Research Methods in Psychology Textbook PDF

Research Methods in Psychology Research Methods in Psychology 4th edition RAJIV S. JHANGIANI; I-CHANT A. CHIANG; CARRIE CUTTLER; AND DANA C. LEIGHTON KWANTLEN POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY SURREY, B.C Research Methods in Psychology by Rajiv S. Jhangiani, I-Chant A. Chiang, Carrie Cuttler, & Dana C. Leighton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. This adaptation constitutes the fourth edition of this textbook, and builds upon the second Canadian edition by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University) and I-Chant A. Chiang (Quest University Canada), the second American edition by Dana C. Leighton (Texas A&M University-Texarkana), and the third American edition by Carrie Cuttler (Washington State University) and feedback from several peer reviewers coordinated by the Rebus Community. This edition is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Contents Acknowledgements ix About this Book xi About the Authors of the Current Edition xvi Preface xviii Chapter I. The Science of Psychology 1. Methods of Knowing 3 2. Understanding Science 6 3. Goals of Science 10 4. Science and Common Sense 12 5. Experimental and Clinical Psychologists 15 6. Key Takeaways and Exercises 19 Chapter II. Overview of the Scientific Method 7. A Model of Scientific Research in Psychology 25 8. Finding a Research Topic 28 9. Generating Good Research Questions 36 10. Developing a Hypothesis 40 11. Designing a Research Study 45 12. Analyzing the Data 49 13. Drawing Conclusions and Reporting the Results 52 14. Key Takeaways and Exercise 54 Chapter III. Research Ethics 15. Moral Foundations of Ethical Research 59 16. From Moral Principles to Ethics Codes 65 17. Putting Ethics Into Practice 74 18. Key Takeaways and Exercises 79 Chapter IV. Psychological Measurement 19. Understanding Psychological Measurement 83 20. Reliability and Validity of Measurement 92 21. Practical Strategies for Psychological Measurement 99 22. Key Takeaways and Exercises 105 Chapter V. Experimental Research 23. Experiment Basics 109 24. Experimental Design 117 25. Experimentation and Validity 125 26. Practical Considerations 130 27. Key Takeaways and Exercises 138 Chapter VI. Non-Experimental Research 28. Overview of Non-Experimental Research 143 29. Correlational Research 148 30. Complex Correlation 157 31. Qualitative Research 163 32. Observational Research 169 33. Key Takeaways and Exercises 179 Chapter VII. Survey Research 34. Overview of Survey Research 185 35. Constructing Surveys 188 36. Conducting Surveys 198 37. Key Takeaways and Exercises 204 Chapter VIII. Quasi-Experimental Research 38. One-Group Designs 209 39. Non-Equivalent Groups Designs 215 40. Key Takeaways and Exercises 219 Chapter IX. Factorial Designs 41. Setting Up a Factorial Experiment 223 42. Interpreting the Results of a Factorial Experiment 229 43. Key Takeaways and Exercises 238 Chapter X. Single-Subject Research 44. Overview of Single-Subject Research 241 45. Single-Subject Research Designs 244 46. The Single-Subject Versus Group “Debate” 254 47. Key Takeaways and Exercises 259 Chapter XI. Presenting Your Research 48. American Psychological Association (APA) Style 263 49. Writing a Research Report in American Psychological Association (APA) Style 272 50. Other Presentation Formats 287 51. Key Takeaways and Exercises 293 Chapter XII. Descriptive Statistics 52. Describing Single Variables 297 53. Describing Statistical Relationships 309 54. Expressing Your Results 321 55. Conducting Your Analyses 332 56. Key Takeaways and Exercises 337 Chapter XIII. Inferential Statistics 57. Understanding Null Hypothesis Testing 343 58. Some Basic Null Hypothesis Tests 350 59. Additional Considerations 366 60. From the “Replicability Crisis” to Open Science Practices 374 61. Key Takeaways and Exercises 382 Glossary 385 References 417 Acknowledgements This textbook represents a labor of love and a deep commitment to students. Each of us had previously worked on adapting, updating, and refining successive editions of this textbook since its initial publication. In coming together to produce this fourth edition collaboratively, we were able to build on our own expertise and classroom experience as well as thoughtful feedback from several peer reviewers. We would like to thank the Rebus Community, especially Zoe Wake Hyde and Apurva Ashok, for guiding and supporting us through the process of peer review and for building an intellectually supportive and encouraging community of authors and open educators. We are immensely grateful to our peer reviewers Judy Grissett (Georgia Southwestern State University), Amy Nusbaum (Washington State University), and one additional anonymous reviewer, who volunteered their time and energy to provide valuable suggestions and feedback that improved the quality and consistency of the 4th edition of this book. Finally, we are grateful to Lana Radomsky for her assistance with formatting and compiling the glossary and references. Rajiv, Carrie, and Dana (May 2019) Acknowledgements | ix Rajiv S. Jhangiani, Carrie Cuttler, & Dana C. Leighton x | Acknowledgements About this Book This textbook is an adaptation of one written by [unnamed original author] and adapted by The Saylor Foundation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License