Welcome to Research
Methods
LDSP 389
Dr. Crystal Hoyt
Course Information
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Office hours
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Office location
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T & R 11:30am-12:30pm
Jepson Hall, room 132
And by appointment
Course Website:
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http://www.richmond.edu/~choyt/
Required Reading
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Methods in Behavioral Research (8th ed)
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Author:
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Paul Cozby
Publisher:
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Mayfield Publishing Company
Course Requirements
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Class Participation
Assignments:
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Late Assignments:
Research Proposal:
Examinations:
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There will be three exams: two midterms and one
final.
Makeup Exams
Course Grading
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Class participation
Assignments
Exams (Mid: 20%, Final: 25%)
5%
30%
65%
Other Information
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Honor Code
Students with Disabilities
Words of Encouragement
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Academic Skills Center
Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS)
Getting to Know Each Other
Culture of Honor
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Crime Statistics for Northern and Southern United
States
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More homicides in the South
Southern and Northern States Comparable in CrimeRelated Homicides
More Argument-Related Homicides in Southern States
(honor, face issues)
Due to historical events, Southerners developed
"culture of honor“
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Insults diminish a man's reputation and he tries to restore
his status by aggressive or violent behavior.
Non-Experimental Evidence
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Archival Research: The Analysis of Laws
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Less restrictive gun control laws in the south and west
Less restrictive self-defense laws in the south and west
Fewer laws for mandatory arrest for domestic or child
abuse in the south
Corporal punishment in schools banned less in the South
Attitudes Toward Violence
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Southerners and Northerners endorse violence in general
at the same level
But Southerners endorse defending family and property
and corporal punishment more than Northerners
Experimental Evidence
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Experiments:
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U of M students who grew up in the North or South.
Insulted by a confederate
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Bumped into the participant and called him an "a**hole.“
Compared with northerners, southerners were
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(a) more likely to think their masculine reputation was
threatened
(b) more upset (as shown by a rise in cortisol levels)
(c) more physiologically primed for aggression (as shown by
a rise in testosterone levels)
(d) more cognitively primed for aggression
(e) more likely to engage in aggressive and dominant
behavior.
Split Brain Research
 How does the brain affect
behavior?
 What is each area of the
brain responsible for?
 Each hemisphere
 Split brain patients
 Corpus callosum
Split Brain Research
KEY
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RING
What did you see?
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*
Normals: “KEYRING”
Split brains: “RING”
Reach out with your left hand and touch the
object that was projected on the screen
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Touch: KEY
Name the object you touched: “RING".
Split Brain Research
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If an image is projected to the right visual field
(i.e., to the left hemisphere) patients can describe
what they see.
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LEFT BRAIN : VERBAL
But when the same image is displayed in the left
visual field (i.e., to the right hemisphere), the
patient cannot describe what they see.
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But if the patient is asked to point to an object similar to
the object being projected, they do so with ease.
RIGHT BRAIN: NONVERBAL
Stroop Interference Effect
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Well-learned habits often interfere with the
production of competing responses
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Like moving to a culture that nods heads up and
down to mean no and moves head side to side to
mean yes.
Stroop used the fact that reading is such a
well-learned behavior to demonstrate this
Colors
 RED
 GREEN
 BLUE
 PURPLE
 BROWN
1.
9.
17.
2.
10.
18.
3.
11.
19.
4.
12.
20.
5.
13.
6.
14.
7.
15.
8.
16.
1. RED
2. PURPLE
3. GREEN
9. BLUE
10. RED
11. BLUE
17. GREEN
18. PURPLE
19. BLUE
4. BLUE
5. BROWN
6. GREEN
7. PURPLE
8. BROWN
12. PURPLE 20. RED
13. BROWN
14. RED
15. GREEN
16. BROWN
Creating Meaning
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was
rdgnieg
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a
rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht
oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht
the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas
thought slpeling was ipmorantt!