Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

1

• Psych 231 Research Methods in Psychology
• Reading the Literature cont.
• Science of Psychology
• Theories in Science

2
Announcements

• Library assignment due in lab this week
• Download (full text available at library) and
  read the article for lab THIS week (Raz, Kirsch,
  Polard, Nitkin-Kaner,2006)
• Note the Lab manual exercise mentions a
  different article, ignore that one, use the Raz
  et al paper
• Some of the questions (7-10 in particular) refer
  to things in the old article. Dont stress out
  about that (ignore them for now, well cover them
  in labs)
• Quiz 3 due on Monday
• Exam 1 two weeks from today

3
The anatomy of a research article

• What's the goal of a research article?
• For the reader to be
• Informed, Understand what was done, and
  Convinced
• Standardization of research report format
• APA style
• Organization reflects the logical thinking
• Standardization helps with clarity

4
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article
• Title and authors - gives you a general idea of
  the topic and specifically who did it
• Abstract - short summary of the article
• States the issue, the methods, major variables of
  interst, the findings, and the conclusions
• (in 120 words or less)
• First contact
• Shows up in PsycInfo
• Gets skimmed before reading the article

5
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts of a research article

• Introduction - gives you the background that you
  need
• What are the issues
• What is/are the theory(ies)
• What does the past research say
• What is the rationale for doing this research
• What are the specific hypotheses
• Reading checklist
• 1) What is the author's goal?
• 2) What are the hypotheses?
• 3) If you had designed the experiment, how would
  YOU have done it?

6
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts 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
• Reading checklist
• 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?

7
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts 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?

8
The anatomy of a research article

• The basic parts 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

9
Psychology as a science

• Write down the names of three scientists
• What field of science do they belong to?
• Write down the name of a famous psychologist

• Do they represent the standard psychologist?
• NO!
• Psychology is a diverse discipline
• ISUs Psych Dept has 6 different groups
• APA has 54 different divisions of psychology

10
Psychology as a science

• What is science?
• What are the goals of science?
• Is psychology a science?
• Yes
• Studies the full range of human behavior using
  scientific methods
• Applications derived from this knowledge is
  scientifically based

11
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.

• How is psychology different from the physical
  sciences?
• Human (and animal) behavior is typically much
  more variable than most physical systems.
• Statistical control
• Methodological control
• Often the thing of interest requires indirect
  measurement (and thus underlying assumptions)

12
5 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)
• Causes of behavior
• Sometimes predictions arent enough, want to know
  how the X and the outcome are related
• Develop specific theories
• Explanation of behavior
• A complete theory of the hows and whys

13
Theories Hypotheses
14
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

15
The chicken or the egg?
Theory
Data driven research reasoning from the data
to the general theory
Deduction
Induction
Theory driven research reasoning from a general
theory to the data
Data

• Exclusive reliance on one or the other can be
  problematic
• Typically good research programs use both

16
Properties of a good theory

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

17
Omnipotent Theory

• Beware theories that are so powerful/general/flexi
  ble that they can account for everything. These
  are not testable

18
Omnipotent Theory

• Beware theories that are so powerful/general/flexi
  ble 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

19
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.

20
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

Everything should be made as simple as
possible, but not any simpler.
21
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

22
Properties of a good theory

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

23
Next Week

• Download and read the article for lab THIS week
  (Raz, Kirsch, Polard, Nitkin-Kaner,2006)
• Basic Methodologies
• Making observations and conducting experiments
• Read Chapter 6
• Quiz 3 due on Monday