without attribution as requested by the work’s original creator or licensee. The original text is available here: http://www.saylor.org/site/textbooks/ The first Canadian edition (published in 2013) was authored by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University) and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License. Revisions included the addition of a table of contents, changes to Chapter 3 (Research Ethics) to include a contemporary example of an ethical breach and to reflect Canadian ethical guidelines and privacy laws, additional information regarding online data collection in Chapter 9 (Survey Research), corrections of errors in the text and formulae, spelling changes from US to Canadian conventions, the addition of a cover page, and other necessary formatting adjustments. The second Canadian edition (published in 2015) was co-authored by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University) and I-Chant A. Chiang (Quest University Canada) and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Revisions included: (throughout) language revision, spelling & formatting, additional video links and website links, interactive visualizations, figures, tables, and examples; (Chapter 1) the Many Labs Replication Project; (Chapter 2) double-blind peer review, contemporary literature databases, how to read academic papers; (Chapter 3) Canadian ethics; (Chapter 4) laws, effects, theory; (Chapter 5) fuller description of the MMPI, removal of IAT, validity descriptions; (Chapter 6) validity & realism descriptions, Latin Square design; (Chapter 7) Mixed- design studies, qualitative-quantitative debate; (Chapter 8) 2 × 2 factorial exercise; (Chapter 9) Canadian Election Studies, order and open-ended questions; (Chapter 13) p-curve and BASP announcement about banning p-values; “replicability crisis” in psychology; (Glossary) added key terms. The second U.S. edition (published in 2017) was authored by Dana C. Leighton (Southern Arkansas University) and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Revisions included reversion of spelling from Canadian English to U.S. English and the addition of a cover photo: “Great Wave off Kanagawa” after Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) is public domain. The third U.S. edition (published in 2017) was authored by Carrie Cuttler (Washington State University) and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Revisions included general reorganization, language revision, spelling, formatting, additional video links, and examples throughout. More specifically, the overall model section was moved from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2, new sections were added to Chapter 1 on methods of knowing and goals of science, and a link on the replication crisis in psychology was added to Chapter 1. Chapter 2 was also reorganized by moving the section on reviewing the research literature to earlier in the chapter and taking sections from Chapter 4 (on theories and hypotheses), moving them to Chapter 2, and cutting the remainder of Chapter 4. Sections of Chapter 2 on correlation were also moved to Chapter 6. New sections on characteristics of good research questions, an overview of experimental vs. non-experimental research, a description of field vs. lab studies, and making conclusions were also added to Chapter 2. Chapter 3 was expanded by adding a definition About this Book | xi of anonymity, elaborating on the Belmont Report (the principles of respect for persons and beneficence were added), and adding a link to a clip dispelling the myth that vaccines cause autism. Sections from Chapter 4 (on defining theories and hypotheses) were moved to Chapter 2 and the remainder of the previous Chapter 4 (on phenomenon, theories, and hypotheses) was cut. Chapter 5 was reorganized by moving the sections on four types of validity, manipulation checks, and placebo effects to later in the chapter. Descriptions of single factor two-level designs, single factor multi-level designs, matched-groups designs, order effects, and random counterbalancing were added to Chapter 5 and the concept of statistical validity was expanded upon. Chapter 6 was also reorganized by moving sections describing correlation coefficients from Chapters 2 and 12 to Chapter 6. The section of the book on complex correlation was also moved to Chapter 6 and the section on quasi-experiments was moved from Chapter 6 to its own chapter (Chapter 8). The categories of non-experimental research described in Chapter 6 were change to cross- sectional, correlational, and observational research. Chapter 6 was further expanded to describe cross- sectional studies, partial correlation, simple regression, the use of regression to make predictions, case studies, participant observation, disguised and undisguised observation, and structured observation. The terms independent variable and dependent variable as used in the context of regression were changed to predictor variable and outcome/criterion variable respectively. A distinction between proportionate stratified sampling and disproportionate stratified sampling was added to Chapter 7. The section on quasi- experimental designs was moved to its own chapter (Chapter 8) and was elaborated upon to include instrumentation and testing as threats to internal validity of one-group pretest-posttest