LECTURE DISCUSSION TODAY (9/17/02) LECTURE: RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY DISCUSSION (time permitting) HUMANS VS. OTHER ANIMALS

LECTURE 1: RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 9/17/02

I. The Goals of Science A. Predict B. Understand C. Control D. Describe

II. The Scientific Method: Provides a number of logical steps that allow us to make statements about causal relations between two or more variables A. Hume’s Rules for Causality --A means of distinguishing between explanatory versus descriptive research.

E.g., Punishment causes aggression A Punishment at Home (per day) 1 to 5 times 6-10 times times times 21 or more times B Teacher’s Ratings of Aggressiveness

Does A (punishment) cause B (Aggression) ? A causes B B causes A C causes A and B

Hume’s rules (con’t) 1. Constant Union -- As A varies B varies (Descriptive or correlation) 2. Temporal Antecedent -- a change in A must always precede a change in B 3. Spatial-Temporal Contiguity-- A and B must be shown to co-occur in space and time

B. Four Steps of the Scientific Method 1. Formulate Hypothesis (es): Changes in one or more variables cause a change in behaviour. -- What do we call the cause? The Independent Variable -- What do we call the effect (i.e., change in behaviour)? The Dependent Variable

Note: An hypothesis is a statement about indirectly observable behaviour. E.g., Punishment causes aggression; why indirectly observable?

So what do we do? 2. Deduce consequences from the hypothesis. Make a statement about directly observable behaviour. Heart of experimentation Operational definition of independent and dependent variable research hypothesis: observable version of Step 1

Let’s use our classroom situation discussed earlier, and our hypothesis that punishment causes aggression. a)What would be an operational definition of our independent and dependent variables, and b) our research hypothesis version of our hypothesis that punishment causes aggression?

OKAY, NOW WHAT DO WE DO? 3. STEP 3: MAKE OBSERVATIONS LET’S SEE IF WE CAN DO IT (CLASS EXERCISE)

4. Make statement about hypothesis based on the observations Internal validity: systematic source of error or can we conclude that we have causation? External validity: even if we have shown causation, does the phenomenon generalize to the real world?

III. Other Considerations Ethics The social psychology of the psychological experiment: demand characteristics, experimenter bias

YOUR TURN (class exercise)

DISCUSSION: HUMANS VERSUS OTHER ANIMALS JUST HOW DIFFERENT ARE WE? (class exercise)

That’s it for now!! See you next week.