Chapter 1: Scientific Understanding of Behavior PDF

Chapter 1: Scientific Understanding of Behavior 1  Learning Objectives 1. Describe why it is essential to understand research methods. 2. Explain the scientific approach to learning about behavior and be able to compare and...

Chapter 1: Scientific Understanding of Behavior 1  Learning Objectives 1. Describe why it is essential to understand research methods. 2. Explain the scientific approach to learning about behavior and be able to compare and contrast it with other ways of knowing. 3. Identify and explain key features of the scientific approach to understanding behavior, and be able to compare and contrast it with a pseudoscientific approach. 4. Describe and give examples of the four goals of scientific research: description, prediction, determination of cause, and explanation of behavior. 5. Summarize the three elements for inferring causation: temporal order, covariation of cause and effect, and elimination of alternative explanations. Be able to generate an example. 6. Determine whether a study is basic or applied research. © McGraw Hill LLC 2  Consuming Research 1 Learning about research methods will help you be a skilled consumer of research. Many occupations require the use of research findings. For example, mental health professionals, people in business environments, and educators all benefit from the ability to evaluate research reports. Scientific research has become prominent in public policy and judicial decisions. Behavioral research, developmental psychology, and neuroscience have influenced the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. © McGraw Hill LLC 3  Consuming Research 2 Research is also important when developing and assessing programs designed to achieve certain goals. Research methods can be the way to satisfy our curiosity about ourselves, our world, and those around us. © McGraw Hill LLC 4  Ways of Knowing: Intuition and Anecdote Many people rely on intuition and anecdotal evidence to draw general conclusions about the world around them, but these methods are flawed. Intuition involves accepting one’s own judgment or a single story unquestioningly. Numerous cognitive and motivational biases affect our perceptions and can lead to erroneous conclusions. The cognitive bias called illusory correlation occurs when we focus on two events that stand out and occur together. © McGraw Hill LLC 5  Ways of Knowing: Authority We are more likely to be persuaded by a speaker who seems prestigious, trustworthy, and respectable. Similarly, many people are all too ready to accept anything they learn from the Internet, news media, books, government officials, celebrities, religious Figures, or even a professor. The scientific approach rejects the notion that one can accept on faith the statements of any authority. © McGraw Hill LLC 6  Ways of Knowing: Empiricism Scientists recognize that: Intuition, anecdote, and authority can be sources of ideas about behavior. All such ideas may be wrong—including the scientist’s own. Scientific skepticism means that ideas must be evaluated on the basis of careful logic and results from well-executed scientific investigations. Empiricism requires knowledge to come from observations. Collected and analyzed data form the basis of conclusions. © McGraw Hill LLC 7  Ways of Knowing: The Scientific Approach Goodstein (2000), describes an “evolved theory of science” that defines the characteristics of scientific inquiry: Data play a central role. Scientists are not alone. Science is adversarial. Falsifiability is the principle that a good idea or theory should be capable of being shown to be false when tested using scientific methods. Scientific evidence is peer reviewed. Peer review is the process of judging the merit of research through review by other scientists with expertise to evaluate it. © McGraw Hill LLC 8  Skepticism1 The advantage of the scientific approach over other ways of knowing about the world is that it provides an objective set of rules for gathering, evaluating, and reporting observations. There is nothing wrong with opinions or beliefs as long as they are presented simply as opinions or beliefs. We should always ask whether the opinion can be tested scientifically or whether scientific evidence exists that relates to the opinion. © McGraw Hill LLC 9  Skepticism 2 Skeptical: doubt regarding the truth of something. Be skeptical of research reports in the media, the assertions of scientists, and pseudoscientific research. Pseudoscience is the use of seemingly scientific terms and demonstrations to substantiate nonscientific claims. © McGraw Hill LLC 10  Skepticism 3 Indicators that a claim may be pseudoscientific: Claims that are untestable and therefore cannot be refuted. Claims that rely on imprecise, biased, or vague language. Evidence that is based on anecdotes and testimonials rather than scientific data. Evidence that is from “experts” who have only vague qualifications and do not support their claims with sound scientific evidence. Claims based only on confirmatory evidence, ignoring conflicting evidence. Reliance on “scientific” evidence that cannot be independently verified because the methods used to establish that evidence have not been described. © McGraw Hill LLC 11  Skepticism 4 We are all increasingly susceptible to false reports of scientific findings on the Internet. General rules to follow: Be highly skeptical of scientific assertions that are supported by only vague or improbable evidence. Take the time to do an Internet search for supportive evidence. © McGraw Hill LLC 12  Being a Skilled Consumer of Research 1 The better the answers to the following questions, the more confident you can be of a research study: 1. “What is the primary goal of this study? Description, Prediction, Determining Cause, or Explaining? Do the authors achieve their goals?” 