designs, and to include sections describing the one-group posttest only design, pretest-posttest nonequivalent groups design, interrupted time-series with nonequivalent groups design, pretest-posttest design with switching replication, and switching replication with treatment removal designs. The section of Chapter 9 on factorial designs was split into two sections and the remainder of the chapter was moved or cut. Further, examples of everyday interactions were added and a description of simple effects was added to Chapter 9. The section on case studies that appeared in Chapter 10 was edited and moved to Chapter 6. Further, labels were added to multiple-baseline across behaviours, settings, and participants designs, and a concluding paragraph on converging evidence was added to Chapter 10. Only minor edits were made to the remaining chapters (Chapters 11, 12, and 13). This fourth edition (published in 2019) was co-authored by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University), Carrie Cuttler (Washington State University), and Dana C. Leighton (Texas A&M University—Texarkana) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Revisions throughout the current edition include changing the chapter and section numbering system to better accommodate adaptions that remove or reorder chapters; continued reversion from the Canadian edition; general grammatical edits; replacement of “he/she” to “they” and “his/ her” to “their”; removal or update of dead links; embedded videos that were not embedded; moved key takeaways and exercises from the end of each chapter section to the end of each chapter; a new cover design. In addition, the following revisions were made to specific chapters: Chapter 1: ◦ Updated list of empirically supported therapies. Chapter 2: ◦ Added description of follow-up research by Drews, Pasupathi, and Strayer (2004) demonstrating xii | About this Book that cell phone conversations while driving carry a greater risk than conversations with a passenger ◦ Added the term meta-analysis along with a definition of this term ◦ Replaced terms men and women with males and females ◦ Updated the description of the number of records returned with different search terms to a broader description of the relative number of records (that will not change as more articles are added to PsychINFO) ◦ Replaced the term “operationally define” variables with a more general statement about measuring variables since the term operational definition is not formally defined until later in the text ◦ Added a citation for Zajonc’s (1965) research ◦ Added a brief description of factors (i.e., small sample size, stringent alpha level) that increase the likelihood of a Type II error. Chapter 3: ◦ Removed titles of tables in references to tables ◦ Added statement that many people, including children, have died as a result of people avoiding the MMR vaccine ◦ Added a statement about self-plagiarizing being unethical and provided an example of submitting the same assignment in multiple classes ◦ Explained the respect for persons principle ◦ Revised the levels of IRB review to match terminology used in federal regulations ◦ Footnotes for references were made actual footnotes in Pressbooks Chapter 4: ◦ Removed potentially offensive or stigmatizing examples ◦ Clarified definition of levels of measurement ◦ Added citations for the various scales described ◦ Added further description of why IQ is measured on an interval scale ◦ Added descriptions of the indicators of central tendency that are appropriate to compute and report for each of the scales of measure (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio) ◦ Added a paragraph on operationally defining the construct that reviews the process of transferring a conceptual definition to something that can be directly observed and measured ◦ Added brief description of PsycTESTS and link to these tests ◦ Removed the statement that family and friends can serve as good pilot subjects Chapter 5: ◦ Clarified the distinction between independent and dependent variables ◦ Moved up the discussion of a control condition ◦ Briefly discussed research ethics within the description of the study by Guéguen & de Gail (2003) ◦ More clearly defined a power analysis and emphasized the importance of conducting one ◦ Referenced confounds within the discussion of internal validity ◦ Noted that within-subjects experiments require fewer participants ◦ Removed duplicate reference ◦ Added citations ◦ Updated language About this Book | xiii Chapter 6: ◦ Clarified when non-experimental approaches are appropriate ◦ Added information about Milgram’s non-experimental study of obedience to authority ◦ Added a discussion of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and cross-sequential studies ◦ Revised organization of non-experimental approaches ◦ Removed description of experimenter-selected independent variable ◦ Specified types of variables that may be measured in correlational research ◦ Added an example of a correlational study that uses categorical variables ◦ Added a factor analysis table ◦ Listed more examples of nonstatistical data analysis techniques ◦ Added a table to summarize some differences between quantitative and qualitative research ◦ Described some group dynamics and personality characteristics that might influence participation in focus groups ◦ Discussed