The Research Enterprise in Psychology

1. The Research Enterprise in Psychology Unit 2

2. The Assumption There are laws of behavior that can be discovered through empirical research! The Goals • Measurement and Description of Behavior • Understanding and Prediction of Behavior • Application and Control of Behavior

3. Case Study • Pg. 27 in Myers has the basics. • Descriptive research (as opposed to experimental) • Obtain an in-depth analysis of a person, group, or phenomenon. • Most often used in clinical research to describe rare events and conditions, which contradict well established principles in the field of psychology. • Techniques: personal interviews, direct-observation, psychometric tests, and archival records. • Replication instead of sampling is the criterion for inclusion. • Must produce valid and reliable results in order to be useful for the development of future research. • Advantages: Study strange phenomenon in depth to obtain a possible explanation. • Disadvantage: Results not applicable to large numbers of people.

4. (Spiral) Case Study Activity • Read the article, “Kamala and Amala, the Wolf Girls of Midnapore.” • Write an answer to the following question: How does this article conform to the definition of a case study (reference pg. 27 Myers)? In your answer, address • # of people studied, • depth of study, • the nature of the phenomenon being studied, • the methods of study that were used, and • anything else you think is relevant.

5. Survey • collect quantitative information about items in a population • may focus on opinions or factual information • respondents answer questions that are administered to them in some form. • Advantages: (1) normal topics that apply to many people (2) many data points • Disadvantages: (1) must be a mainstream issue (2) information gathered is superficial • Tips: • Word Effects: not allowing vs forbidding • Random Sampling: don’t be selective

6. Pitfalls to AVOID When Developing a Survey • Beware of jargon terms that a limited number of people may know (Do you favor inclusion?). • Watch out for "fuzzy" words that have ambiguous meaning (Which class is best?). • Do not ask more than one question at a time (Do you favor tax increases and year-around school?). • Avoid loaded or leading questions (Is it important to treat people fairly?). • Make sure that fixed-response questions have a place for every possible answer (Are you a democrat or republican?). • Use filter questions to guide subjects if all of the questions do not need to be answers (i.e., If you answered no to question 1, skip to question). • Minimize the amount of writing the respondents must do. • Put the questions in a logical order. Place sensitive or difficult questions at the end of the survey. • Begin with clear directions. • Field test the survey. From <http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research>, Del Siegle, Ph.D.Neag School of Education - University of Connecticut

7. (Spiral) Survey Activity • Read a page from a summary of Richard LaPiere’s famous study on attitudes. “Attitudes Versus Actions”: LaPiere’s (1934) Classic Study Revisited (Social Behavior and Personality, 1989, 17 (1), 9-16). • Write an answer to the following question: Explain how LaPiere’s article illustrates the use of survey as a research tool (reference Myers pg. 27-28)? In your answer, address • LaPiere’s hypothesis regarding the relationship between a person’s symbolic speech and non-symbolic behavior • The two variables the questionnaire compared • The results of the survey • LaPiere’s conclusion

8. Naturalistic Observation • observe subjects in their natural habitats • use unobtrusive methods • can be overt or covert • Advantages: (1) no fake behavior by subjects, (2) no lab set up necessary • Disadvantages: (1) hard to get scientific data b/c outside of a controlled environment (2) data collection capabilities limited b/c people behaving spontaneously, like they do every day. Time draining. What if you don’t see behavior you want to see? • Tips: blend in, take lots of notes • take notes • don’t interfere

9. (Spiral) Naturalistic Observation Activity • Read the excerpt from the Jane Goodall Institute’s website. • Write an answer to the following question: How does the content of this article conform to the definition of a naturalistic observation? (see Myers pgs. 28-29)? In your answer, address • Amount of time subjects were studied • Behavioral observations • Conclusions

10. Correlations Jargon • 2 factors • Strength: is determined by a coefficient ranging from -1.0 to 1.0. The higher the numerical value of the number, the stronger the relationship • Strong correlation= ±0.7 to ±1.0 • Moderate correlation= ±0.4 to ±0.6 • Weak correlation= 0.0 to ±0.3 • Direction: • + means as one variable increase, so does the other. COVARIANCE. • - means as one variable increases, the other decreases. We call this an “inverse relationship.” INVERSE VARIANCE

