Note2: How Psychologists Do Research

Learning objectives 2.1 The characteristics of an ideal scientist

2.2 The nature of a scientific theory
2.3 The secret of a good scientific definition
2.4 The risk scientists take when testing their ideas
2.5 Why secrecy is a big no-no in science
What do you think? Are psychologists scientists?

Agree
Disagree

What makes psychological research scientific?

Precision

Openness

Skepticism

Precision

Reliance on empirical evidence

Critical thinking guidelines

Willingness to make risky

predictions
Skepticism: Scientists do not accept ideas on faith or authority.
Skepticism means treating conclusions, both old and new, with caution.
Reliance on empirical evidence: A scientist relies on empirical evidence to
determine whether a hypothesis is true.
Willingness to make risky predictions
Principle of falsifiability: A scientific theory must make predictions specific
enough to confirm and/or disconfirm the theory.
The theory must predict not only what will happen, but also what will not
happen.
Confirmation bias:Tendency to look for or attend to only information that
confirms ones own belief
Openness:Scientists must be willing to tell others where they got their ideas,
how they tested them, and what the results were.
Peer review, publishing and replicating research, gives science a built-in system
of checks and balances.
Learning objectives

2.6 How participants are selected for psychological studies, and why it matters

2.7 The methods psychologists use to describe behavior

2.8 The advantages and disadvantages of using descriptive research methods
Selecting participants
Representative sample
A group of participants that accurately represents the larger population that the
researcher is interested in
Convenience sample
A sample of people who happen to be availablea convenience sampleand
more often than not, this means undergraduate college students
Descriptive methods
Methods that yield descriptions of behavior, but not necessarily causal
explanations

Include

Case studies

Case studies

Observational studies

Observational studies

Psychological tests

Psychological tests

Standardization

Surveys
The test is constructed to include uniform procedures for giving and scoring the
test.
In order to score tests in a standardized way, an individuals outcome or score is
compared to norms.
To establish norms, the test is given to a large group of people who are similar to
those for whom the test is intended.
By having norms or established standards of performance, we know who scores
low, average, or high.
Reliability
Validity

Surveys

Questionnaires and interviews that ask people about experiences, attitudes, or

opinions
Requires a representative sample
Group of subjects, selected from the population for study, which matches the
population on important characteristics such as age and sex
Popular polls and surveys rely on volunteers
Volunteer bias
Internet surveys
Web-based samples are often huge, consisting of hundreds of thousands of
respondents, and they are frequently more diverse than traditional samples in
terms of gender, socioeconomic status, geographic region, and age.
Learning objectives
2.9 What positive and negative correlations signify about the relationship
between two variables
2.10 Why a correlation does not establish a causal relationship between two
variables
Variables: Characteristics of behavior or experiences that can be measured or
described by a numeric scale
Variables are manipulated and assessed in scientific studies.
Correlational study:A descriptive study that looks for a consistent relationship
between two phenomena
Correlation: A statistical measure of the strength and direction of the relationship
between two variables
Correlation coefficients can range from -1.00 through 0.0 to +1.00.
Direction of correlations .Which is correct?
A study of married couples showed that the longer they had been married, the
more similar their opinions on social and political issues were.

Positive correlation
Negative correlation

Which is correct?
An intelligence test was given to all of the children in an orphanage. The results
showed that the longer children had lived in the orphanage, the lower their IQ
scores were.

Positive correlation
Negative correlation

Correlation does not establish causation.

What do you think?
Correlation means causation.

True
False

What do you think?

Correlation is a necessary first step in inferring causation.

True
False

Learning objectives
2.11 Why psychologists rely so heavily on experiments
2.12 What are the defining features of an experiment
2.13 What are the special challenges in doing cross-cultural research
An experiment:A controlled test of a hypothesis in which the researcher
manipulates one variable to discover its effect on another
An experiment includes variables of interest, control conditions, and random
assignment.
Variables of interest
Independent and dependent variables
When psychologists set up an experiment, they think, If I do X, then my
participants will do Y.

The X represents the independent variable.

The Y represents the dependent variable.

Your turn
An experimenter wants to study the effects of music on studying. She has some
students study while listening to music and others study in silence, and then
compares their test scores. What is the independent variable in this experiment?

1. The students

3. The kind of music

2. The presence of music while

studying

4. The test scores

Control condition:In an experiment, a comparison condition in which subjects

are not exposed to the same treatment as in the experimental condition
In some experiments, the control group is given a placebo, an inactive substance
or fake treatment.
Random assignment:For experiments to have experimental and control groups
composed of similar subjects, random assignment should be used.
Each individual participating in the study has the same probability as any other
of being assigned to a given group.

Experimenter effects
Challenges in
cross-cultural research
Methods and sampling
Stereotyping
Reification

Learning objectives
2.14 Why averages can be misleading
2.15 How psychologists use inferential statistics to reach conclusions about
their research
2.16 How psychologists can combine results from many studies of a question to
get a better overall answer
Descriptive statistics
Inferential statistics
Statistical procedures that allow researchers to draw inferences about how
statistically meaningful a studys results are
The most commonly used inferential statistics are significance tests.
Statistical tests that show how likely it is that a studys results occurred merely
by chance
Choosing the best explanation

Judging the results importance

Statistical techniques can help determine if results are really important.
Effect size is the amount of variance among scores in the study accounted for by
the independent variable.

Meta-analysis is a procedure for combining and analyzing data from many

studies. It determines how much of the variance in scores across all studies can
be explained by a particular variable.
Learning objectives
2.17 Why psychologists sometimes lie to people taking part in their studies
2.18 Why psychologists study nonhuman animals

The ethics of studying humans

Informed consent
Prospective participants should receive enough information to let them
decide freely whether to participate.
Freedom to withdraw at any time
Minimize discomfort
Keep data confidential
If deception is necessary, debriefing must occur
The ethics of studying animals

Which is correct?
You want to determine the favorite food of adolescents. Which research method
would you use?

Case study
Observation
Survey
Correlational study
Experiment

Which is correct?
You want to determine how introverted or extraverted a person is. Which
research method would you use?

Observation
Psychological test
Survey
Correlational study
Experiment