.” [ 69 ]. The resulting scale showed strong reliability (Cronbach’s a = .865).

In line with the first experimental study, participants were asked to evaluate the reporter, Leslie Stahl, based upon their overall impressions of her, as well as how credible, appropriate, and likable she appeared in this video (Cronbach’s a = .919). Participants were also asked to evaluate Ronald Reagan’s leadership traits in terms of his competence , based upon measures of how sincere, aggressive, strong, active, competent he appeared to be (Cronbach’s a = .826). We also consider perceptions of his warmth with questions regarding how intelligent, caring, trustworthy, agreeable, and warm he appeared to be during the news story (Cronbach’s a = .908). All these were measured on a seven-point (0–6) scale ranging from “Not at all” to “Extremely”.

Change in emotional response from immediately before watching the video to immediately afterwards using repeated-measures ANOVA suggests that the video had a significant effect on how participants felt across all emotions (see Table 1 ). There was a small effect with a slight increase in fear (pre M = 1.567, se = .092; post M = 1.775, se = .097); sadness likewise showed a slight increase (pre M = 1.600, se = .088; post M = 2.059, se = .101) with a small-to-medium effect size, whereas felt anxiety decreased (pre M = 3.177, se = .115; post M = 2.719, se = .112) to a small-to-medium extent due to the video.

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301324.t001

Emotions associated with pleasantness and positive appraisal all decreased as a result of the video, showing either medium-to-large (proud pre-M = 4.002, se = .129) or large (reassured pre-M = 3.412, se = .122; post-M = 2.174, se = .105; happy pre-M = 5.843, se = .108; post-M = 4.272, se = .122). For their part, the negative appraisal emotions of irritated (pre-M = 1.786, se = .093; post-M = 3.101, se = .114), disgusted (pre-M = 1.023, se = 077; post-M = 2.540, se = .116) and anger (pre-M = 1.070, se = .076; post-M = 2.173, se = .116) all increase with the video having a large effect size.

While all emotional state measures changed because of the video, only anger was affected by the treatment condition. As can be expected, the least amount of increased anger came in the treatment with all three laughter elements present; while the four other treatments between the video with laughter and with it removed failed to reach statistical significance.(M = 1.626, se = .172, p =.ns; vs M = 1.567, se = .170, p = ns), significant differences only occurred when anger in the laughter-present video (M = 1.223, se = .181) was compared with all laughter absent (M = 1.745, se = 167, p = .034) and with the first treatment condition in which the first laughter utterance was removed (M = 1.948, se = .167, p = .004).

Participant ratings of Leslie Stahl in a similar manner suggested the treatment had little effect. Specifically, the index considering overall performance, perceived credibility, appropriateness, and likability, exhibited no significant violations of homogeneity ( F [4, 686] = 1.070, p = ns) according to the Levene’s test. Analysis of the index shows participants were largely unaffected by whether there was laughter present, faded, or removed entirely ( F [4, 686] = 0.387, p = ns). Likewise, Stahl’s perceived aggressiveness ( F [2, 280] = .174, p = ns) failed to reach statistical significance.

Similarly, participants did not seem to notice a difference between the different videos. When asked “how believable did you find the video clip to be,” there was no significant difference between the treatments ( F = .242, p = ns). In combination with the preceding findings, there was not apparently a cognitively perceived effect from the video as participants were not aware of the treatment.

Analysis of the effect of laughter and its removal from the video treatment on evaluation of Ronald Reagan’s leadership traits does not replicate the first experiment. Tests for homogeneity of variance regarding the competence index finds no significant violations ( F [4, 686] = 1.682, p = ns). The between-subjects ANOVA between the five groups does not reveal significant differences: F [4, 686] = 1.313, p = ns.

Levene’s test for homogeneity of variance revealed a significant violation ( F [4, 686] = 2.480, p = .043) when considering the index of Reagan’s warmth . When the Brown-Forsythe robust test was used, no significant between-subjects effects across the five humour groups was revealed: F [4, 686] = 1.299, p = ns. Likewise, while with perceptions of Reagan’s charisma no significant violations of homogeneity of variance were found using Levene’s test ( F [4, 686] = 1.919, p = ns); no significant between-subjects effects across the five humour groups was revealed; F [4, 686] = .516, p = ns.

