Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

Reading the Literature cont. Science of Psychology Theories in Science

Announcements

Download (full text available at library) and read the article for lab THIS week (Raz, Kirsch, Polard, & Nitkin-Kaner,2006)

Exam 1: two weeks from today

The anatomy of a research article

Title and authors Abstract Introduction

The basic parts 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

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

Reading checklist1 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?

The basic parts of a research article:

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?

The basic parts of a research article:

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

The basic parts of a research article:

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 • ISU’s Psych Dept has 6 different groups• APA has 54 different divisions of psychology

Dr. Sigmund Freud Dr. Phil (McGraw)

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

Psychology as a science

Psychology’s 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

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)

5 Goals of psychology (cont.)

Causes of behavior Sometimes predictions aren’t enough, want to know how the X and the outcome are related

Develop specific theories

Explanation of behavior A complete theory of the how’s and why’s Given the diversity of psychology, some argue that we may never have a universal theory• This is a problem in other disciplines too

Theories & Hypotheses

Hypothesis: Are specific predictions that are derived from theories (more specific than the theories)

Theory: An interrelated set of concepts that is used to explain a body of data and to make predictions about the results of future experiments

Properties of a good theory

Organizes, Explains, & Accounts for the data If there are data relevant to your theory, that your theory can’t 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

The chicken or the egg?

Exclusive usage of one or the other can be problematic Typically good research programs use both

Theory

Data

Induction Deduction

“Data driven research”reasoning from the data to the general theory

“Theory driven research”reasoning from a general theory to the data

Properties of a good theory

Organizes, Explains, & Accounts for the data

Testable/Falsifiable – can’t prove a theory, can only reject it“No amount of experimentation can

ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

Omnipotent Theory

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

EXTINCTION OF THE DINOSAURS FULLY EXPLAINED

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 isn’t

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 isn’t displayed, then you have a “reaction formation” against it. So the Id is there, you just can’t see evidence of it.

So, as stated, the theory is too powerful and can’t be tested and so it isn’t useful

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.

Properties of a good theory

Organizes, Explains, & Accounts for the data

Testable/Falsifiable Generalizable Parsimony (Occam’s 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.”

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 wasn’t explicitly designed to account for

Properties of a good theory

Organizes, Explains, & Accounts for the data

Testable/Falsifiable Generalizable Parsimony Makes predictions, generates new knowledge

Precision Makes quantifiable predictions

Next Week

Download (full text available at library) and read the article for lab THIS week (Raz, Kirsch, Polard, & Nitkin-Kaner,2006)

Basic Methodologies Making observations and conducting experiments

Read Chapter 6