Sequential Analysis (A Guide for Behavioral Researchers)

Sequential Analysis aims to detect the recurring sequential patterns in a stream of coding categories describing social interaction. These techniques can be employed to study the repertoires of individuals and of dyads and groups. This book is a sequel to Bakeman and Gottman's Observing Interaction: An Introduction to Sequential Analysis (CUP, 1986). It constitutes the first integrated presentation of the major methods of sequential analysis. Gottman and Roy review historical approaches such as stationarity, order, homogeneity, pooling data across subjects, and autocorrelation in inferring cross-correlation. The integrated application of techniques is also discussed. Addressing the behavioral scientist, the authors provide many examples and illustrate everyday computations. They also offer guides to existing computer programs.

In the observational study of social systems, the major conceptual innovation of the last century was General Systems Theory. Yet the General Systems Theory conceptions of interacting social systems were doomed to remain at the prescientific level of metaphor until a set of statistical techniques were developed and applied.