Psychology as a science

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Psychology as a science

• Psych 231 Research Methods in Psychology

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Announcements

• For this weeks lab you need to download, print
  out, read, and bring to lab an article.
• The article is Strayer Johnston (2001)
• It can be downloaded from the Milner library
  pagehttp//www.mlb.ilstu.edu/

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The anatomy of a research article

• Method - tells the reader exactly what was done
• Enough detail that the reader could actually
  replicate the study.
• Subsections
• Participants - who were the data collected from
• Apparatus/ Materials - what was used to conduct
  the study
• Procedure - how the study was conducted, what the
  participants did

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The anatomy of a research article

• Reading checklist for Methods
• 1 a) Is your method better than theirs?
• b) Does the authors method actually test the
  hypotheses?
• c) What are the independent, dependent, and
  control variables?
• 2) Based on what the authors did, what results do
  YOU expect?

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The anatomy of a research article

• Results - gives a summary of the results and the
  statistical tests
• Reading checklist
• 1) Did the author get unexpected results?
• 2 a) How does the author interpret the results?
• b) How would YOU interpret the results?
• c) What implications would YOU draw from these
  results?

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The anatomy of a research article

• Discussion - the interpretation and implications
  of the results
• Reading checklist
• 1 a) Does YOUR interpretation or the authors'
  interpretation best represent the data?
• b) Do you or the author draw the most sensible
  implications and conclusions?
• References - full citations of all work cited
• Appendices - additional supplementary supporting
  material

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Psychology as a science

• Psychologys goals are similar to the goals of
  the physical sciences (e.g., physics and
  chemistry)
• Psychologists are concerned with the behavior of
  people (and animals) rather than the physical
  world.

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Psychology as a science

• How is psychology different from the physical
  sciences?
• One big difference is that human behavior (and
  animals) is typically much more variable than
  most physical systems.
• To address this in part, we use a lot of
  statistical procedures.
• We also do as much as we can to reduce
  variability by using various methods of control.

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Goals of psychology

• Description of behavior
• describe events, what changes what might affect
  change, what might be related to what, etc.
• Prediction of behavior
• given X what will likely happen
• Control of behavior
• for the purpose of interventions (e.g., how do we
  prevent violence in schools)

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Goals of psychology

• Causes of behavior
• sometimes predictions arent enough, want to know
  how the X and the outcome are related
• Explanation of behavior
• a complete theory of the hows and whys

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Properties of a good theory

• Organizes, Explains, Accounts for the data
• If there are data relevant to your theory, that
  your theory cant account for, then your theory
  is wrong
• either adapt the theory to account for the new
  data
• develop a new theory that incorporates the new
  data

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Properties of a good theory

• Organizes, Explains, Accounts for the data
• Testable/Falsifiable cant prove a theory, can
  only reject it

• our research goal is not to prove theories, but
  rather to
• disconfirm them. Results may support
  theories,
• but not prove them.

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Support, not proof

• Einstein No amount of experimentation can ever
  prove me right a single experiment can prove me
  wrong.
• All dogs have four legs
• hard to prove, need to examine all the dogs that
  exist (and have existed).
• To disconfirm all we need to do is find one dog
  which doesnt have four legs

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Omnipotent Theory

• Beware theories that are so powerful/ general/
  flexible that they can account for everything.
  These are not testable
• Karl Popper claimed that Freudian theory isnt
  falsifiable
• If display behavior that clearly has sexual or
  aggressive motivation, then it is taken as proof
  of the presence of the Id
• If such behavior isnt displayed, then you have a
  reaction formation against it. So the Id is
  there, you just cant see evidence of it.
• So, as stated, the theory is too powerful and
  cant be tested and so it isnt useful

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Properties of a good theory

• Organizes, Explains, Accounts for the data
• Testable/Falsifiable
• Generalizable not too restrictive
• the theory should be broad enough to be of use,
  the more data that it can account for the better
• the line between generalizability and
  falsifiability is a fuzzy one.

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Properties of a good theory

• Organizes, Explains, Accounts for the data
• Testable/Falsifiable
• Generalizable
• Parsimony (Occams razor)
• for two or more theories that can account for the
  same data, the simplest theory is the favored one

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Properties of a good theory

• Organizes, Explains, Accounts for the data
• Testable/Falsifiable
• Generalizable
• Parsimony
• Makes predictions, generates new knowledge
• a good theory will account for the data, but also
  make predictions about things that the theory
  wasnt explicitly designed to account for

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Properties of a good theory

• Organizes, Explains, Accounts for the data
• Testable/Falsifiable
• Generalizable
• Parsimony
• Makes predictions, generates new knowledge
• Precision
• makes quantifiable predictions

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Using theories in research

• Induction reasoning from the data to the
  general theory
• So in complete practice this approach probably
  needs a new theory (or an adapted one) for every
  new data set
• Deduction reasoning from a general theory to
  the data
• Here the theory (if it is a good one) is
  sometimes viewed as more critical than the data.
  It also will guide the choice of what experiments
  get done

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The chicken or the egg?
Theory
induction
deduction
Data

• Typically good research programs use both

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Research Approaches

• Basic (pure) research - tries to answer
  fundamental questions about the nature of
  behavior
• e.g., McBride Dosher (1999). Forgetting rates
  are comparable in conscious and automatic memory
  A process-dissociation study.
• Applied research Theory sometimes takes a
  backseat. This is research designed to solve a
  particular problem
• e.g., Jin (2001). Advertising and the news Does
  advertising campaign information in news stories
  improve the memory of subsequent advertisements?

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Research Approaches

• Probably the best way to think of this is as a
  continuum rather as two separate categories.

• Often applied work may bring up some
  interesting basic theoretical questions, and
  basic theory often informs applied work.

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Next time

• Basic Methodologies
• Read Chapters 6 and 7