2. “What did these researchers do? What was the method?” 3. “What was measured?” 4. “To what or whom can we generalize the results?” © McGraw Hill LLC 13  Being a Skilled Consumer of Research 2 The better the answers to the following questions, the more confident you can be of a research study (continued): 5. “What did they find? What were the results?” 6. “Have other researchers found similar results?” 7. “What are the limitations of this study?” 8. “What are the ethical issues present in this study?” © McGraw Hill LLC 14  Goals of Behavioral Science Scientific research on behavior has four general goals: Description. Prediction. Determining causes. Understanding or explanation. © McGraw Hill LLC 15  Description Behavior can be something directly observable or something less observable. One example of less observable behavior is mental states. Researchers are often interested in describing the ways in which events are systematically related to one another. For example: Do jurors judge attractive defendants more leniently than unattractive defendants? © McGraw Hill LLC 16  Figure 1 Adolescent screen time use during COVID-19 pandemic This finding illustrates description of behavior. © McGraw Hill LLC 17  Prediction Once it has been observed with some regularity that two events are related, it becomes possible to make predictions. For example, once early-childhood poverty is related to lower school achievement, children growing up in poverty can be predicted to have fewer indicators of academic achievement. It should be noted that such predictions are probabilistic. © McGraw Hill LLC 18  Determining Causes To know how to change behavior, we need to know the causes of behavior. Cook and Campbell (1979), describe three types of evidence used to identify the cause of a behavior: Temporal precedence is the order of events in which the cause precedes the effect. Covariation of cause and effect means when the cause is present, the effect occurs; and when the cause is not present, the effect does not occur. Alternative explanations must be eliminated. © McGraw Hill LLC 19  Figure 2: Determining Cause and Effect Determining cause and effect. © McGraw Hill LLC 20  Explaining/Understand Behavior The final goal of science is to explain—to understand why a behavior occurs. For example, even if we know that childhood poverty can be a cause of lower school achievement, we still need to explain this relationship. New research findings almost always pose new questions that must be addressed by future research. Explanations often must be discarded or revised as new evidence is gathered. © McGraw Hill LLC 21  Primary Goals of Science Review © McGraw Hill LLC 22  Basic and Applied Research Basic research tries to answer fundamental questions about the nature of behavior. Studies are often designed to address theoretical issues concerning basic phenomena. Applied research addresses issues in which there are practical problems and potential solutions. Program evaluation assesses social reforms and innovations within government, education, and other large institutions. Much applied research is not published but instead is used within the company or by clients of the company. © McGraw Hill LLC 23  Comparing Basic and Applied Research 1 Both basic and applied research are important. Neither can be considered superior to the other. Applied research is often guided by basic research. Findings in applied settings often spur more basic research. We can never predict the ultimate applications of basic research. Research with no immediately apparent value ultimately can prove very useful. Basic research is necessary both to advance science and to benefit society. © McGraw Hill LLC 24  Comparing Basic and Applied Research 2 All researchers use scientific methods, whether they are interested in basic research, applied research, or program evaluation. © McGraw Hill LLC 25  Basic and Applied Research Review © McGraw Hill LLC 26  Review 1. Why is it important for anyone in our society to have knowledge of research methods? 2. How does the scientific approach differ from other ways of gaining knowledge about behavior? 3. Why is scientific skepticism useful in furthering our knowledge of behavior? 4. Provide (a) definitions and (b) examples of description, prediction, determining cause, and explaining behavior as goals of scientific research. 5. Describe/discuss the three types of evidence necessary in order to infer causation (Cook and Campbell, 1979). 6. Describe/discuss the characteristics of scientific inquiry, according to Goodstein (2000). 7. How does basic research differ from applied research? © McGraw Hill LLC 27