INTRODUCTION

Psychology is the study of cognitions, emotions,

and behavior. Psychologists are involved in a
variety of tasks. Many spend their careers
designing and performing research to better
understand how people behave in specific
situations, how and why we think the way we
do, and how emotions develop and what impact
they have on our interactions with others.

The study of psychology has five basic goals:

y 1. Describe ±The first goal is to observe behavior and describe, often in minute detail,
what was observed as objectively as possible
y 2. Explain ± While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must go
beyond what is obvious and explain their observations. In other words, why did the
subject do what he or she did?
y 3. Predict ± Once we know what happens, and why it happens, we can begin to
speculate what will happen in the future.There¶s an old saying, which very often holds
true: "the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior."
y 4. Control ± Once we know what happens, why it happens and what is likely to happen

in the future, we can exert control over it. In other words, if we know you choose
abusive partners because your father was abusive, we can assume you will choose
another abusive partner, and can therefore intervene to change this negative behavior.

y 5. Improve ± Not only do psychologists attempt to control behavior, they want to do so

in a positive manner, they want to improve a person¶s life, not make it worse.This is
not always the case, but it should always be the intention.

Research in psychology is conducted in broad accord with

standards of the scientific method, encompassing both
qualitativeand quantitative modalities to generate and
evaluate explanatory hypotheses with regard to
psychologicalphenomena. Where research ethics and the
state of development in a given research domain permits,
investigation may be pursued byexperimental protocols.
Psychology tends to be diverse, drawing on knowledge from
other fields to help explain and understand psychological
phenomena.

Influence of Research on
Psychology
y Psychology is not an absolute science and is often
referred to as a 'Social Science' or a 'Soft
Science.'This is because it deals with human
thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and as we are all
aware, humans are not always predictable and
reliable. Instead, we interact with our environment in
ways that alter how we behave, how we think, and
how we feel.
In this sense, psychological research is typically used for the
following:
y 1 Study development and external factors and the
role they play on individuals' mental health.
y 2 Study people with specific psychological disorders,
symptoms, or characteristics.
y 3 Develop tests to measure specific psychological
phenomenon.
y 4 Develop treatment approaches to improve
individuals' mental health.

types of Research
y
Naturalistic Observation
y
Case Study
y
Survey
T
Correlational Studies
y
Psychological
Testing
y
Experimental Methods

Naturalistic Observation

ysimplest form of research

yObserving behavior in their natural environment
yOften involves counting behaviors, such as number of aggressive
acts, number of smiles, etc.
yAdvantages: Behavior is naturally occurring and is not
manipulated by a researcher and it can provide more qualitative
data as opposed to merely quantitative information.
yLimitations: Even the presence of someone observing can cause
those being observed to alter their behavior.Researcher¶s beliefs
can also alter their observations

Case Study

y Following a single case, typically over an extended period of time

y Can involve naturalistic observations, and include psychological
testing, interviews and the application of a treatment or observation
y Advantages: Can gather extensive information, both qualitative and
quantitative and it can be helpful in better understanding rare cases
or very specific interventions
y Limitations: Only one case is involved, severely limiting the
generalization to the rest of the population. Can be very time
consuming and can involve other problems specific to the techniques
used, including researcher bias.

Survey
y Everyone has probably heard of this and many of you have been

involved in research involving surveys.They are often used in the

news, especially to gather viewer opinions such as during a race for
president

y Advantages: Can gather large amounts of information in a relatively

short time, especially now with many surveys being conducted on the
internet.
y Limitations: Survey data is based solely on subjects¶ responses which

can be inaccurate due to outright lying, misunderstanding of the

question, placebo effect, and even the manner in which the question
is asked.

Correlational Studies

y Correlation means relationship, so the purpose of a correlational

study is to determine if a relationship exists between two

variables, what direction the relationship is in, and how strong it
is.

y Advantages: Can assess the strength of a relationship. It is

popular with lay population because it is relatively easy to
explain and understand.
y Limitations: Cannot make any assumptions of cause and effect.

