Acknowledgements

This book (in all its SPSS, SAS and R versions) wouldn’t have happened if not for Dan Wright’s unwarranted faith in the ability of a then postgraduate to write the first SPSS edition. Numerous other people have contributed to previous editions of this book. I don’t have room to list them all, but particular thanks are due to to Dan (again), David Hitchin, Laura Murray, Gareth Williams, Lynne Slocombe and Kate Lester, who gave me significant amounts of feedback on various incarnations of this text. For this edition, lots of people sent me very helpful emails, but in particular Maria de Ridder (for a very helpful document of suggestions) and Thom Baguley (for feedback on Chapter 5 at very short notice).

Special thanks to Jeremy Miles for his help with various versions of this book over the years. Part of his ‘help’ involves ranting on at me about things I’ve written being, and I quote, ‘bollocks’. Nevertheless, working on the SAS and R versions of this book with him has influenced me enormously. He’s also been a very nice person to know over the past few years (apart from when he’s ranting on at me about …).

Thanks to the following for sending me their raw data – it’s an honour for me to include their fascinating research in my book: Rebecca Ang, Philippe Bernard, Hakan Çetinkaya, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Graham Davey, Mike Domjan, Gordon Gallup, Nicolas Guéguen, Sarah Johns, Eric Lacourse, Nate Lambert, Sarah Marzillier, Karlijn Massar, Geoffrey Miller, Peter Muris, Laura Nichols, Nick Perham, Achim Schüetzwohl, Mirjam Tuk, and Lara Zibarras.

I appreciate everyone who has taken time to write nice reviews of this book on the various Amazon (and other) websites around the world; the success of this book has been in no small part due to these people being so positive and constructive in their feedback. Thanks also to everyone who contributes so enthusiastically to my Facebook page: I hit some motivational dark times during this edition, but feeling the positive vibes from read­ers always got me back on track (especially the photos of cats, dogs, parrots and lizards with this book). I continue to be amazed and bowled over by the nice things that people say about the book.

Not all contributions are as tangible as those above. Very early in my career Graham Hole made me realize that teaching research methods didn’t have to be dull. My whole approach to teaching has been to steal all of his good ideas, and he has had the good grace not to ask for them back! He is a rarity in being brilliant, funny and nice.

This book wouldn’t exist without the generous support of IBM who allow me to beta-test SPSS Statistics and keep me up to date with the software (www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss). I wrote this edition on a Mac but used Windows for the screen shots. Mac and Mac OS are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other coun­tries; Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. Thanks to Jess Knott at TechSmith (www.techsmith.com) who provided support for Camtasia (which I use to record and edit my webcasts) and Snagit (which I used for screen shots) for Mac; she also breathed new life into some of my old webcasts. I created most diagrams and flowcharts in this book using OmniGraffle (www.omnigroup.com). Although it is unhealthy to love a piece of software, I love OmniGraffle and if I ever meet the authors I will buy them beer, and plenty of it.

My publishers, SAGE, are rare in being a large, successful company that manages to maintain a family feel. Like any family, I don’t always see eye-to-eye with them, and sometimes we drive each other mad, but we wouldn’t want to be without each other. They generously co-funded my wife to help update the web materials for this book. My editor Mike takes his fair share of crap from me (what does he expect, he supports Tottenham?), but I always appreciate his unfaltering enthusiasm, support and willingness to make things happen. Thanks to everyone at SAGE, but especially Ian, Karen (who supports a proper football team) and Ziyad (who doesn’t know what football is) for their help and support over many years.

You’ll notice the book is riddled with nicely drawn characters. I didn’t draw them. The ones that survived from the previous edition are thanks to Alex Lee. Special thanks to Laura-Jane at Anelina Illustrations (www.anelinaillustrations.com) for my caricature, Oditi and Confusius. It was great working with you.

I always write listening to music. For this edition I predominantly enjoyed (my neighbours less so): Absu, Anathema, Anthrax, Animals as Leaders, Audrey Horne, The Beyond, Black Breath, Black Tusk, Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Deep Purple, Foo Fighters, Genesis, Graveyard, Ihsahn, Iron Maiden, Jethro Tull, Kiss, Manowar, Marillion, Meshuggah (a lot), Metallica, Mastodon, Motörhead, Opeth (a lot), Primal Rock Rebellion, Rainbow, Rush, Secrets of the Moon, Status Quo, Steve Wilson, Storm Corrosion, Sylosis, Torche, Uriah Heep, Watain, and Wolves in the Throne Room.

All this book-writing nonsense requires many lonely hours of typing. Without some wonderful friends to drag me out of my dimly lit room from time to time I’d be even more of a gibbering cabbage than I already am. Peter Muris, Birgit Mayer, and especially Leonora Wilkinson gave me a lot of support while writing previous editions of this book. For this edition, and in most cases all of the previous ones, my eternal gratitude goes to Graham Davey, Ben Dyson, Martin Watts, Sam Cartwright-Hatton, Mark Franklin and their lovely families for reminding me that there is more to life than work. You’d also be hard pushed to find more supportive, loving and proud parents than mine. I also throw out a robust set of horns to my brothers of metal Doug Martin and Rob Mepham for letting me deafen them with my drumming (www.myspace.com/fracturepattern). I also became an uncle while writing this update, so thanks to Melody for being small and cute.

For someone who spends his life writing, I’m constantly surprised at how incapable I am of finding words to express how wonderful my wife Zoë is. She has a never-ending supply of patience, love, support and optimism (even when her husband is a grumpy, sleep-deprived, withered, self-doubting husk). As if that wasn’t enough, she also did the lion’s share of the updating of the accompanying web materials and SPSS screen shots for this edition. I never forget, not even for a nanosecond, how lucky I am.

-- Andy Field
 


 

Author: Andy Field

Pub Date: February 2013

Pages: 952

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