1. Subfields and Research Methods

2. Clinical Psychology Make up the largest percentage of psychologists.
What most people think of when they hear “psychologists”
Evaluate through interviews and psychological tests
Help clients understand and resolve their problems by changing ineffective or harmful behavior
Work in hospitals, prisons universities, and private practices
Not to be confused with a psychiatrist, who can prescribe meds

3. Counseling Psychology
Use interviews and tests to ID problems with clients
Usually treat people who have adjustment problems
For example a client may have issues at work, find it difficult to make friends, or be experiencing conflicts with family, employers, or colleagues
They help clarify goals, overcome problems, and meet challenges
Work at businesses and universities

4. Developmental Psychology
Study the changes that occur throughout a person’s life span
Physical (changes in height and weight and physical aspects of aging)
Emotional (development of self esteem)
Cognitive (how children learn right from wrong)
Social (parent child relationship, peer to peer relationship, intimate relationships)
Usually focus on adolescents

5. Social Psychologists Focus on behavior in social situations
Study the following:
The ways women and men behave in a given setting
What attracts people to one another
Reasons people conform to group standards and expectations
How behavior changes when you are in a group
Reasons for and the effects of prejudice and discrimination
Situations in which people are hostile and those in which they help others

6. Experimental Psychology
Conduct research into basic processes
Such as the nervous system, sensation and perception, learning, memory, and motivation
More likely to engage in Basic Research
- Is research that has no immediate application and is done for its own sake
These findings are often put into practice by other psychological specialists

7. Steps of Scientific Research
Psych is an experimental science, so assumptions must be supported by evidence.
1. Forming a Research Question- Observe the behavior of fighting fish
2. Form a Hypothesis: Hypothesis means an educated guess; If fighting fish are put together, then they will attack one another
3. Testing the Hypothesis: A hypothesis cannot be correct until it has been tested. Putting two fish in a tank or putting a mirror in a tank

8. Analyzing the Results- After the testing, they analyze their results
Analyzing the Results- After the testing, they analyze their results. Look for patterns of behavior such as fins fanning out. This step could take weeks to years depending on the info collected and how much is collected.
Drawing Conclusions- Based off of their results, their hypothesis is either validated or not. If the observations don’t support the hypothesis start again. If the fish fought another fish, then the hypothesis was correct. If the fish did not then they would modify their hypothesis and start again.
This process will likely lead to new questions. Why do fighting fish attack each other? Is it instinct or learned? Is there a situation in which they don’t fight?

10. Diversity in Psychology
Kenneth and Mamie Clark led several studies showing the negative effect of segregation on the self esteem of African American kids
Clark did a study in which he asked African American children to choose between white and black dolls.
Which doll is pretty? Which doll is bad?
Most children preferred the white dolls concluding that children were showing their feelings that society preferred white people.
Clark worked with the NAACP to end school segregation with the Supreme Court citing Clark’s work.

11. Discussion Questions
What do you think might have been the effects of segregation on white children?
Why is it important for psychologists of different genders and cultural backgrounds to carry out research on behavior and mental processes?

12. The Survey Method
Would have been easy to just ask the fighting fish what they would do to each other.
Gathering info by asking people directly is usually accomplished by means of a survey. People are asked to respond to a series of questions about a particular subject.
Can be done through questionnaires or by interviewing people.
Findings may not be completely accurate. People may be dishonest. May fear answers will not be kept confidential. Or they may try to tell you what you want to hear.
In the 1960s survey about tooth brushing habits. According to the results 3 times as much toothpaste should have been sold in the US that year.

13. Craft and conduct your own survey
Pick a topic for your survey to be about. All questions should be traced back to this topic.
For example if my topic is psychology, my survey may look like:
What is psychology?
What do psychologists do?
What are some of the fields in psychology?
Where do psychologists work?
Who are some well known psychologists?
Surveys must be at least 5 questions. Make 5 copies of your survey. Put name and age at top of survey so your info is organized. Have other students fill them out.
An acceptable answer can be “I don’t know.” But do try and get an answer.

14. Evaluate Responses
Are there any questions that most of your participants got right or wrong? Which questions?
Did you get some unusual answers? Like what?
What kind of questions did you ask on your survey?
How would you improve your survey?
How would this improvement effect your results?
Rewrite your survey one time on your paper. Include your improvements to make it better.

15. Questions How did your participants’ answers differ to your own?
Were your participants generally knowledgeable about your subject? How can you tell?
Are there some common misconceptions or misunderstanding about your subject? Why do you believe this to be the case?
Do you think answers would change depending on the age of the participants? How so?
Do you believe if you surveyed the entire school, your results would largely remain the same? Why or why not?
Based off of your survey’s results, what would your conclusion be?

16. Interview vs. Questionnaire
Which method will get better results? Why?

17. Populations
When researchers conduct any type of study they must consider what group or groups of people they wish to examine and how respondents will be selected.
To accurately predict an outcome, you must study a group that represents the target population.
- is the whole group you want to study or describe
Imagine STL was going to vote on making a 10PM curfew. Who would be the target population?

18. Samples
It would be difficult to interview an entire target population, so instead researchers study a sample, which is only part of the target population
One type of sample is a random sample. Meaning individuals are selected at random from the target population. If the sample is big enough, it should accurately represent the population.
Another type is a stratified sample. This involves subgroups in the population being represented proportionally. For example, let’s say 10% of STL is Hispanic. Then a stratified study would have 10% of its participants be Hispanic.
A random sample could eventually become a stratified sample. Would need at least 1,000 participants though.

19. Generalizing Results
Sometimes researchers generalize results. For example, if I asked every male in the school if they preferred cars or trucks, I could not then say that according to my results, all Roosevelt students prefer trucks to cars. Why? Because I did not ask any females.
Same could be said for if you polled Americans on how they felt America was being run if you only polled Republicans.
Or if you only polled one specific socioeconomic class

20. Volunteer Bias
Bias- a predisposition to a certain point of view despite what the facts may suggest
Some involved in studies may have volunteer bias
- May have a different outlook from people who do not volunteer for research studies
A magazine may ask you to fill out a survey and a question may ask, ”What do you do in your downtime?” And then list read magazines in the options. Of course they’ll say yes
Then they can say that based on a study people are reading more magazines

21. Questions
What are the steps of Scientific Research? Briefly describe each step.
Why might interviews and questionnaires not be completely accurate?
What should a sample be similar to in order to ensure that it accurately represents the population that it is supposed to represent?
What are some of the factors that researchers must take into account in generalizing their findings?
Briefly explain the importance of surveys, populations, and samples in psychological research.