11. (Spiral) Correlational Direction Practice • Are the variables named in the following real studies positive or negative? • The more young children watch TV, the less they read (Kaiser, 2003) • The more sexual content teens see on TV, the more likely they are to have sex (Collins et al., 2004). • The longer children are breast-fed, the greater their later academic achievement (Horwood & Fergusson, 1998). • The more often adolescents eat breakfast, the lower their body mass (Timlin et al., 2008)

12. Experimental Design • Have a hypothesis • Have a control group and an experimental group • Have an independent variable (the thing you’re manipulating) • Have a dependent variable (the resulting behavior) • Carry out the experiment • Control confounding variables • Gather data • Draw conclusions from data • Evaluate hypothesis • Formulate a theory • Submit experiment to other professionals for review, criticism, and replication • Re-evaluate experiment and theory

13. (Spiral) Experiment Activity • Read this excerpt from Spanos’sstudy on hypnosis. • In this article, there are several examples of how an experimental design works. Identify the following components for at least two of them (see Myers pgs. 34-36). • Hypothesis • Independent Variable • Dependent Variable • Control Group • Experimental Group • Conclusions

14. (Spiral) APA Guidelines • Read about the APA Ethical Guidelines (pgs. 20-22). Also, please use your phones to visit http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/index.aspx • Then pick up a summary of Harry Harlow’s famous study. Read it. • To which of the APA guidelines do you think this experiment conforms? Which guidelines do you think this study violates? A famous introduction to ethics . . .

15. (Spiral) Experimenting Correctly: • Jacob decides to prove a causal relationship between a stellar test score and studying the night before the test by designing an experiment. • Answer these questions about Jacob’s experimental set up by using Myers pgs. 34-36, the glossary/index, and your stats cheat sheet. • How would Jacob set up his control group? • How would Jacob set up his experimental group? • How could Jacob randomly assign people to each group to make sure there was no sampling bias? • Should Jacob use a double-blind procedure? Why or why not? If not, how can he be sure to avoid experimenter bias? • What are the possible extraneous or confounding variables that could enter into Jacob’s experiment? • How will Jacob know that his results are statistically significant?

16. The Sort of Thing That College Board Likes Doing (meanies) In an experiment designed to determine whether watching violent scenes on television increases the frequency of aggressive behavior in children, one group of subjects saw a nonviolent cartoon and another group saw a violent cartoon. In the play period that followed the viewing of the cartoons, researchers observed the two groups of children together and counted instances of aggressive behavior 1. The control group in the experiment is the group that a. the researchers thought would be most aggressive b. performed the larger number of aggressive acts c. performed the smaller number of aggressive acts d. watched the violent cartoon e. watched the nonviolent cartoon 2. The dependent variable in the experiment is the a. amount of aggressive behavior exhibited by the children b. amount of time that each child spent interacting with the other children c. group in which each child was originally placed d. violent cartoon e. nonviolent cartoon

17. Intro to FRQ Strategy: PLAYING THE GAME Get inside the Game Maker’s Head! The AP Exam is a game to try to rank you! What was the test writer thinking when he wrote the question? Which skill is the test writer testing (see Common Core). What is the test writer looking for? How can you write to give the test writer what they want?

18. FRQPractice: The Research Enterprise:An FRQ like this one showed up on the 2006 Exam. Do your best! • Psychologists use a variety of research methods to study behavior. Three of the main research methods used are • Case study • Correlational study, and • Experiment • Discuss one advantage of each research method listed above • Discuss one disadvantage of each research method listed above Now pretend you are a psychologist who will use each of the three research methods – case study, correlational study, and experiment – to determine the effect of taking XVitaminson improving memory. • For each method listed above, explain a key characteristic of the basic approach you could use to reach a scientific conclusion about the relationship between taking X Vitamins and improving memory. You need not design a complete study.