Finally, as a control item a single measure of how humorous participants thought Reagan to be was included. Significant violations of homogeneity were found with the Levene test ( F [4, 686] = 5.377, p < .001), yet no significant differences between the groups were seen, F [4, 686] = .589, p = ns, when the Brown-Forsythe robust test was used.

The second study provides insight regarding the importance of the population used and methods employed. First, by using a more representative sample in terms of age, with the first study’s average age being twenty-one years old, and the second study’s average age of thirty-nine years old, we can expect that perceptions of President Ronald Reagan, to be well-established for good or bad. While a historical figure, allowing us to carry out an experiment over a long period of time without worries over external validity, Reagan remains a powerful political symbol in terms of social identity. Indeed, when considering the distributions on the constructs of charisma and warmth, eight percent of participants held a ceiling perception of him on both measures. Thus, even though age, gender, and party identity were randomly distributed through the different treatments, the likelihood of such a weak treatment—between less than a second of laughter to six seconds of laughter—embedded within a roughly five-minute video having an effect was diminished.

Second, the use of trait measures may not be sensitive enough to capture contemporaneous stimuli, especially regarding well known figures (and even those not so well known as in the case of Leslie Stahl). That we found significant and predictable change in all the participant emotional state self-report measures prior to and after watching the video, and that anger was most affected by the absence of laughter, both overall and in Reagan’s response to the heckler, suggests that the presence of laughter does have an effect on participants–even ones with strongly held opinions.

General discussion

Our findings cohere with the expectations of Vraga and colleagues [ 53 ] that when people have limited information to deal with ambiguous situations, they will rely upon subtle signals–especially those socially influential and reliable indicators of positive regard as audience laughter. In this paper, we find two substantially different groups of study participants responding in line with Vraga and colleagues’ results, as the much younger–and likely less politically knowledgeable–study 1 participants used audience laughter, or its absence, as a factor in their evaluating Ronald Reagan’s warmth and, to a lesser extent, competence. The older and more politically experience and involved experimental study 2 participants were not affected by audience laughter’s presence or absence in their evaluation of Reagan’s leadership traits. This was likely due to either experiencing Reagan as an active and polarizing political figure or as seeing him as a historically relevant political figure.

The second, subtle, and perhaps more compelling indicator that audience laughter does have an effect on participants lies with the indicators of appraised emotion. In the first experiment, there were between-subject treatment differences in felt irritation, with participants feeling less irritated when viewing the video with the laughter in than with the video with the laughter removed or faded out. While experimental study 2 participants felt irritation was not significantly affected, their felt anger was. In other words, the older and more politically experienced participants had a response in the same emotion family that replicated that of irritation, with those not hearing audience laughter more angry than those who did hear audience laughter, and both studies having similar effect sizes. Furthermore, the experimental extension in the second study, which teased out the effects of the success–as measured by audience laughter or its absence–of humorous statements found that Reagan’s aggressive quip in response to protesters (“I’ll raise his taxes”) had the strongest treatment effect when post-hoc comparisons were made, stronger even than all laughter removed. This suggests, in line with Stewart’s [ 60 ] finding that other-deprecating and aggressive humour, including ridicule, can be dangerous for a leader if supporters are not there to respond to a quip or joke with laughter.

Taken together, these findings point to a greater awareness of how even very subtle stimuli might affect various measures differently, especially given distinct populations. Having multiple measures thus not only makes sense in assessing discriminant validity of treatment effects it also provides for greater comprehension of how individual differences exhibit themselves. Because the traits of warmth, competence, and charisma can be seen as the crystallization of emotional appraisals in response to individuals over a period of time—albeit one that is more malleable in the absence of pre-existing information–choosing and paying attention to distinct measures based upon population characteristics makes eminent sense when planning a study. It also points towards the more extensive use of highly responsive measures of affect, such as provided by psychophysiology, when crafting an experiment and viewing appraisal and response as a continuum affected by multiple internal and external factors.

