Subfields in Psychology
Clinical psychologists
 Assess and mental, emotional, and behavioral
disorders
○ Examples: Depression, Personality disorders,
Schizophrenia
 Work in:
○ Mental hospitals
○ Prisons
○ Clinics
○ Private practices
Subfields in Psychology
Counseling Psychologists
 Interested in treatment of mental disorders
 Concerned with “normal” problems of adjustment or
challenge
○ Problems that emerge in everyday life
 Academic stress, choosing a career, marital problems
 Work in:
○ Academic settings
 Schools
○ Community health centers
○ Private clinics
Focus on…
• Qualities of individual
• Surrounding environment
• Life span
• Gender
• Race
Subfields in Psychology cont’d

Developmental
psychologists
 Study how people change
over time
 Interested in:
○ Physical changes
○ Emotional development
○ Cognitive processes
 Work in:
○ Academic settings
 Public schools
○ Clinics
○ Hospitals

Educational psychologists
 Study processes of learning,
remembering, and thinking
 Topics related to teaching
children and young adults
○ Intelligence, memory, problem
solving
 Work in:
○ Universities
○ Schools
○ Education companies
Subfields in Psychology cont’d

Industrial/Organizational psychologists
 Concerned with relationship between people and
organizational structures
○ Study of people in the workforce
 Employed by businesses and government agencies
 Study and develop methods to boost production, improve
working conditions, place job applicants, and train people
 Work in:
○ Government
○ Industry
○ Businesses
○ Colleges and Universities
Subfields in Psychology cont’d

Experimental psychologists
 Perform research to understand how humans operate
physically and psychologically
○ Learning, memory, sensation, perception, cognition,
motivation, emotion
 Supply information and research used in psychology
 Work in:
○ Research institutions
○ Businesses
○ Industries
○ Government agencies
○ Academic settings
Additional Subfields

Community psychologist
 Strengthen communities/organizations

Environmental psychologist
 Person-environment interactions

Forensic psychologist
 Applied to legal issues

Social psychologist
 Interactions shape person’s mental life and behavior

Sports psychologist
 Focus on goals, motivation, dealing with failure
Where Psychologists Work?
2009 Doctorate Employment Survey APA
Subfields in Psychology
Other 15%
Experimental 9%
Social and
personality 5%
Developmental 5%
I/O 5%
School/Educational 6%
Clinical and counseling 55%
The Research Process
1.
Choose a topic / Identify a question
2.
Review literature
3.
Form a hypothesis
4.
Choose a research method
5.
Collect data
6.
Analyze results
7.
Make conclusions/Share your research
Methods of Research
Naturalistic Observation
 Helps
researchers
describe behavior in
natural environments
carefully
observed in their
natural setting
without interference
by researcher

Advantages
 Normal reactions
 Participants

Disadvantages
 Time consuming
 No control
 Produced performance
Methods of Research
Naturalistic Observation
 Examples:
 Recording racial differences in student’s self-
seating patterns in the lunchroom
 Researcher sitting in McDonalds observing eating
habits of men vs. women
 Previous
study revealed:
 We humans laugh 30 times more often in social
situations than in solitary situations
Surveys
Methods of Research
Advantages
 Quick
and efficient
 Interviews
allow
researcher to further
control situation
 Adjust questions if
needed (clarify)
Disadvantages
 Difficult
to get
in-depth information
 Question
 Interview
of honesty
can result
in leading participant
Surveys

Methods of Research
Questioning a large group of people about their
attitudes, beliefs, opinions, etc.
 Consist of interviews or questionnaires

Requires representative sample
 Who will take your survey?
○ Population
 Reflects major characteristics of population you wish to
represent
 Random sample – all persons have equal chance of
participating
IT IS NOT ALL ABOUT THE NUMBERS
If I wanted you to find the average
height of the student population
who attend this school, give two
ways that your sample for the
survey might be selected.
 The
 The
first must be an example of a
biased sample
second must be an example of
an unbiased sample.
Surveys
Open-ended
Subjects answer in their
own words
Methods of Research
Close-ended
Select from response list
Surveys

Methods of Research
Neutral questions to avoid bias
 Biased questions:
○ “Many people have said that there is a need for stricter
laws on dangerous weapons. Do you agree?”
○ Asking a group of soccer players “What is your favorite
sport?”

Wording Effects
 Changes in order or wording of questions can have major
effect
 People are more approving of
○ “aid to the needy” than of “welfare”
○ “revenue enhancers” than of “taxes”
Survey/Questionnaire
Introductions
 What
type of information is included in
the example introductory statements
used for surveys/questionnaires?
Survey/Questionnaire
Introductions
 Purpose
of research
 Voluntary
participation
 Confidentiality
 Information kept in confidence, in secret
 Anonymity
 Participation remains anonymous, or unknown
Case Study
Methods of Research

Obtaining detailed
 Advantages:
information about an
 Useful in studying rare
individual or group to
disorders or
develop general principles
circumstances
about behavior
 Can generate new

Can be combined with
diaries, tests, interviews
questions/topics


Example:
 Studies on chimpanzees
revealed their capacity for
learning language
Disadvantages:
 Requires a lot of time,
effort, attention to
detail
Comparing Research Methods
Descriptive

Conducted using:
 Case Studies
 Surveys
 Naturalistic Observation

Purpose - to observe and
record behavior
Experimental
 Conducted by:
 Manipulating one or
more variables
 Using random
assignment
– to
explore cause and
effect
 Purpose

