Research Methods
A look at how psychologists conduct research
and some famous psychology experiments
Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment
Zimbardo’s research question: How
does environment and status affect
people’s behavior?
Video
Zimbardo’s study: What was learned?
 Guards will play one of 3 roles:
 Leader that tries to be mean, exploits power position
 Follower—goes along with leader’s cruelty
 Avoider—tries to ignore or escape the cruelty but does nothing to stop it
 Prisoners do one of the following:
 submit to will/authority of guards
 try to rebel through hunger strikes, active rebellion
 do NOT tend to band together against injustices of guards
 Conclusion: The environment can cause people to do “bad” things and be quiet
in face of injustice
 Unethical?

Zimbardo should not have played role of warden
 Zimbardo failed to protect emotional well being of both guards and prisoners
Topic: Authority and Obedience
Experiment: Dr. Stanley Milgram’s “shock” experiment
 Research question: Will people do things they find morally objectionable if
an authority figure asks them to do so?
 Procedures: Subject is told to deliver increasing voltage of electric shock to
“memory test subject” in adjacent room. As screams and pleads of “stop”
are heard, subject is told by authority figure (psychologist in labcoat) to
“please continue.”
 Data:
63% of subjects continue delivering shocks to end
 Conclusion:
 People will go against their own conscience (moral code) when pressed to do
so by someone in authority
Show Milgram British redo video
Topic: Conformity to social pressure
Experiment: Dr. Solomon Asch line experiments
 Procedures: 1 subject in room full of
“plants”. Plants give obviously incorrect
answer. Will subject trust his/her own
perception and give honest answer or bend
to norm?
 Findings:

76% of subjects will go with group at least
once; 25% never bent to group’s opinion; 5%
always bent to group’s opinion
 video clip
Topic: Bystander Apathy
 Darley and Latane (1968)
 Subjects are in separate rooms engaged in discussion over intercom
 1 of the people in discussion starts to have epileptic seizure and pleads
for help
 What happens? WHY?
 Greater # of people in group, slower people are to respond to help
 Video clip
 What would you do?
Bystander effect: Why it happens…
 1. Belief someone else will do something.
 2. Diffusion of responsibility; the larger the group, the
less pressure each witness feels to do anything helpful.
 3. Fear of victimization in which people avoid conflict
because of the dread that they will be attacked if they help.
 4. Observing no one taking action is translated into
something like, ”I must be the only person who thinks
anything is wrong because nobody else is responding.”
(pluralistic ignorance)
 5. People rationalize not taking actions e.g. "Well, no one
else is doing anything because: it's a lover's quarrel; its just
teenage pranks; its just innocent play acting,....etc."
Adapted from Schwartz, Allan Ph.D “The Bystander Effect, What Would
You Do?” 11/3/2009. Retrieved on 2/11/11 from
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=33728
Social Learning (Observational Learning) Theory
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment
 How much do social modeling and reinforcement of behaviors affect an
individual’s behaviors?
1. What were the procedures of the Bobo doll experiment? see video link to
original Bandura experiment
Bandura’s data/findings
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment
1.
Children who observed the aggressive models made far more imitative
aggressive responses than those who were in the non-aggressive or
control groups.•
2.
There was more partial and non-imitative aggression among those
children who has observed aggressive behavior, although the difference
for non-imitative aggression was small.•
3.
The girls in the aggressive model conditions also showed more physical
aggressive responses if the model was male but more verbal aggressive
responses if the model was female; (However, the exception to this
general pattern was the observation of how often they punched Bobo,
and in this case the effects of gender were reversed). •
4.
Boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls. The
evidence for girls imitating same-sex models is not strong.• Boys imitated
more physically aggressive acts than girls. There was little difference in
the verbal aggression between boys and girls. –
Bandura’s data/findings
Bandura’s Bobo doll experiment
Conclusion: people mimic/imitate behaviors they see others doing ESPECIALLY
Data: IF the person they are imitating (model) seems to have status, power, is
rewarded for behavior
 So what? Media, older peers, parents set standards for behavior
 “Do as I say, not as I do” does NOT work!!