Conclusions

Perhaps the most pertinent finding from this paper pertains to the use of an externally valid stimulus that, while nearly forty years old, still resonates today both in experimental effects and lessons imparted. First, historically relevant stimuli remain impactful, as can be seen by the cornerstone work by Fein, Goethals, and Kugler [ 9 ] upon which this paper builds, as the fresh eyes (and brains) of undergraduates in our first experiment had their perceptions significantly affected nearly three decades after Ronald Reagan left the presidency. Perhaps more important is that such a minor treatment in our study–up to 5 ¾ seconds removed from a five-minute+ video–had a small-to-moderate effect size suggests that even perceived minor production choices can have subtle, yet impactful implications for the perceptions and choices of low-information voters reliant on the social influence of others. Despite the fact that the key news story was produced decades ago the use of humour is often seen in contemporary political settings. Future work exploring the social psychological effects of different types of humour that is displayed by politicians should focus on the interactions between humour types and the strength of the observable audience response. As we have shown here it is the interaction between the two that impacts audience perceptions, in turn likely shaping attitudes and, potentially, behaviour.

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Evidence Review of the Adverse Effects of COVID-19 Vaccination and Intramuscular Vaccine Administration

Vaccines are a public health success story, as they have prevented or lessened the effects of many infectious diseases. To address concerns around potential vaccine injuries, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) administers the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which provide compensation to those who assert that they were injured by routine vaccines or medical countermeasures, respectively. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have contributed to the scientific basis for VICP compensation decisions for decades.

HRSA asked the National Academies to convene an expert committee to review the epidemiological, clinical, and biological evidence about the relationship between COVID-19 vaccines and specific adverse events, as well as intramuscular administration of vaccines and shoulder injuries. This report outlines the committee findings and conclusions.

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Boston Medical Center Study Furthers Understanding of Lung Regeneration

BOSTON - Researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University (BU) today announced findings from a new research study, published in Cell Stem Cell, detailing the development of a method for generating human alveolar epithelial type I cells (AT1s) from pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The ability to recreate these cells in an iPSC-based model will allow researchers to analyze the historically difficult to isolate cells in greater detail, helping to further the understanding of human lung regeneration and may ultimately expedite progress in treatment and therapeutic options for people living with pulmonary diseases.

Pulmonary diseases, including pulmonary fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cause significant mortality and morbidity worldwide, and many pulmonary diseases lack sufficient treatment options. As science and medicine have progressed, researchers have identified a clear need for additional knowledge about lung cells to help improve patient health. 

The results of this study provide an in vitro model of human AT1 cells, which line the vast majority of the gas exchange barrier of the distal lung, and are a potential source of human AT1s to develop regenerative therapies. The new model will help researchers of pulmonary diseases deepen their understanding of lung regeneration, specifically after an infection or exposure to toxins, as well as diseases of the alveolar epithelium such as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and pulmonary fibrosis. 

“Uncovering the ability to generate human alveolar epithelial type I cells (AT1s), and similar cell types, from pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), has expanded our knowledge of biological processes and can significantly improve disease understanding and management,” said Darrell Kotton, MD, Director, Center for Regenerative Medicine (CReM) of Boston University and Boston Medical Center.

This new study also furthers the CReM’s goal of generating every human lung cell type from iPSCs as a pathway to improving disease management and provides a source of cells for future transplantation to regenerate damaged lung tissues in vivo. 

“We know that the respiratory system can respond to injury and regenerate lost or damaged cells, but the depth of that knowledge is currently limited,” said Claire Burgess, PhD, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, who is the study’s first author. “We anticipate this protocol will be used to further understand how AT1 cells react to toxins, bacteria, and viral exposures, and will be used in basic developmental studies, disease modeling, and potential engineering of future regenerative therapies."

The full study is published in Cell Stem Cell and can be located  here .

