Exploring Groupness—A Mixed Methods Imitation Game Inquiry

Abstract

This article describes the use of a mixed methods research approach to explore the dynamics of social group construction with Imitation Game experiments. More specifically, we analyzed in which ways, and how effectively, people draw boundaries in social interaction. That is, we studied ways in which people distinguish between group members and outsiders. Our study included a group of active Christians (n = 20) and non-religious individuals (n = 19) in Finland. We conceptualized the Imitation Game as a mixed data collection instrument because it combines both qualitative and quantitative data in an integrated manner. As part of our analysis, we introduce an indicator called the Sequential Identification Ratio (SIR), which is an indicator of how accurately participants draw boundaries in the Imitation Game. The results based on the SIR indicate that group boundaries are established with 4 different strategies: experiential, epistemic, axiological, and linguistic. Finally, we show how a mixed methods researcher can conduct a form of quantitizing to use both quantitative and qualitative aspects of Imitation Game data.

Active and latent social groups and their interactional expertise

“…The types of group ties may vary between different social groups. Segersven (2016) has suggested a distinction between epistemic and experiential groups on the basis of their group foundations. Indeed, colour-blind people or persons with perfect pitch test their group membership with experiential questions, whereas gravitational wave physicists use epistemic questions (Collins and Evans, 2007: 99–106).…”

Searching for lasting biculturalism: An Imitation Game inquiry

“…I have linked each strategy with their corresponding shares of correct, incorrect, and undecided outcomes and derived the Sequential Identification Ratio (SIR) of each. The SIR is derived in the same way as the IR, the only difference being that it measures the accuracy of individual question-answer assessment sequences rather than final assessments (Segersven et al 2020). Table 5 summarizes the accuracy of each strategy per group.…”

“…Through the task of imitation, participants are compelled to demonstrate whether they are competent in a culture, opening up people's ability to alternate between cultures according to the situation, rather than whether they live in alignment or identify with that culture. Furthermore, participants can ask about anything they think will reveal the identity of the respondents and evaluate the answers according to their own criteria, meaning that the IG not only tests the respondents’ cultural competence according to the criteria established by the group members themselves, but it also opens up how participants evaluate competence and recognize group memberships (Segersven et al, 2020). While the IG has been developed as a method for both qualitative and quantitative research on a number of different topics during the last decade (see Evans et al, 2019a, for a review), one of the remaining challenges has been to engage the method with theories about the nature of social groups, culture, and identity (Collins et al, 2019).…”

“…Having analyzed the identification accuracies, I then analyze the qualitative data (questions, answers, assessments), which informs us about the type of competences participants employ in their evaluation process (Segersven et al, 2020). I will also link the qualitative analysis with the identification accuracies, allowing us to explore the acculturation profile of the minority with domain specificity.…”

“…Collins and Evans, 2014) counts both confidence 1 and 2 as undecided. For a closer comparison with research among groups in Finland, and more internal consistency in the mixed methods research design, this paper follows the procedure used for counting the Sequential Identification Ratio (Segersven et al, 2020) elaborated in a following section. 5.…”