Psych 104- Research Methods
Why we need research Design
Prefrontal Lobotomy: surgical procedure that servers fibres connecting the frontal lobes of the
brain from the underlying thalamus(used to treat schizophrenia and other severe mental
disorders)
- Controlled studies showed that prefrontal lobotomy does not work
- Believers of prefrontal lobotomy were deceived by naive realism and confirmation bias
How we can be fooled: two modes of thinking
Two Modes of thinking:
- System 1: “intuitive thinking”- our brain is largely on autopilot, without intuitive thinking
we would be in serious trouble, because much everyday life requires snap decisions
● Ex: someone new and form an immediate first impression of him or her, or see
an oncoming car rushing toward us as we’re crossing the street and decide that we
need to get out of the way.
- System 2: “ analytical thinking”- this slow & reflective, it uses most of the mental effort
● Ex: trying to reason through a problem, or figure out a complicated concept in an
introductory psychology textbook.
● Sometimes intuitive thinking reject our gut hunches when they seem wrong
● EX; when you’ve met someone at a party who you initially disliked because of a
negative expression on his face, only to change your mind after talking to him and
realizing that he’s not such a bad person after all.
Heuristic: mental shortcuts to streamline thinking, stereotypes, oversimplifying
- Cognitive misers: we conserve our mental energy by using heuristics
Naturalistic Observation: Studying Human “in the wild”
Naturalistic Observation:
- watching behaviour in real-world settings without trying to manipulate people’s
behaviour
- psychologists who study animals, such as chimpanzees in their natural habitats, use
naturalistic observation
- Provine (1996): relied on this for a study of laughter where he eavesdropped
- high in external validity:
● Extent to which we generalize findings to real world settings
- low in internal validity:
● Extent to which we can draw cause-effect inferences from a study
● Can’t manipulate key variables, no real control
, - Reciprocal Determinism: if people know they are observed it changes behavior
Case Study
● Meaning a design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth, over an
extended period of time
● Case studies can be helpful in providing existence proofs: demonstration that a given
psychological phenomenon can occur
● Offer insights to conduct further systematic investigations
Self Report Measures and surveys
1) Random selection: procedure to ensure every person in a population has an equal chance
of being chosen to participate
➔ Key to generalizability
2) Reliability: consistency of measures
➔ Test-retest reliability: same questionnaire has reliable results over time
➔ Inter-rater reliability: extent to which different experiments agree on measures,
multiple psychologists agree on outcomes
3) Validity: extent to which a measure assesses what its supposed to measure
➔ Must be reliable to be valid but validity isn’t necessary for reliability
➔ Phrasing of questions affects validity
Pros and Cons of Self-Report Measures:
Pro:
● Work well for observable personality traits
● Easy to administer
Cons:
● Accuracy is skewed for certain groups (narcissists)
● Potential dishonesty
● Response sets: tendency to distort responses to questionnaire items
➔ Positive impression management- make ourselves seem better
➔ Malingering- make ourselves seem psychologically disturbed
Rating Data: How do they rate?
● Avoids some of the problems with self-reports but can also create new problems
● Halo Effect: rating of one positive characteristic ‘spill over’ to influence ratings of other
positive characteristics
● The converse of the halo effect is called the horns effect: the ratings of one negative trait
spill over to influence the ratings of other negative traits
Correlational Designs:
- Research design that examines the extent to which variables are associated
● Ex: high school grades are correlated with college success, highschool grades
forecast how well people will perform in college
●
Correlations: A Beginner’s Guide:
- Correlations can be positive, zero, or negative
- A positive correlation means that as the value of one variable changes, the other goes in
the same direction
➔ Ex: If the number of post-secondary students’ Facebook friends is positively
correlated with how outgoing these students are, this means that more outgoing
students have more Facebook friends and less outgoing students have fewer
Facebook friends.
