Psychology. Tutorial
2. Research methods
1. Scientific method and it’s steps.
2. Methods of psychological research: observation, conversation, interview, questionnaires, tests, experiments.
3. Ethics in psychological research.
The four basic goals of psychology are to (1) describe, (2) explain, (3) predict, and
(4) control or influence behavior and mental processes.
Psychology is based on verifiable or empirical evidence—evidence that is the result of objective observation, measurement, and experimentation.
The scientific method is a set of assumptions, attitudes, and procedures that guides all scientists, including psychologists, in conducting research.Scientific research is objective, systematic and testable. Steps of scientific research:
1) conceptualize a problem – a specific question that can be tested;
2) design a study to collect data;
3) analyze the data to arrive at conclusions draw conclusions;
4) report the results.
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· Observation (naturalistic or laboratory, usual or instrumental)
We look at things all the time, but casually watching a friend cross the campus is not a scientific observation. Unless you are a trained observer and practice your skills regularly, you might not know what to look for, you might not remember what you saw, what you are looking for might change from one moment to the next, you might not describe your observations effectively.
For observations to be effective, we have to know what we are looking for, whom are we observing, when and where we will observe, how the observations will be made and in what form they will be recorded. That is we need to observe in some systematic way.
When we observe, we often need to control certain factors that determine behavior but are not the focus of our inquiry. For this reason much of psychology’s research is conducted in a laboratory, a controlled setting with many of the complex factors of the “real world” removed.
Laboratory research, however, does have some drawbacks. First, it is almost impossible to conduct research without the participant’s knowing they are being studied. Second, the laboratory setting is unnatural and therefore can cause the participants to behave unnaturally.
Although laboratory research is a valuable tool for psychologists, naturalistic observation provides insight that we sometimes cannot achieve in the laboratory. In naturalistic observation psychologists observe behavior in real-world setting and make no effort to manipulate or control the situation.
Observation may be usual (vision, audition) and instrumental, when something seen or heard in person’s behavior is fixed by means of photo and video cameras or tape-recorder. Instrumental observation gives an opportunity to document everything, which is observed, and that is why it is possible to analyze and compare it deeply.
· Conversation, interviews, questionnaires
Sometimes the best and quickest way to get information from people is to ask them for it J. Conversation is a purposeful talk with a respondent with the aim of clearing up of conception or understanding of nature and society phenomena, scientific questions, intercorrelations, causes and consequences, persuasions, ideals and ideological orientation.
An interview involves asking questions to find about a persons experiences and attitudes. Most interviews occur face-to-face, although they can take place over the telephone. Some interview questions are unstructured and open-ended, other interview questions are more structured and ask about more specific things.
One shortcoming of an interview is social desirability, the tendency of participants to tell the interviewer what they think is socially acceptable or desirable rather than they truly think or feel.
Questionnaires (or surveys) are similar to structed interview except that the respondents read the questions and mark their answers on paper instead of verbally responding to an interviewer. A major advantage of questionnaires is that they can be given to large numbers of people easily. Social desirability is also a problem for questionnaires.
· Standardized tests
require people to answer a series of written and/or oral questions, and they have 2 distinct features:
1) an individuals score is totaled to yield a single score, or set of score, that reflects something about that individual;
2) the individual’s score is compared with the scores of a large group of similar people to determine how the individual relative to others.
Test is one of the methods of psychological diagnostics of person’s psychic processes and qualities. Psychological tests constitute a certain task system, reliability of which is checked in certain social, professional, age groups, and are estimated and standardized by means of special mathematical (correlational, factoral etc.) analysis.
There are various types of tests. They are following: tests for mental abilities study, the level of personality mental development and special progress test, projective tests. With the help of tests one can investigate the level of development of separate psychic processes, levels of knowledge and personality general mental development.
The main advantage of standardized tests is that they provide information about individual differences among people. But information obtained from standardized tests does not always predict behavior in nontest situations. Standardized tests are based on the belief that a person’s behavior is consistent and stable. Although personality and intelligence, two of the primary targets of standardized tests, have some stability, they can vary, depending on the situation.
Most widely used standardized tests in psychology are Stanford-Binet intelligence test and Minessota Multiphase Inventory (MMPI).
Another group of tests that's Projected tests : Rorschach Inkblot Test (the test is composed of 5 black and white inkblot cards and 5 colored inkblot cards that an individual is shown and then asked to tell what they see); 2) the House-Tree-Person (H-T-P), developed by John N. Buck, is one of the most distinguished and widely used projectives. The H-T-P is popular not only because it yields abundant clinical information, but also because it saves time and is easy to use.
Max Luscher Color test. The Lüscher-Color-Diagnostic measures a person's psychophysical state, his or her ability to withstand stress, to perform, and to communicate. It uncovers the cause of psychological stress, which can lead to physical symptoms. Using 5015 precise definitions, the selections from among these pre-determined test colors measure the state of 23 personality traits, some of which lie outside the realm of the conscious.
· Experimental research
allows psychologists to determine behavior’s causes. Experiment – a carefully regulated procedure in which one or more factors believed to influence the behavior being studied are manipulated and all other factors are held constant.
Experiments involve at least one independent variable and one dependent variable. The independent variable is the manipulated, influential, experimental factor. Dependent variable is the factor that is measured in an experiment. Experiments also involve 1 or more experimental groups and 1 or more control groups. An experimental group is a group whose experience is manipulated. A control group is a comparison group that is treated in every way like the experimental group except for the manipulated factor. The control group serves as a baseline against which the effects of the manipulated condition can be compared.
For example, let’s assume you discovered a drug you thought would cure headaches. How would you prove it really worked? You could just give the drug to 100 people with headaches and count how many of your subjects got better. Suppose 65 percent of them got immediate relief. Wouldn’t that prove that your drug was effective? Not really. For many scientific studies show that some people get better immediately even if you just give them a sugar pill (placebo). And many subjects recover even if you give them nothing at all. So, maybe your new drug is just another sugar pill.
To make sure your drug was really effective, you’d need to test some additional groups (control). You might give a sugar pill to one such group, and nothing at all to a second bunch of subjects. You could then compare the recovery rates shown by these two groups with recovery rate shown by your original subjects.
Now, suppose the experimental-group subjects showed a significantly higher recovery rate than did the subjects in the two control groups. The fact that you compared their responses with those of the two control groups strongly suggests that your drug was effective in curing headaches.
he Hotel Experiment: Can Perceiving Work as Exercise Produce Health Benefi ts? (YES!) [ Read Hockenbury H. Don, Hockenbury E. Sandra Discovering Psychology. Worth Publishers; 6th edition, 2014. 855 p. p. 29]
Experimenter bias occurs when the experimenter’s own expectations influence the outcome of the research. Research participant bias reflects research participants’ beliefs about how they are expected to behave.
The placebo effect occurs when participants’ expectations rather than the experimental treatment produce the desired outcome. Double-blind experiment in which neither the experimenter nor the participants are aware of which participants are in the experimental group and which are in the placebo control group until the results are calculated.
Find more information here:The 25 Most Influential Psychological Experiments in History
3. In the past, some experiments were run in scary and unethical ways. One of the most famous unethical experiments: Stanford prison experiment (Phillip Zimbardo), Milgram study, experiment with David Reimer and others.
Psychology Experiments You Couldn't Do Today
Concept Map - Hockenbury H. Don, Hockenbury E. Sandra Discovering Psychology. Worth Publishers; 6th edition, 2014. 855 p. p. 41