Psychology as a science Psych 231: Research Methods in Psychology

Announcements For this week’s 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 page:

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

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?

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 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

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.

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.

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)

Goals of psychology Causes of behavior –sometimes predictions aren’t enough, want to know how the X and the outcome are related Explanation of behavior –a complete theory of the how’s and why’s

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

Properties of a good theory Organizes, Explains, & Accounts for the data Testable/Falsifiable – can’t 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.

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 doesn’t have four legs

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

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

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

The chicken or the egg? Typically good research programs use both Theory Data induction deduction

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?

Research Approaches Probably the best way to think of this is as a continuum rather as two separate categories. Basic researchApplied research Often applied work may bring up some interesting basic theoretical questions, and basic theory often informs applied work.

Next time Basic Methodologies Read Chapters 6 and 7