This document discusses psychological research methods. It explains that research is important for addressing questions about human behavior and informing public policy and personal decisions. The scientific method involves generating hypotheses and designing studies, such as experiments, surveys, and longitudinal research, to test them. It is important to differentiate facts from opinions and think critically about research claims by evaluating the evidence. Research must be conducted ethically and avoid harming participants.

1. Chapter 2 PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH
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PSYCHOLOGY

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WHY IS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?
Learning outcomes:
• Explain how scientific research address questions about behavior
• Apply the scientific method to questions about behavior by
generating hypotheses and designing a study to test their
hypothesis.

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USE OF RESEARCH INFORMATION
How is research information used?
• Public policy (D.A.R.E., educational standards, sanitation, taxes,
etc)
• Personal decisions (medical decisions, parenting practices,
majors/job selection)
Need to differentiate between
• Facts: observable realities; and
• Opinions: personal judgements, conclusions or attitudes that may
or may not be accurate

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CRITICAL THINKING
Critical thinking
a) Systematically evaluating information to reach
reasonable conclusions best supported by evidence
Three steps in becoming a skilled critical thinker
1. “What am I being asked to believe or accept?”
2. “What evidence is provided to support the claim?”
3. “What are the most reasonable conclusions?”

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How does television content impact children’s behavior? (credit: modification of work by
“antisocialtory”/Flickr)
FIGURE 2.1

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THE PROCESS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
The scientific method uses both
Inductive reasoning: empirical observations lead to new ideas
And
Deductive reasoning: ideas are tested against the empirical world

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Psychological research relies on both inductive and deductive reasoning.
FIGURE 2.4

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The scientific method of research includes proposing hypotheses, conducting research,
and creating or modifying theories based on results.
FIGURE 2.5

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SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Important criteria when generating hypotheses:
Falsifiable: capable of being shown to be incorrect
- Statements can be disproven with just one example
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY

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Many of the specifics of (a) Freud's theories, such as (b) his division of the mind into id,
ego, and superego, have fallen out of favor in recent decades because they are not
falsifiable. In broader strokes, his views set the stage for much of psychological thinking
today, such as the unconscious nature of the majority of psychological processes.
FIGURE 2.6

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2.2 APPROACHES TO RESEARCH
Now that we understand the scientific method and how to generate
hypotheses, we need to understand how to test them.
Psychology uses many different types of studies to test hypotheses about
behavior:
How data is collected:
• Clinical or Case studies
• Natural Observation
• Surveys
• Archival research
• Longitudinal
• Cross sectional

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CLINICAL/CASE STUDIES
• Observational research
• Focuses on one person or just a few individuals.
• Pros
• can gather lots of information
• Deep understanding of individual
• Cons
• Generalizing to larger population is limited
• Example: Apple, Inc.
• Yoffie, David B., and Eric Baldwin. "Apple Inc. in 2018." Harvard Business
School Case 718-439, May 2018
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

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NATURALISTIC OBSERVATION
• Observing behavior in its naturally occurring context
• Pros:
• lots of information as it takes place
• Helpful in generating new ideas
• High ecological validity
• Cons:
• People may change behavior when they know they are
being observed
• Observer bias

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Seeing a police car behind you would probably affect your driving behavior. (credit:
Michael Gil)
FIGURE 2.7

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PRESCHOOL STUDY
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

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SURVEYS
• Surveys are lists of questions to be answered by research
participants
• Pros:
• Easy to get large samples of the population
• Increased generalizability
• Short and easy to administer
• Cons:
• Less depth of information for each person
• May be unwilling to give accurate responses

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Surveys can be administered in a number of ways, including electronically administered
research, like the survey shown here. (credit: Robert Nyman)
FIGURE 2.9

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A researcher doing archival research examines records, whether archived as a (a)
hardcopy or (b) electronically. (credit “paper files”: modification of work by “Newtown
graffiti”/Flickr; “computer”: modification of work by INPIVIC Family/Flickr)
FIGURE 2.10

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RESEARCH METHODS CONTINUED

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Longitudinal research like the CPS-3 help us to better understand how smoking is
associated with cancer and other diseases. (credit: CDC/Debora Cartagena)
FIGURE 2.11

21. LONGITUDINAL AND CROSS-SECTIONAL
STUDIES
Longitudinal Studies
• The same people are studied twice or more over a substantial period of
time – see line in red below
Cross-Sectional Studies
• People of different ages are studied at same point in time- see line in blue
2010 2020 2030
Age
50
40
30
20
10
Year

22. CORRELATIONAL STUDIES
The primary goal of studies that use correlational designs is to
determine how variables are related to one another.
A correlation is the association between two variables.
• The direction and strength of a correlation is measured by a
statistic called the correlation coefficient.
• Direction = positive or negative (-1 to 1)
• Strength = absolute value (closer to 1 = stronger correlation, 0 =
no correlation)

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Scatterplots are a graphical view of the strength and direction of correlations. The stronger
the correlation, the closer the data points are to a straight line. In these examples, we see
that there is (a) a positive correlation between weight and height, (b) a negative correlation
between tiredness and hours of sleep, and (c) no correlation between shoe size and hours of
sleep.
FIGURE 2.12

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CORRELATIONS
CORRELATION DOES NOT INDICATE CAUSATION

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Does eating cereal really cause someone to be a healthy weight? (credit: Tim Skillern)
FIGURE 2.13

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Many people believe that a full moon makes people behave oddly. (credit: Cory Zanker)
Example of Illusory correlation: false correlations
These occur when people believe there are relationships between two
things when there is no relationship!
FIGURE 2.14

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Seeing behavior like this right after a
child watches violent television
programming might lead you to
hypothesize that viewing violent
television programming leads to an
increase in the display of violent
behaviors. (credit: Emran Kassim)
FIGURE 2.15

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CAUSALITY: CONDUCTING EXPERIMENTS AND
USING THE DATA
Experiments has a precise design and implementation in the scientific
context and can allow for determination of causality.
• 1. Create a specific hypothesis to test
• Example: watching violent TV leads to violent behavior in
kids
• 2. Must design a controlled experimental study
• Experimental group gets the manipulation
• Control group does not

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Providing the control group with a placebo treatment protects against bias caused by
expectancy. (credit: Elaine and Arthur Shapiro)
FIGURE 2.16

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In an experiment, manipulations of the independent variable are expected to result in
changes in the dependent variable. (credit “automatic weapon”: modification of work by
Daniel Oines; credit “toy gun”: modification of work by Emran Kassim)
FIGURE 2.17

31. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Relies on random assignment, a procedure in which each participant
has an equal chance of being assigned to any group within an
experiment
31

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Researchers may work with (a) a large population or (b) a sample group that is a
subset of the larger population. (credit “crowd”: modification of work by James Cridland;
credit “students”: modification of work by Laurie Sullivan)
FIGURE 2.18

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RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY
Reliability refer to the ability to consistently produce a given result
Validity refers to the extent to which a given instrument or tool
accurately measure what it’s supposed to measure

34. 2.4 ETHICS
• Ethical Guidelines for Researchers
• Researchers must protect participants from physical and
psychological harm.
• Researchers must obtain informed consent from participants
before their involvement in a study.
• The use of deception in research must be justified and cause
no harm.
• Participants’ privacy (anonymity) must be maintained.

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An institution’s IRB meets regularly to review experimental proposals that involve
human participants. (credit: modification of work by Lowndes Area Knowledge
Exchange (LAKE)/Flickr)
FIGURE 2.20