- A zero correlation means that the variables don’t go together
➔ Ex: math ability has a zero correlation with singing ability
Why we need research Design
Prefrontal Lobotomy: surgical procedure that servers fibres connecting the frontal lobes of the
brain from the underlying thalamus(used to treat schizophrenia and other severe mental
disorders)
- Controlled studies showed that prefrontal lobotomy does not work
- Believers of prefrontal lobotomy were deceived by naive realism and confirmation bias
How we can be fooled: two modes of thinking
Two Modes of thinking:
- System 1: “intuitive thinking”- our brain is largely on autopilot, without intuitive thinking
we would be in serious trouble, because much everyday life requires snap decisions
● Ex: someone new and form an immediate first impression of him or her, or see
an oncoming car rushing toward us as we’re crossing the street and decide that we
need to get out of the way.
- System 2: “ analytical thinking”- this slow & reflective, it uses most of the mental effort
● Ex: trying to reason through a problem, or figure out a complicated concept in an
introductory psychology textbook.
● Sometimes intuitive thinking reject our gut hunches when they seem wrong
● EX; when you’ve met someone at a party who you initially disliked because of a
negative expression on his face, only to change your mind after talking to him and
realizing that he’s not such a bad person after all.
Heuristic: mental shortcuts to streamline thinking, stereotypes, oversimplifying
- Cognitive misers: we conserve our mental energy by using heuristics
Naturalistic Observation: Studying Human “in the wild”
Naturalistic Observation:
- watching behaviour in real-world settings without trying to manipulate people’s
behaviour
- psychologists who study animals, such as chimpanzees in their natural habitats, use
naturalistic observation
- Provine (1996): relied on this for a study of laughter where he eavesdropped
- high in external validity:
● Extent to which we generalize findings to real world settings
- low in internal validity:
● Extent to which we can draw cause-effect inferences from a study
● Can’t manipulate key variables, no real control
, - Reciprocal Determinism: if people know they are observed it changes behavior
Case Study
● Meaning a design that examines one person or a small number of people in depth, over an
extended period of time
● Case studies can be helpful in providing existence proofs: demonstration that a given
psychological phenomenon can occur
● Offer insights to conduct further systematic investigations
Self Report Measures and surveys
1) Random selection: procedure to ensure every person in a population has an equal chance
of being chosen to participate
➔ Key to generalizability
2) Reliability: consistency of measures
➔ Test-retest reliability: same questionnaire has reliable results over time
➔ Inter-rater reliability: extent to which different experiments agree on measures,
multiple psychologists agree on outcomes
3) Validity: extent to which a measure assesses what its supposed to measure
➔ Must be reliable to be valid but validity isn’t necessary for reliability
➔ Phrasing of questions affects validity
Pros and Cons of Self-Report Measures:
Pro:
● Work well for observable personality traits
● Easy to administer
Cons:
● Accuracy is skewed for certain groups (narcissists)
● Potential dishonesty
● Response sets: tendency to distort responses to questionnaire items
➔ Positive impression management- make ourselves seem better
➔ Malingering- make ourselves seem psychologically disturbed
Rating Data: How do they rate?
● Avoids some of the problems with self-reports but can also create new problems
● Halo Effect: rating of one positive characteristic ‘spill over’ to influence ratings of other
positive characteristics
● The converse of the halo effect is called the horns effect: the ratings of one negative trait
spill over to influence the ratings of other negative traits
Correlational Designs:
- Research design that examines the extent to which variables are associated
● Ex: high school grades are correlated with college success, highschool grades
forecast how well people will perform in college
●
Correlations: A Beginner’s Guide:
- Correlations can be positive, zero, or negative
- A positive correlation means that as the value of one variable changes, the other goes in
the same direction
➔ Ex: If the number of post-secondary students’ Facebook friends is positively
correlated with how outgoing these students are, this means that more outgoing
students have more Facebook friends and less outgoing students have fewer
Facebook friends.
- A zero correlation means that the variables don’t go together
➔ Ex: math ability has a zero correlation with singing ability