Festinger’s research on cognitive dissonance that used disguised participant observation ◦ Described the Hawthorne effect ◦ Added an example of a study that used structured observation within a laboratory environment Chapter 7: ◦ Clarified language concerning data collection methods vs. research designs ◦ Mentioned randomizing the order of presentation of questions as another way of reducing response order effects ◦ Explained reverse coding ◦ Described additional types of non-probability sampling ◦ Reiterated the importance of conducting a power analysis ◦ Added common online data collection sites Chapter 8: ◦ Discussed how the inclusion of a control group rules out threats to internal validity within a one- group design study Chapter 9: ◦ Clarified discussion of non-experimental factorial designs. Chapter 10: No substantive changes Chapter 11: ◦ Added regional psychology association conferences to list of conferences ◦ Condensed and clarified discussion of final manuscripts ◦ Updated discussion of open sharing of results to acknowledge some journals that require open data ◦ Added explanation of person-first language Chapter 12: ◦ Corrected erroneous APA style recommendations and added references to specific Publication Manual sections ◦ Standardized the use of the terms “figure” and “chart” to better correspond with APA style xiv | About this Book ◦ Minor changes to discussion of poster formatting ◦ Moved list of conferences to end of discussion to not break up the material Chapter 13: ◦ Defined p-hacking and clarified discussion of p-hacking ◦ Made definition of p-value more technically correct About this Book | xv About the Authors of the Current Edition Rajiv S. Jhangiani Dr. Rajiv Jhangiani is the Associate Vice Provost, Open Education at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in British Columbia. He is an internationally known advocate for open education whose research and practice focuses on open educational resources, student-centered pedagogies, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Rajiv is a co-founder of the Open Pedagogy Notebook, an Ambassador for the Center for Open Science, and serves on the BC Open Education Advisory Committee. He formerly served as an Open Education Advisor and Senior Open Education Research & Advocacy Fellow with BCcampus, an OER Research Fellow with the Open Education Group, a Faculty Workshop Facilitator with the Open Textbook Network, and a Faculty Fellow with the BC Open Textbook Project. A co-author of three open textbooks in Psychology, his most recent book is Open: The Philosophy and Practices that are Revolutionizing Education and Science (2017). You can find him online at @thatpsychprof or thatpsychprof.com Carrie Cuttler Dr. Carrie Cuttler received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of British Columbia. She has been teaching research methods and statistics for over a decade. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Washington State University, where she primarily studies the acute and chronic effects of cannabis on cognition, mental health, and physical health. Dr. Cuttler was also an OER Research Fellow with the Center for Open Education and she conducts research on open educational resources. She has over 50 publications including the following two published books: A Student Guide for SPSS (1st and 2nd edition) and Research Methods in Psychology: Student Lab Guide. Finally, she edited another OER entitled Essentials of Abnormal Psychology. In her spare time, she likes to travel, hike, bike, run, and watch movies with her husband and son. You can find her online at @carriecuttler or carriecuttler.com xvi | About the Authors of the Current Edition Dana C. Leighton Dr. Dana C. Leighton is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the College of Arts, Science, and Education at Texas A&M University—Texarkana. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Arkansas, and has 15 years experience teaching across the psychology curriculum at community colleges, liberal arts colleges, and research universities. Dr. Leighton’s social psychology research lab studies intergroup relations, and routinely includes undergraduate students as researchers. He is also Chair of the university’s Institutional Review Board. Recently he has been researching and writing about the use of open science research practices by undergraduate researchers to increase diversity, justice, and sustainability in psychological science. He has published on his teaching methods in eBooks from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, presented his methods at regional and national conferences, and received grants to develop new teaching methods. His teaching interests are in undergraduate research, writing skills, and online student engagement. For more about Dr. Leighton see http://www.danaleighton.net and http://danaleighton.edublogs.org About the Authors of the Current Edition | xvii Preface Psychology, like most other sciences, has its own set of tools to investigate the important research questions of its field. Unlike other sciences that are older and more mature, psychology is a relatively new field and, like an adolescent, is learning and changing rapidly. Psychology researchers are learning and changing along with the emerging science. This textbook introduces students to the fundamental