About Boston Medical Center

Boston Medical Center models a new kind of excellence in healthcare, where innovative and equitable care empowers all patients to thrive. We combine world-class clinicians and cutting-edge treatments with compassionate, quality care that extends beyond our walls. As an award-winning health equity leader, our diverse clinicians and staff interrogate racial disparities in care and partner with our community to dismantle systemic inequities. And as a national leader in research and the teaching affiliate for Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, we’re driving the future of care.

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Can machines compete with humans in transcribing audio? A case study using sermons from U.S. religious services

A 2019 Pew Research Center study and follow-up study in 2020 involved the complicated task of transcribing more than 60,000 audio and video files of sermons delivered during religious services at churches around the United States. The primary goal of this research was to evaluate relatively broad topics discussed in the sermons to determine if there were any notable patterns or denominational differences in their length and subject matter.

The huge number of audio and video files meant that it would have been too time-consuming and expensive to ask humans to transcribe all the sermons. Instead, we used Amazon Transcribe , a speech recognition service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). We hoped to identify the key themes in the sermons we collected, even if the machine transcriptions were not perfect or at times lacked elements like punctuation that would often come with a traditional human transcription service.

Overall, the machine transcriptions were legible. But we did run into a few challenges. The Amazon service did not always get specific religious terminology or names right. (A few examples included “punches pilot” instead of “Pontius Pilate” and “do Toronto me” in lieu of “Deuteronomy.”) There were also some recordings for which the machine transcription was simply of low quality across the board.

A notable body of research has found that machine transcription sometimes struggles with certain accents or dialects , like regional Southern accents and African American English (AAE). This led us to wonder if the errors we were seeing in the machine transcripts of sermons was coincidental, or if we were encountering performance biases that could be making some transcriptions more reliable than others in a way that might affect the conclusions of our research.

Since we downloaded our sermon files directly as audio or audio/video, we lacked an original written transcript to compare against the machine-transcribed text. Instead, as a test, we asked a third-party human transcription service to tackle portions of some of the sermons that Amazon Transcribe had already transcribed and then compared the results between the two.

What we did

For this experiment, we were interested in using sermons that included a variety of regional accents and dialects among the speakers. One obvious challenge, however, was that we didn’t know much about the speakers themselves. We knew the location of the church where the sermon was delivered, as well as its religious tradition, but these were not necessarily sufficient to assign an accent or a dialect to the person speaking in a recording. We could only use these features as approximations.

With that caveat in mind, we focused the analysis on audio files from the four main religious traditions for which we had a reportable sample size: mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, historically Black Protestant and Catholic. We also examined three large geographic regions: the Midwest, the South and a combined region that merges the Northeast and the West (again to account small sample sizes in those two regions).

We took a stratified random sample of 200 sermons from churches for each combination of religious tradition and region, proportional to the number of sermons each church had in the dataset. From this sample of full audio files, we took one random snippet of audio with a duration of 30 to 210 seconds from each file and sent those audio snippets to our external human transcription service. This service was a standard online provider that claimed to have native language speakers, a multistep quality check process and experience transcribing religious content, including sermons specifically. At the end of this process, we had a total sample size of 2,387 texts with both machine and human transcriptions.

How we compared transcriptions

There are a variety of computational methods to measure the similarity or difference between two sets of text. In this analysis, we used a metric known as Levenshtein distance to compare our machine and human transcriptions.

Levenshtein distance counts the number of discrete edits – insertions, deletions and substitutions – at the character level necessary to transform one text string into another. For example, if the word “COVID” is transcribed as “cove in,” there is a Levenshtein distance of three, as the transformation requires three edits: one edit to add a space between the “v” and the “i,” one edit to add an “e” after the “v,” and one edit to substitute the “d” for an “n.”

Levenshtein distance is useful as a comparison metric because it can be normalized and used to compare texts of different lengths. It also allows for nuance by focusing on character-level edits rather than entire words, providing more granularity than something like simple word error rate by scoring how incorrect a mistranscription is.

As a final bit of housekeeping, we standardized both our machine and human transcriptions to make sure that they matched one another stylistically. We transformed all the text into lower case, spelled out numbers and symbols when appropriate, and removed punctuation, filler words and words associated with vocalizations (such as “uh” or “ooh”). We also removed the “[UNINTELLIGIBLE]” annotations that the human transcription service included at our request to flag cases in which someone was speaking but their words couldn’t be clearly understood.