Actions speak louder than words because we are mimickers

“Children see, children do”
The blue eyes vs. brown eyes
experiment
 Topic: How do prejudices and discrimination form?
 How does being the victim of discrimination affect a person?
 How does being the victimizer affect a person?
 Video: A class divided (chapters 1 & 2 approx. 15 minutes)
 Take notes outlining the purposed and procedures of the
experiment
 What did Elliot’s data show?
Blue Eye experiment
 Procedures
Day 1:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
tell students in class that students with blue eyes are better,
smarter than students with brown/green eyes
Have non-blue eyed students wear colors for easier
identification
assign extra privileges to blue eyed students
give extra praise to blue eyed students, extra criticism to nonblue eyed
Observe and record behaviors of kids in each group
Blue Eye experiment
 Procedures
Day 2: Role reversal
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
tell students in class that students with Brown or Green eyes
are better, smarter than students with blue eyes
Have blue eyed students wear colors for easier identification
assign extra privileges to Brown/green eyed students
give extra praise to Brown/green eyed students, extra criticism
to blue eyed
Observe and record behaviors of kids in each group
Blue Eye experiment
 Procedures
Day 3: Debrief
1.
2.
tell students that all are equal
discuss with students how they felt being judged by color of
their eyes
Blue Eye experiment
 Findings
1. Dominant group students immediately begin banding together
against inferior group
2. body language of inferior students shows frustration, anxiety,
sadness, shame
3. those in superior group seem gleeful about extra privileges and
show no empathy for suffering of inferior group
4. students in superior group showed dramatic improvement in
phonics skills activity; those in inferior group showed dramatic
declines on same activity
5. when roles reversed, students who felt oppressed on day 1 eagerly
become the oppressors on day 2 (anxious to enact vengeance)
Blue Eye experiment
Elliot’s conclusions:
1. self-fulfilling prophecy: the expectations we have about
others can influence the way those others behave
2. dispositional attributions—people’s failings, bad behaviors
were attributed to their eye color rather than situation
3. prejudices and discrimination are learned behaviors,
attitudes
4. having people “walk in each other’s shoes” helps end the
discrimination
5 Main methods of Conducting
Research
1. case studies
2. naturalistic observation
3. surveys
4. correlation studies
5. experiments
Method 1: Case study
 Collecting anecdotal evidence about particularly
unique people (usually done with people who have a
psychological disorder or illness).
 Strengths:
 wealth of information about a rare disorder or
disease
 serves as prototype for comparing others who show
similar symptoms
 motivates additional research
 Weaknesses:
 hard to apply findings to general population
 hard to prove patterns or test hypotheses if only 1
person is studied
Examples of infamous
case studies:
Dissociative identity
disorder (multiplepersonalities) :
“Sybil”
Feral children:
“Victor: The Wild Boy
of Aveyron” 1800s
boy in France
Frontal brain injury:
Phineas Gage
Anterograde
amnesia: H.M.
Method 2:
Naturalistic observation
 Observing people as they go about normal, daily life in natural (rather
than laboratory or contrived) settings.
 Strengths:
 able to observe what people really do in real life situations
 Weaknesses:
 Unable to make clear cause-effect conclusions because there are too
many unknown factors that might contribute to a person’s behaviors
 Research is ruined if people sense they are being studied, watched
Method 3: Surveys
 Ask people about themselves, their
behaviors, their mental strengths and
weaknesses, their emotions, etc.
 Strengths:
 Good for finding correlation
Examples of when a survey
might be used:
Trying to find relationship
between television viewing
habits and eating/exercise
habits
(relationships between variables)
 Weaknesses:
 unable to determine a cause-effect
relationship
 people sometimes lie!
Determining if people’s
opinions about smoking affect
their likelihood to smoke
Determining if there is a
relationship between being
raised by a single parent and
pre-marital sexual behaviors
Method 4: Correlation studies
 Collecting data about various behaviors and demographic factors (age, gender, race,
job, where you live, religion, etc.) and looking for relationships between the data
 Strengths:
 able to graph relationships between 2 or more variables
 negative correlation: when one variable increases, the other decreases
 More exercise is linked to less heart disease
 More smoking of marijuana is linked to decrease in academic achievement
 positive correlation: when one variable increases, so does the other
 as school attendance increases, grades increase
 as alcohol consumption of pregnant woman increases, incidence of
retardation in their babies increases
 Weaknesses:
 unable to draw cause-effect conclusions!
Method 5: Experiment
 Contrive a situation, control the variables, manipulate one variable,
watch/measure people’s reaction to that variable.
 Strengths:
 able to draw cause-effect conclusions
 Weaknesses:
 contrived setting may affect results
Methodology
 All research projects have in common:
 research question: general concept study is trying to find an