principles of what it is like to think like a psychology researcher in the contemporary world of psychology research. Historically, psychology developed practices and methods based on the established physical sciences. Unlike physical sciences, psychology had to grapple with the inherent variation among its subjects: people. To better account for this, we developed some practices and statistical methods that we (naïvely) considered to be foolproof. Over time we established a foundation of research findings that we considered solid. In recent years, psychology’s conversation has shifted to an introspective one, looking inward and re- examining the knowledge that we considered foundational. We began to find that some of that unshakable foundation was not as strong as we thought; some of the bedrock findings in psychology were being questioned and failed to be upheld in fuller scrutiny. As many introspective conversations do, this one caused a crisis of faith. Psychologists are now questioning if we really know what we thought we knew or if we simply got lucky. We are struggling to understand how what we choose to publish and not publish, what we choose to report and not report, and how we train our students as researchers is having an effect on what we call “knowledge” in psychology. We are beginning to question whether that knowledge represents real behaviour and mental processes in human beings, or simply represents the effects of our choice of methods. This has started a firestorm among psychology researchers, but it is one that needs to play out. For a book aimed at novice psychology undergraduates, it is tempting to gloss over these issues and proclaim that our “knowledge” is “truth.” That would be a disservice to our students though, who need to be critical questioners of research. Instead of shying away from this controversy, this textbook invites the reader to step right into the middle of it. With every step of the way, the research process in psychology is fraught with decisions, trade-offs, and uncertainty. We decide to study one variable and not another; we balance the costs of research against its benefits; we are uncertain whether our results will replicate. Every step is a decision that takes us in a different direction and closer to or further from the truth. Research is not an easy route to traverse, but we hope this textbook will be a hiking map that can at least inspire the direction students can take, and provide some absolute routes to begin traveling. As we wrote at the beginning of this preface, psychology is a young science. Like any adolescent, psychology is grappling with its identity as a science, learning to use better tools, understanding the importance of transparency, and is having more open conversations to improve its understanding of human behaviour. We will grow up and mature together. It is an exciting time to be part of that growth as psychology becomes a more mature science. xviii | Preface CHAPTER I THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOLOGY Many people believe that women tend to talk more than men—with some even suggesting that this difference has a biological basis. One widely cited estimate is that women speak 20,000 words per day on average and men speak only 7,000. This claim seems plausible, but is it true? A group of psychologists led by Matthias Mehl decided to find out. They checked to see if anyone had actually tried to count the daily number of words spoken by women and men. No one had. So these researchers conducted a study in which female and male college students (369 in all) wore audio recorders while they went about their lives. The result? The women spoke an average of 16,215 words per day and the men spoke an average of 15,669—an extremely small difference that could easily be explained by chance. In an article in the journal Science, these researchers summed up their findings as follows: “We therefore conclude, on the basis of available empirical evidence, that the widespread and highly publicized stereotype about female talkativeness is unfounded” 1 (Mehl, Vazire, Ramirez-Esparza, Slatcher, & Pennebaker, 2007, p. 82). Psychology is usually defined as the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes, and this example illustrates the features that make it scientific. In this chapter, we look closely at these features, review the goals of psychology, and address several basic questions that students often have about it. Who conducts scientific research in psychology? Why? Does scientific psychology tell us anything that common sense does not? Why should I bother to learn the scientific approach—especially if I want to be a clinical psychologist and not a researcher? These are extremely good questions, and answering them now will provide a solid foundation for learning the rest of the material in your course. Notes 1. Mehl, M. R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R. B., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men? Science, 317, 82. The Science of Psychology | 1 1. Methods of Knowing Learning Objectives 1. Describe the 5 methods of acquiring knowledge 2. Understand the benefits and problems with each. Take a minute to ponder some of what you know and how you acquired that knowledge. Perhaps you know that you should make your bed in the morning because your mother or