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Lecture 04

The document discusses contemporary experiments in psychology, focusing on attentional biases toward negative emotions and the distinction between basic and applied research. It highlights the importance of basic research in establishing foundational knowledge that can later be applied to solve specific problems. Additionally, it outlines the advantages of the experimental method, including causality, precision, objectivity, and ease of replication.

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36 views4 pages

Lecture 04

The document discusses contemporary experiments in psychology, focusing on attentional biases toward negative emotions and the distinction between basic and applied research. It highlights the importance of basic research in establishing foundational knowledge that can later be applied to solve specific problems. Additionally, it outlines the advantages of the experimental method, including causality, precision, objectivity, and ease of replication.

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pakistanhkofficial
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Lecture 04

THE EXPERIMENTAL METHOD IN SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY (II)

Some latest Experiments


Examples of some contemporary experiments are given below;

Attention to Emotions
The majority of work on emotion perception has focused on facial expressions. Kret and
colleagues (2018, Journal of Comparative Psychology) examined whether attentional biases
toward negative emotions are also observed for emotional expressions conveyed through
body language, and whether this effect is species-specific. Participants were briefly presented
with two pictures of male chimpanzees or people whose body postures indicated fear, anger,
or a neutral expression, followed by a dot in the location of one of the pictures.

Human observers, but not chimpanzees, showed the typical emotional dot-probe effect: they
were faster to tap the dot on the computer screen when it appeared in the location previously
occupied by an angry or fearful expression compared to a neutral expression. People showed
this effect regardless of whether the images depicted chimpanzees or people, whereas
chimpanzees did not show this effect in either case. Kret and colleagues replicated the
standard results in the emotional dot-probe task with emotional body postures in human
observers. Iijima and colleagues (2018, Emotion) examined how this attentional bias to
negative emotions measured in the lab is associated with anxious mood dynamics in daily
life.
Experiencing negative events was associated with increases in anxious mood up to 90
minutes later, but this effect was greater for individuals who showed a larger attentional bias
to angry faces in the dot-probe task. However, attentional bias did not affect mood more than
2–3 hours after the negative event, or the total number of negative events reported

Interpretation: Greater attentional bias toward threatening stimuli is associated with


enhanced reactivity to stressors, but does not make people more sensitive to negative events
or prolong experiences of anxious moods.

Psychology and Real Life


Experimental investigation of a phenomenon is taken up by psychologists for two reasons.
Either it interests the researcher or he/she is searching an answer for an unanswered question
that has raised their curiosity, or because they want to find solution to a problem. Therefore
scientific research is often divided into two categories- basic research and applied research.

1) Basic research
Basic research is often driven from curiosity to look deeply into a phenomenon or process
and to investigate it in detail.
Examples
 Structure of neurons
 Pathways involved in perceiving movement
 Studying how caffeine affects brain

2) Applied research
Applied research aims at solving a specific problem e.g. how to cure bedwetting or reduce
early morning caffeine intake among elderly.

Basic research has no immediate practical goal. Basic research


establishes a reservoir of data, theoretical explanations, and
concepts that can be tapped by the applied researcher. It takes
quite a while for a concept developed by basic research to find
some useful application in society. 70 percent of significant
application or solutions are due to basic experimental
research. However the research occurred twenty to thirty years
before the ultimate use of the product.

Conditioning of nonsense syllables, an experiment conducted by Paul Chance (1977)


demonstrated that nonsense syllables could be liked or disliked depending upon what these
were paired with. This was basic research in classical conditioning, followed by applying
same principle to conditioning of biased attitudes towards nationalities.

In an experiment conducted at Institute of Applied Psychology, the participants were


presented with a nonsense syllable like pog or gan and either a pleasant or unpleasant word
was spoken by the experimenter
Pog smelly
Gan cute
Swedish clean
American smelly

Conclusion: The prejudice about some nationalities is learned through process of


conditioning because two words appear together often for example in media or public
discourse.

Many examples of application of basic research in Pakistan can be cited. Principles of


conditioning found in basic research have been used to train animals, reduce anxiety and
increase desired behaviour like class room discipline. In one training we applied basic
research findings from experimental psychology to help employees learn new ways of
reacting in conflict situations. Studies in aggression research show that when people know
about someone’s disability or deficit, they react less to an irresponsible behaviour. We
showed video of an interaction between two young men. One is walking and other is riding a
bike. They collide on road. Some of the participants were told that the person walking was
hard of hearing and did not hear the horn honking of other boy. The others were not told
about any such deficit.
Conclusion: Those who were told about a deficit judged him less harshly than those who had
no such information.

Advantages of Experiments
As a method of research experimental approach has many advantages over others and of
course some limitations too. The advantages are;
Why Experiments
1) Causality and control: In an ideal experiment, no factors (variables) except the one
being studied are permitted to influence the outcome. Designing experiments so that there
can be only one explanation of the results is at the heart of the experimental method. This
allows us to make statements about causality. We can say with confidence that the effect
we found in lab was due to the independent variable and not due to some other random
factor or just by chance.

2) Precision: In one of experiments as part of course, it is stated that 20 grains of sugar in


water can be detected – water will be perceived as sweet. Hypotheses are very precise and
specific. So are measures, observations and factors like time duration, number of trails
and so on.

3) Objective: It can be observed by others in terms of procedure and results. The


experimenter reports what she finds out even if it is against expectation or rejects the
hypothesis.

4) Easier to replicate: Replication means that others can conduct the same experiment
using the procedures reported by experimenter. In experimental psychology, many
experiments have been replicated. Findings have been verified by further experiments or
if new experiments fail to come up with same results, the theory or phenomenon is
considered doubtful as the evidence is inconclusive.

The summing up of experimental approach

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