answer to
hypothesis: educated prediction of answer to research question
procedures and methods planned
written report of data and findings
follow ethical guidelines
 Get informed consent of participants
 Experiment must not put anybody in danger physically or
emotionally!
 Honesty in data collection and reporting.
 You must debrief people after you manipulate them.
Experiment methodology
 Experiments have additional methods that must be
followed
 Independent variable: the thing you are manipulating to test
your hypothesis
 Dependent variable: The behavior you are
measuring/observing (what you think will be affected by
exposing participants to the independent variable!)
 Control group: group that is not exposed to independent
variable
The Sorting Experiment
 Challenge: Can you name the following elements in the sorting experiment?
 Research question
 Hypothesis
 IV
 DV

Confounding variables
 Procedures
 Control group
Did you notice any mistakes in my methodology?
What were the variables in the experiments we have
learned about?
 Zimbardo prison study
 IV: role of guard or prisoner
 DV: how people in roles behave
 Milgram study
 IV: Teacher believing he is administering real shocks as
punishment to student
 DV: How much teacher will increase shock voltage, how
much teacher will protest, question procedures
What were the variables in the experiments we have
learned about?
 Asch’s conformity study
 IV: having confederates make obviously inaccurate choice of
line
 DV: choice of line subject makes (conforms to group or makes
correct choice)
 Bandura’s Bobo doll study
 IV: type of behavior model exhibits towards Bobo doll
(aggressive, non-aggressive)
 DV: type of behavior children exhibit towards Bobo doll after
watching model with doll
What were the variables in the experiments we have
learned about?
 Blue eye experiment
 IV: being assigned to superior or inferior group based upon
eye color
 DV: behaviors of those in superior and inferior groups
Control groups
 Ms. C’s experiment:
 Student who was not exposed to exercise before doing
sorting task
Control groups
 Zimbardo prison study
 Have 20 students live together in same psychology lab
basement for 2 weeks but none is assigned role of prisoner or
guard and students are not told it is a prison
 Milgram study
 someone not in position of authority asks people to play role
of teacher (person who delivers shocks)
Control groups
 Asch study
 Ask people to name correct line while in groups without any
confederates giving wrong answer
 Bandura study
 Have children go into room with Bobo doll that have not
watched anybody model behavior towards Bobo doll
Control groups
 Blue eye experiment
 Teacher runs class same way (same lessons, activities, rules)
BUT does not divide class into superior and inferior groups
based upon eye colors. Observe to see if kids naturally
segregate and discriminate based upon eye color.
Classical Conditioning: Pavlov and “Pavlovian Response”
Russian Dr. Ivan Pavlov, M.D. (1849-1936) studied effects of external environment on reflex
responses “Classical conditioning focuses on the learning of involuntary emotional or
physiological responses such as fear, increase heartbeat, salivation, or sweating,
which are sometimes called reflexes because they are automatic responses to
stimuli” *
Video clip The Office Clip 2
“quack”
1920 John Watson experiment
“Baby Albert” video
Identify the classical conditioning
variables in Quack and the Office
Quack
The Office
 NS: quack sound
 NS: computer reboot sound
 US: feeling of dart hitting body
 US: altoid on tongue
 UR: flinching when hit
 UR:
refreshed tongue
 CS:
quack sound
 CS:
computer reboot sound
 CR:
flinching when hit
 CR:
tongue anticipating altoid
The terminology
 Conditioned response (CR) :The behavior
that the experimenter is trying to elicit
from the subject
Acquisition is when the NS
becomes conditioned
stimulus (CS)
 salivation
 Neutral stimulus (NS): A stimulus (sight,
sound, smell, feeling) that does NOT elicit
desired response prior to conditioning.


