1. How Psychologists Ask and Answer Questions
Module 2
Research Strategies
How Psychologists Ask and Answer Questions
-I-

2. Goals of psychology
To understand / explain human and animal behavior and mental processes
Cause and effect
But observe/describe before deriving causal statements
How different is this from just having intuitions or common sense?

3. Is psychological knowledge common sense?
“Out of sight, out of mind.”
???
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”
Some people think psychology is about “all we know”
Common sense knowledge
Psychologists claim that : Seperation weakens romantic attraction.
“Out of sight, out of mind.”
Seperation strengthens romantic attraction.
“ absence makes the heart grow fonder”
Indeed as psychologists we know that common human knowledge – our insight – is prone to be erronous – not reliable.
Intuition and common sense may aid queries, but they are not free of error.

4. Our intuition and common sense
Hindsight Bias
we tend to believe, after learning an outcome, that we would have foreseen it
the “I-knew-it-all-along” phenomenon
Overconfidence
we tend to think that we know more than we do
Perceiving order in random events
Our eagerness to make sense of the world
We overestimate our own intuition
Some of the common problems of “non- scientific thinking”:
Hindsight bias-
Esp. After important footbal games - a lot of people claim that they knew the outcomes already. Indeed systematic comparisons of people’s choices before and after – have shown
That people are not as likely...
Overconfidence

5. Scientific Method
Definition: make observations, form theories, and refine theories according to new information.
Theory
Organizes multiple observations into a concise principle
Organizes and predicts behavior/events
Ex: Romantic love is associated with distance between partners
Ex: Greater height contributes to better employment
Ex: Low self esteem is related to depression
Theory leads to hypotheses or testable predictions.
Hypothesis is a specific statement about the relationship between two concepts.
Ex: People who move away from a romantic partner weaken their positive emotions about this partner
Ex: Taller people will be hired more often than will shorter people.
Ex: There are people with lower self esteem among people with depression compared to non-depressed people

6. Scientific Method Operational Definitions Should test hypotheses by:
Stating the activities necessary to measure it in the experiment.
Ex: Male who are 1.80 cm.s tall or more will report unemployment of 2 weeks or less between jobs on the survey.
Should test hypotheses by:
Making observations (describe)
Finding correlations (predict)
Performing experiments (explain)

7. The Scientific Method Formulating an idea Testing an idea
Initial phase of research, in which observations, beliefs, information, and general knowledge lead to a new idea or a different way of thinking about some phenomenon
Testing an idea
Organizing countless observations into a theory
Formulating testable predictions: hypotheses
Testing the hypotheses
Using operational definitions of concepts
Generalizing or refining the idea
Formulating an idea
Initial phase of research, in which observations, beliefs, information, and general knowledge lead to a new idea or a different way of thinking about some phenomenon

8. The Scientific Method
Theory explains
the
underlying reason
WHY?

9. Testing hypotheses using operational definitions
a statement of procedures (operations) used to define research variables
Also enables other researchers to replicate
example-
intelligence may be operationally defined as the score obtained from the intelligence test measures
Psychological well-being can be operationally defined as high level of life satisfaction and low depression.
Academic success can be operationally defined as GPA.

10. The Scientific Method Replication
repeating the essence of a research study to see whether the basic finding extends to other participants and circumstances
usually with different participants in different situations
the research findings can be generalizable to other samples/situations.

11. Example: Theory: Hypothesis: Empirical evidence:
Self-esteem feeds one’s evaluations of himself/herself.
Hypothesis:
People with low self – esteem have more tendency to feel depressed
Empirical evidence:
Administer tests of self-esteem and depression.
--- high score on depression predicts low score on self-esteem?
Operational definitions of self-esteem and depression?
If we were to observe that depressed people talk about their past, present, and future in a gloomy manner, we may theorize that low-self-esteem contributes to depression.
Observe that self-esteem and depression may be linked.

12. Example
Observation: Children who are more aggressive at play seem to be watching violent movies rather than other types of movies.
Theory?
Hypothesis?
Operational definition of terms?
Theory social learning
Hypothesis – prediction – specific link to be tested
Children – aggressive movies
Only aggresibe movies?
Only children?
THEORY:People learn from observing others’ behaviors WHY?

13. Methods of psychology
To describe human and animal behavior and mental processes, psychologists conduct:
Case studies
Surveys
Observations (naturalistic / lab)

14. Description Case Study
observation technique in which on individual (or few incidences) are studied in depth in the hope of revealing universal principals
Studies of brain damaged individuals
Piaget
Suggest hypotheses for further studies
Problems??
May be unrepresentative
cannot be generalizable

15. Description Survey Looks at many cases with less depth
Ask people to report their behaviors or opinions.
Market surveys
Koç University student satisfaction survey
Problems??

16. Who do we survey?
Usually question a representative, random sample of people selected from a population.
Population
all the cases in a group, from which samples may be drawn for a study
Random Sample
a sample that fairly represents a population because each member has an equal chance of inclusion

17. How do we ask questions?
If there is a serious fuel shortage this winter, do you think there should be a law requiring people to lower the heat in their homes, or do you oppose such a law?
Should be 39.4 %
Oppose 60.6 %
If there is a serious fuel shortage this winter, do you think there should be a law requiring people to lower the heat in their homes, or do you oppose such a law because it would be too difficult to enforce?
Should be 26.0 %
Oppose 74.0 %
Wording effects:
How we word our questions influences how people answer them

18. Description Naturalistic Observation
observing and recording behavior in naturally occurring situations (or in more controlled environments) without trying to manipulate and control the situation
Dating behaviors of university students?
Problems?
Third descriptive method: watching and recording the behavior of organisms

19. Methods of psychology
2. To predict human and animal behavior and mental processes, psychologists conduct
- Correlational studies: the examination of the quantitative relationships between two or more variables
how does one behavior relate to the occurrence of another behavior?
if we know one behavior’s pattern can we then, in turn, predict the pattern of occurrence of another behavior?
After describing a behavior, the next step is to be able to predict it.

20. Variable Defined
Any characteristic or attribute that varies in amount and kind
Gender (variable): female (attribute)
Success
Weight, Height
Self-esteem
Reaction time in a learning experiment
Intelligence
Achievement motivation
Any characteristic or attribute of persons, objects, or events that can take on different numerical values.
These different values are called attributes
So gender: variable
female: attribute
personality: variable
extravert: attribute

21. (positive or negative)
Correlation
Correlation Coefficient
a statistical measure of the extent to which two variable vary together, and thus how well either variable predicts the other
Indicates direction
of relationship
(positive or negative)
Correlation
coefficient
r = +.37
Indicates strength
of relationship
(0.00 to 1.00)

22. Positive correlation ---- age and shoe size
Negative correlation ---- age and sharpness of eye sight
No correlation

23. Coffee and test performance
movie

24. Correlation does not imply causation
Three Possible Cause-Effect Relationships
could cause
(1)
Low self-esteem
Depression or
(2)
Depression
could cause
Low self-esteem or
Low self-esteem
CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION
In order to determine causality we must turn to experimental methods.
Health and owning ash trays rd variable - cigarette smoking.
(3)
Distressing events
or biological
predisposition
could cause
and
Depression

25. Illusory Correlation Illusory Correlation
the perception of a relationship where none exists
Example: Beliefs about the common cold