Across all the audio files we evaluated, the average difference between machine transcriptions and human transcriptions was around 11 characters per 100. That is, for every 100 characters in a transcription text, approximately 11 differed from one transcription method to the other.

We were also interested in looking at the difference across religious traditions and geographical regions. To do so, we used pairwise t-tests to test for differences in means across all religious traditions and all regions. (We did not calculate comparisons between each religious tradition and region combination after determining the interaction of the two variables was not statistically significant.)

The analysis found a small but statistically significant difference in Levenshtein distances between machine and human transcriptions for several religious traditions. Text taken from Catholic sermons, for example, had more inconsistency between transcripts than was true of those taken from evangelical Protestant sermons. And sermons from historically Black Protestant churches had significantly more inconsistency in transcriptions when compared with the other religious traditions.

While these differences were statistically significant, their magnitude was relatively small. Even for historically Black Protestant sermons – the tradition with the largest mismatch between machines and humans – the differences worked out to around just 15 characters per 100, or four more than the overall average. It’s also important to remember that we cannot assume the speaker is speaking AAE simply because the sermon was given in a historically Black Protestant church.

One expectation we had going into this experiment is that machine transcription would perform worst with Southern accents. However, we found that transcriptions of sermons from churches in the Midwest had significantly more inconsistency between machine and human transcriptions than those in other regions. Anecdotally, it appears this discrepancy may be because human transcribers had more difficulty than machines in understanding speakers in the Midwest: Sermon texts from the Midwest that were transcribed by humans included a greater number of “[UNINTELLIGIBLE]” annotations than those from other regions. There may also be other factors affecting transcription quality that we cannot account for, such as the possibility that sermons from the Midwest had systematically worse audio quality than those from other regions.

Again, although these differences were statistically significant, their magnitude was relatively small. Midwestern sermons, despite having the greatest inconsistency across regions, had only two more character differences per 100 characters than the overall average.

Conclusions and suggestions

In social science research, automated transcription services have become a popular alternative to human transcription because of the costs and labor involved in the latter. All in all, we found that the machine transcriptions and the human transcriptions used in this experiment were comparable enough to justify our decision to use an automated service in our research on U.S. sermons.

However, our experience does suggest a few ideas that researchers should keep in mind should they find themselves in a similar situation.

First, issues with transcription quality can be tied to the quality of the audio being transcribed – which presents challenges for humans and computers alike. By the same token, machine transcription may perform worse or better on certain accents or dialects – but that’s also true for human transcribers.  When working with audio that has specialized vocabulary (in our case, religious terms), human transcribers sometimes made errors where machines did not. This is likely because a robust machine transcription service will have a larger dictionary of familiar terms than the average person. Similarly, we found that humans are more likely to make typos, something one will not run into with machine transcription.

More generally, reliability is usually an advantage of machine transcription. Human transcription can vary in quality based on the service used, and possibly from one transcript to another if there are multiple human transcribers. But the reliability of machine transcription can sometimes backfire. When presented with a segment of tricky audio, for example, humans can determine that the text is “unintelligible.” A machine, on the other hand, will try to match the sounds it hears as closely as possible to a word it knows with little to no regard for grammar or intelligibility. While this might produce a phonetically similar transcription, it may deviate far from what the speaker truly said.

Ultimately, both machine and human transcription services can be viable options. Beyond the obvious questions of budget and timeline that are often primary considerations, we would suggest evaluating the nature of the audio files that are being analyzed before transcription begins. Audio of mixed quality, or which features competing sound from an audience, can be tricky for humans and machines alike.

Researchers should also determine how important it is to have formatting and punctuation in the text they hope to analyze. Our researchers found that the lack of these elements can be a key barrier to understanding the meaning of a particular piece of text quickly. In our case, it wasn’t an insurmountable barrier, but it certainly added a significant cognitive burden to tasks like labeling training data. And it might have posed an even bigger problem had our analysis relied more heavily on unguided methods for identifying our topics of interest.

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