Sound of bell
Unconditioned stimulus (US): a stimulus
that leads to an involuntary response by a
subject without any training.
 Food
After repeated paired
exposures of NS and US, NS
becomes CS therefore...
subject begins behaving in
same involuntary way it
would to unconditioned
stimulus (US) after US has
been removed
More classical conditioning terminology
1. Generalization: Stimulus similar to CS will elicit same CR
--Different bells elicit salivation
2. Discrimination: Animal learns to ignore stimuli that are similar to CS if similar
stimuli never accompany original US
--Sound of different bell NEVER paired with food
3. Extinction: CR will stop after repeated exposure to CS without US
--Original bell rung many times without exposure to food
Practical applications of Pavlovian Response
In simple terms: you can train an animal (and a person) to
respond in a desired way (perform a behavior or extinguish
a behavior!) by training the person to associate desired (or
undesired) behavior with a simple stimulus
 stop coyote from eating sheep by poisoning sheep carcasses
 eliminate phobias (pair the feared stimulus with a positive
stimulus)
ending fast
food
addiction (3
min)
Video 2
Operant Conditioning
B.F. Skinner
Video: Leonard trains Penny
 Skinner (died 1990) American behavioral psychologist
 Designed the “Skinner Box” to prove that animals (rats, pigeons) could be trained to
do non-instinctual behaviors if reinforced (rewarded) for the desired behavior
 2 kinds of “reinforcers”
 Positive--reward like money or food
 Negative --removal of a negative stressor (loud noise, bright light, shock) (NOTE:
This is not the same as punishment!!)
 Animals can be trained to stop doing previously learned behaviors if punished for
performing the behavior
 Punishment does NOT work very well to make behavior extinct IF reward outweighs
punishment
Practical Applications of Operant Conditioning
 eliminating phobias through systematic desensitization –Behaviorist Joseph
Wolpe teaches people to relax muscles while exposed to incrementally scarier
situations if have a phobia
 Behavior modification (B-mod)– used in schools and by parents to get desired
behavior to occur and eliminate undesirable behaviors
 Examples:
 Token economy—
 child earns stickers for good behavior that can be exchanged for a
toy or privilege
 prisoner earns points for good behavior that can be exchanged for
cigarettes/candy, extra privileges
 Teacher sticker charts/checks on board
The experiment: Procedures and findings
Procedures:
Elliot’s conclusions:
 self-fulfilling prophecy: the expectations we have about others can
influence the way those others behave
 students in non-privileged group performed poorly on academic
challenge; in privileged group performed well (just like Rosenthal’s
and Jacobson’s Pygmalion in the classroom study)
 dispositional attributions—people’s failings, bad behaviors were
attributed to their eye color rather than situation
 prejudices and discrimination learned
 having people “walk in each other’s shoes” helps end the
discrimination
Time to design and conduct your own research project!!
1. Pick a topic to study
2. Pick one of the following research methods to find out more about your topic:

correlation survey

naturalistic observation

experiment—cause and effect or correlation
3. Create a research proposal that includes the following:

Research question/topic: General topic you plan to study or question you plan to answer

Hypothesis: Educated guess of what you predict will be the results of your research study

If an experiment: identify independent variable, dependent variable, and possible confounding
variables

Procedures and materials: Step-by-step plans of how you will conduct your research

Identify who will be your test subjects/participants & when and where you plan to do the research
ESP: Ganzfield procedure
 Video clip (start at 6:11)