father told you this is what you should do, perhaps you know that swans are white because all of the swans you have seen are white, or perhaps you know that your friend is lying to you because she is acting strange and won’t look you in the eye. But should we trust knowledge from these sources? The methods of acquiring knowledge can be broken down into five categories each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Intuition The first method of knowing is intuition. When we use our intuition, we are relying on our guts, our emotions, and/or our instincts to guide us. Rather than examining facts or using rational thought, intuition involves believing what feels true. The problem with relying on intuition is that our intuitions can be wrong because they are driven by cognitive and motivational biases rather than logical reasoning or scientific evidence. While the strange behavior of your friend may lead you to think s/he is lying to you it may just be that s/he is holding in a bit of gas or is preoccupied with some other issue that is irrelevant to you. However, weighing alternatives and thinking of all the different possibilities can be paralyzing for some people and sometimes decisions based on intuition are actually superior to those based on analysis (people interested 1 in this idea should read Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink). Authority Perhaps one of the most common methods of acquiring knowledge is through authority. This method involves accepting new ideas because some authority figure states that they are true. These authorities include parents, the media, doctors, Priests and other religious authorities, the government, and professors. While in an ideal world we should be able to trust authority figures, history has taught us otherwise and many instances of atrocities against humanity are a consequence of people unquestioningly following Methods of Knowing | 3 authority (e.g., Salem Witch Trials, Nazi War Crimes). On a more benign level, while your parents may have told you that you should make your bed in the morning, making your bed provides the warm damp environment in which mites thrive. Keeping the sheets open provides a less hospitable environment for mites. These examples illustrate that the problem with using authority to obtain knowledge is that they may be wrong, they may just be using their intuition to arrive at their conclusions, and they may have their own reasons to mislead you. Nevertheless, much of the information we acquire is through authority because we don’t have time to question and independently research every piece of knowledge we learn through authority. But we can learn to evaluate the credentials of authority figures, to evaluate the methods they used to arrive at their conclusions, and evaluate whether they have any reasons to mislead us. Rationalism Rationalism involves using logic and reasoning to acquire new knowledge. Using this method premises are stated and logical rules are followed to arrive at sound conclusions. For instance, if I am given the premise that all swans are white and the premise that this is a swan then I can come to the rational conclusion that this swan is white without actually seeing the swan. The problem with this method is that if the premises are wrong or there is an error in logic then the conclusion will not be valid. For instance, the premise that all swans are white is incorrect; there are black swans in Australia. Also, unless formally trained in the rules of logic it is easy to make an error. Nevertheless, if the premises are correct and logical rules are followed appropriately then this is sound means of acquiring knowledge. Empiricism Empiricism involves acquiring knowledge through observation and experience. Once again many of you may have believed that all swans are white because you have only ever seen white swans. For centuries people believed the world is flat because it appears to be flat. These examples and the many visual illusions that trick our senses illustrate the problems with relying on empiricism alone to derive knowledge. We are limited in what we can experience and observe and our senses can deceive us. Moreover, our prior experiences can alter the way we perceive events. Nevertheless, empiricism is at the heart of the scientific method. Science relies on observations. But not just any observations, science relies on structured observations which is known as systematic empiricism. The Scientific Method The scientific method is a process of systematically collecting and evaluating evidence to test ideas and answer questions. While scientists may use intuition, authority, rationalism, and empiricism to generate new ideas they don’t stop there. Scientists go a step further by using systematic empiricism to make careful 4 | Methods of Knowing observations under various controlled conditions in order to test their ideas and they use rationalism to arrive at valid conclusions. While the scientific method is the most likely of all of the methods to produce valid knowledge, like all methods of acquiring knowledge it also has its drawbacks. One major problem is that it is not always feasible to use the scientific method; this method can require considerable time and resources. Another problem with the scientific method is that it cannot be used to answer all questions. As described in the following section, the scientific method can only be used to address empirical questions. This book and your research methods course are designed to provide you with an in-depth examination of how psychologists use the scientific method to advance our understanding of human behavior and the mind. Notes 1. Gladwell, M. E. (2005). Blink: The power of thinking without thinking. (9th ed.). New York: Little, Brown & Co. Methods of Knowing | 5 2. Understanding Science Learning Objectives 1. Define science. 