Research Methods: The Science Of Psychology
Research makes
Goal of research in psychology
Empirical
Good scientists/psychologists-To correct human intuition
To correct for hindsight bias
To correct for overconfidence in judgment
To disprove harmful (or harmless) urban legends
To reveal info that is not “common sense”
Scientific Method
Theory
Hypothesis
Research must be:
Replicable
Falsifiable
Parsimonious
Reliable
Valid
Research Methods include:
Case Studies
Surveys
Naturalistic Observation
Longitudinal Studies
Cross-sectional studies
Correlational Studies
Quasi-experiments
Experiments
Research Methods are….
I.
II.
III.
Descriptive
Correlational
Experimental
I. DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH METHODS
A. Case Study
Longitudinal Studies
Cross-sectional Studies
B. Survey
Kinds of Bias in Surveys
*Social Desirability
* Volunteer Bias or “Participant Bias
* Wording bias
SAMPLING
a) Population
b) Sample
 Random sample
SIZE DOESN’T MATTER AS MUCH AS RANDOMNESS DOES!!!
C. Naturalistic Observation
OPERATIONAL DEFINITION
UNSAFE AT SCHOOL
ADULTHOOD
JUNK FOOD
OVERWHELMING HOMEWORK LOAD
DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR
TARDINESS to CLASS
AGGRESSION
BEST HIGH SCHOOL
BEST BAND
“HOT”
HAPPINESS
ALTRUISTIC
II CORRELATION
Correlation
Correlation Coefficient
Illusory Correlations- perception that a relationship exists, where it does not
POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE CORRELATION?
Age and visual acuity among adults
Education and income
Shyness and number of friends
Affection for Star Trek and pedophilia (Detroit cop story)
Researchers have found a substantial positive correlation between youngsters’ self esteem and their academic
achievement (grades). Which of the following are acceptable conclusions?
a. low grades cause low self-esteem
b. Causality has been established between self-esteem and academic achievement
c. high self-esteem causes high academic achievement
d. high ability causes both high self-esteem and academic achievement
e. youngsters who score low in self esteem tend to get low grades and those who sore high in self-esteem tend
to get high grades
III EXPERIMENTS
Clear way to prove cause and effect because we can
1) Manipulate variables
2) Control variables
VOCABULARY IS VERY IMPORTANT!!
Experimental Group
Control Group
Random Selection of subjects from the population
Random Assignment of subjects
Independent Variable IV
Dependent Variable DV
DO EXAMPLE EXPERIMENT
Theory—Music affects human behavior
Hypothesis- Listening to excellent rock music will enhance cognitive performance
Operational Definitions
Excellent rock- Journey
Cognitive performance- counting 1-30
Population- 5th pd AP Psych
Random selection- close eyes and point
Random Assignment- count off by 2’s
Experimental group- Journey
Control groups- gets nothing
IV- Journey
DV- time it take to count from 1-30
Single-blind
Double-blind
Placebo
Placebo effect
Researcher bias
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Confounding variables
Extraneous variables
Experiment, Naturalistic Observation, Survey, Case Study,
1. Are people’s attitudes about nuclear disarmament related to their social class
or education?
2. Do people who suffer from anxiety disorders share similar early childhood
experiences?
3. Do troops of baboons display territoriality- that is, do they mark off an area of
their own and defend it from intrusion by other baboons?
4. Can the presence of food-related cues (delicious-looking desserts in ads)
cause an increase in the amount of food that people eat?
ID the IV and DV
1. A researcher is interested in how heart rate and blood pressure are affected
by viewing a violent film sequence as opposed to a non-violent film sequence
IV- Film violence (present vs. absent)
DV- heart rate and bp
2. An organizational psychologist develops a new training program to improve
clerks’ courtesy to customers in a large chain of retail stores. She conducts an
experiment to see whether the training program leads to a reduction in the
number of customer complaints
IV- Courtesy training (vs. no training)
DV- # of customer complaints
3. A researcher wants to find out how stimulus complexity and stimulus contrast
(Light/dark variation) affects infants’ attention to stimuli. He manipulates
stimulus complexity and stimulus contrast and measures how long infants
stare at various stimuli.
IV- stimulus complexity (high vs. low) and stimulus contrast (hi/low)
DV- length of time staring at stimuli
4. A social psychologist investigates the impact of group size on subject’s
conformity in response to group pressure.
IV- group size (large vs. small)
DV- conformity
FIND flaws in research
Study 1
A researcher announces that he will be conducting an experiment to
investigate the detrimental effects of sensory deprivation on perceptual- motor
coordination. The first 40 students who sign up for the study are assigned to the
experimental group, and the next 40 who sign up serve in the control group. The
researcher supervises all aspects of the study’s execution. Experimental subjects
spend two hours in a waiting room that contains magazines and a TV. All
subjects then perform 10 one-minute trials on a pursuit-rotor task that requires
them to try to keep a stylus on a tiny rotating target. The dependent variable is
their average score on the pursuit-rotor task.
Study 2
A researcher wants to know whether there is a relationship between age
and racial prejudice. She designs a survey in which respondents are asked to
rate their prejudice against six different ethnic groups. She distributes the survey
to over 500 people of various ages who are approached at a shopping mall in a
low-income, inner-city neighborhood.
HUMAN RESEARCH
1) Informed Consent
2) No Coercion
3) Anonymity/ Confidentiality
4) Low Risk- emotionally, physically
5) De-briefing
IRB
Institutional Review Board
Ad-hoc committee- decides whether research can proceed
ANIMAL RESEARCH
1) Clear purpose
2) Humane Care
3) Legal acquisition
4) Least amount of suffering
ETHICS IN RESEARCH
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
DECEPTION
Pro
Con
ANIMAL STUDIES
Pro
INFERENTIAL STATS
Con