Psychological testing

y Starting from the general and moving to the more specific, the first concept we need to discuss

isTheory. A theory can be defined as a "general principle proposed to explain how a number of
separate facts are related." In other words, a theory is an "idea about a relationship." In order
to test whether a theory is correct or not, we need to do research.Theories are stated in
general terms, so we need to define more accurately what we will be doing in our experiment.

y To do this, we need to define thev ari abl es in our theory so that they are testable, and every
experiment has two types of variables:
y o Independent Variable (IV) ± the variable that is manipulated by the experimenter (input
variable)
y o Dependent Variable (DV) ± the outcome variable (results of the experiment)
y By defining our variables that we will use to test our theory we derive at ourHy pothes i s, which
is a testable form of a theory

y Utilizing testing to gather information about a group or an

individual
y Advantages: Most tests are normed and standardized, which

means they have very reliable and valid results. Popular with businesses looking for data on employees and with
difficult or specific therapy cases.

y Limitations:Tests which are not rigorously normed and

standardized can easily result in inaccurate results

Experimental methods
y Starting from the general and moving to the more specific, the first concept we need to discuss

isTheory. A theory can be defined as a "general principle proposed to explain how a number of
separate facts are related." In other words, a theory is an "idea about a relationship." In order
to test whether a theory is correct or not, we need to do research.Theories are stated in
general terms, so we need to define more accurately what we will be doing in our experiment.

y To do this, we need to define thev ari abl es in our theory so that they are testable, and every
experiment has two types of variables:
y o Independent Variable (IV) ± the variable that is manipulated by the experimenter (input
variable)
y o Dependent Variable (DV) ± the outcome variable (results of the experiment)
y By defining our variables that we will use to test our theory we derive at ourHy pothes i s, which
is a testable form of a theory

As an example of this, lets say that we have a theory that

people who drive sports cars are more aggressive in theory
interactions with others. Our independent variable would be
the type of car you drive (sports, sedan, SUV, etc.). Our
dependent variables, the outcome of our research, would be
aggression. We would need to further define aggression so
that it is something we can test such as speeding or cutting
other people off in traffic. We now have the basics of our very
simple experiment and can write our Hypothesis: People who
drive sports cars drive over the speed limit more frequently
than people who drive other types of cars.

Research Biases
y Now we¶ve got a hypothesis which is the first step in doing an experiment.

Before we can continue, however, we need to be aware of some aspects of

research that can contaminate our results.These aspects are called
research biases, and there are basically three main biases we need to be
concerned with.
y · Selection Bias ± occurs when differences between groups are present at
the beginning of the experiment.
y · Placebo Effect ± involves the influencing of performance due to the

subject¶s belief about the results. In other words, if I believe the new
medication will help me feel better, I may feel better even if the new
medication is only a sugar pill.This demonstrates the power of the mind to
change a person¶s perceptions of reality.

y · Experimenter Bias ±The same way a person¶s belief¶s can influence his or

her perception, so can the belief of the experimenter. If I¶m doing an

experiment, and really believe my treatment works, or I really want the
treatment to work because it will mean big bucks for me, I might behave in a
manner that will influence the subject.

C
y After carefully reviewing our study and determining what might

effect our results that are not part of the experiment, we need to
control these biases.To control for selection bias, most
experiments use what¶s calledRandom Assignment, which
means assigning the subjects to each group based on chance
rather than human decision.To control for the placebo effect,
subjects are often not informed of the purpose of the experiment.

This is called aBlind study, because the subjects are blind to the

expected results.To control for experimenter biases, we can

utilize aDouble-Blind study, which means that both the
experimenter and the subjects are blind to the purpose and
anticipated results of the study.

Standardization
y We have our hypothesis, and we know what our subject pool is, the

next thing we have to do isstandardize the experiment.

Standardization refers to a specific set of instructions.The reason we
want the experiment to be standardized is twofold.

y First, we want to make sure all subjects are given the same
instructions, presented with the experiment in the same manner, and
that all of the data is collected exactly the same for all subjects.
y Second, single experiments cannot typically stand on their own.To

really show are results valid, experiments need to be replicated by

other experimenters with different subjects.To do this, the
experimenters need to know exactly what we did so they can replicate
it.