Weaknesses:
 No control of variables
 Single cases can be
misleading
Experimentation

Methods of Research
Allows researchers to  Independent variable (IV)
 Can be varied
focus on possible
independently of other
effects of one or
factors
more factors by:
 Factor that is changed
 Manipulating the
factors of interest,
and… (IV)
 Dependent variable (DV)
 Varies depending on what
 Controlling other
takes place
factors
 Affected by IV
Independent vs. Dependent
Variables
 Example:
 Hypothesis:
○ The nutrients in breast milk contribute to brain
development, therefore infants receiving
breast milk instead of formula will exhibit a
higher intelligence.
Independent variable:
Breast milk; Formula
Dependent variable:
Intelligence
Methods of Research
Experimentation

 Experimental
 Often uninformed of
group
 Group that receives
the specific
treatment
 Control group
 Group that does
not receive
treatment
Participants are randomly
assigned to research
groups
treatment (blind)

Double-blind
 Neither participant or
research assistant knows
which group is receiving
treatment

Placebo effect
 Results caused by
expectations alone
)
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN EXAMPLE
GROUP
Randomly selected
subjects
(Controlling for
other variables:
parental
intelligence; age;
education; income)
EXPERIMENTAL
INDEPENDENT
VARIABLE
BREAST
MILK
DEPENDENT
VARIABLE
INTELLIGENCE
SCORE
AGE 8
CONTROL
FORMULA
INTELLIGENCE
SCORE
AGE 8
Statistical Analysis
Reporting Data
 Enables
researchers
to organize and
evaluate the data
they collect
 Descriptive
statistics
 Listing and
summarizing of data
○ Tables, graphs,
averages
 Researchers
use
frequency distribution
to organize data
Frequency Distribution Chart
Histogram
Groups numbers into ranges
Line Graph
Pie Chart
Scatter Plot
Correlational Design
 Measuring
the
relation between two
variables
 How well one predicts
the other
 Helps
researchers:
 Make predictions
DOES NOT determine
cause-effect
 Stated
as either:
 Positive: as value of
variable A goes up, value
of variable B goes up
 Negative: as value of
variable A goes up, value
of variable B goes down
Does not relate to
strength/weakness
Correlational Design

Example:
 There exists a positive correlation between
intelligence and grade point average such that the
more intelligent a person is, the higher their grade
point average
SCATTERPLOTS
Correlational Design
 Example:
 There exists a
negative correlation
between toothbrushing and tooth
decay
 As the brushing of
teeth goes up from
zero, tooth decay
goes down
Correlation Examples
Positive or Negative Correlation?
 The more young children watch TV, the less they
read
NEGATIVE

The longer children are breast-fed, the greater their
later academic achievement POSITIVE

The more often adolescents eat breakfast, the
lower their body mass NEGATIVE

The longer men are married, the more hair they will
lose POSITIVE
Correlation vs. Causation
Correlational Coefficient

Describes strength of
 Coefficients from:
relationship between two
 ±0.60 to ±1.0
variables
○ Strong
Correlations can take
any value between
 +1 and -1

 The closer to +1 and -1 the
stronger the relationship
 Near 0 indicates weak
relationship
 ±0.30 to ±0.60
○ Moderate
 0 to ±0.30
○ Weak
Differing Research Methods
Experiment

Isolates and manipulates
one variable to see how it
impacts another
Correlation

Identifies variables and
establishes relationship
between them

Strengths:
 Establishes cause and
effect
 Investigation of naturally
occurring variables
Descriptive

Purpose - to observe and
record behavior
 Case study
 Naturalistic Observation
 Survey
○ Things you could not experiment
 Easily see if relationship exists

Weaknesses:
 Implies relationship not
causation
Measures of Central Tendency
Use of number that describes something about the average score

Mean
 Most commonly used
 Add up all the scores and divide by total number of scores
○ 85+70+63+98+91+73+85+97+85+77= 824
Student
Score
○ 824÷10 = 82.4%
1
85%


Median
2
70%
 Put numbers in order from least to most
○ Median is middle score
 63, 70, 73, 77, 85, 85, 85, 91, 97, 98
3
63%
4
98%
5
91%
6
73%
Mode
7
85%
 Most frequent score
 85%
8
97%
9
85%
10
77%
Normal Curve

Large numbers of data often form symmetrical, bell
shaped distribution
 Heights, weights, intelligence scores, grades
Wechsler
Intelligence
Score
Animal Experimentation and Ethics

Psychologists study animals to learn about
people
 Animal experiments have led to effective methods of:
○ Training children with mental disorders
○ Understanding aging
○ Relieving fear or depression

APA Guidelines
 Ensure the “comfort, health, and humane treatment”
of animals
 Minimizing “infection, illness, and pain of animal
subjects”
Research Benefits Animals
 Research
and experimentation has led to:
 Handling and stroking methods to reduce stress in
dogs transitioning to shelters or adoptive homes
 Zoo animals avoiding boredom by working for their
food…as they would in the wild
 Improved care and management of animals’
natural habitats.
 Empathy and protection for chimpanzees and
gorillas based on their remarkable intelligence
levels
Ethical Principles in Human Research
 Obtain
the informed consent of potential
participants
 Protect
them from harm or discomfort
 Treat
information about individual
participation confidentially
 Fully
explain the research afterward