2. Describe the three fundamental features of science. 3. Explain why psychology is a science. 4. Define pseudoscience and give some examples. What Is Science? Some people are surprised to learn that psychology is a science. They generally agree that astronomy, biology, and chemistry are sciences but wonder what psychology has in common with these other fields. Before answering this question, however, it is worth reflecting on what astronomy, biology, and chemistry have in common with each other. It is clearly not their subject matter. Astronomers study celestial bodies, biologists study living organisms, and chemists study matter and its properties. It is also not the equipment and techniques that they use. Few biologists would know what to do with a radio telescope, for example, and few chemists would know how to track a moose population in the wild. For these and other reasons, philosophers and scientists who have thought deeply about this question have concluded that what the sciences have in common is a general approach to understanding the natural world. Psychology is a science because it takes this same general approach to understanding one aspect of the natural world: human behavior. Features of Science 1 The general scientific approach has three fundamental features (Stanovich, 2010). The first is systematic empiricism. Empiricism refers to learning based on observation, and scientists learn about the natural world systematically, by carefully planning, making, recording, and analyzing observations of it. As we will see, logical reasoning and even creativity play important roles in science too, but scientists are unique in their insistence on checking their ideas about the way the world is against their systematic observations. Notice, for example, that Mehl and his colleagues did not trust other people’s stereotypes or even their own informal observations. Instead, they systematically recorded, counted, and compared the number of words spoken by a large sample of women and men. Furthermore, when their systematic observations turned out to conflict with people’s stereotypes, they trusted their systematic observations. 6 | Understanding Science The second feature of the scientific approach—which follows in a straightforward way from the first—is that it is concerned with empirical questions. These are questions about the way the world actually is and, therefore, can be answered by systematically observing it. The question of whether women talk more than men is empirical in this way. Either women really do talk more than men or they do not, and this can be determined by systematically observing how much women and men actually talk. Having said this, there are many interesting and important questions that are not empirically testable and that science is not in a position to answer. Among these are questions about values—whether things are good or bad, just or unjust, or beautiful or ugly, and how the world ought to be. So although the question of whether a stereotype is accurate or inaccurate is an empirically testable one that science can answer, the question—or, rather, the value judgment—of whether it is wrong for people to hold inaccurate stereotypes is not. Similarly, the question of whether criminal behavior has a genetic basis is an empirical question, but the question of what actions ought to be considered illegal is not. It is especially important for researchers in psychology to be mindful of this distinction. The third feature of science is that it creates public knowledge. After asking their empirical questions, making their systematic observations, and drawing their conclusions, scientists publish their work. This usually means writing an article for publication in a professional journal, in which they put their research question in the context of previous research, describe in detail the methods they used to answer their question, and clearly present their results and conclusions. Increasingly, scientists are opting to publish their work in open access journals, in which the articles are freely available to all – scientists and nonscientists alike. This important choice allows publicly-funded research to create knowledge that is truly public. Publication is an essential feature of science for two reasons. One is that science is a social process—a large- scale collaboration among many researchers distributed across both time and space. Our current scientific knowledge of most topics is based on many different studies conducted by many different researchers who have shared their work publicly over many years. The second is that publication allows science to be self- correcting. Individual scientists understand that, despite their best efforts, their methods can be flawed and their conclusions incorrect. Publication allows others in the scientific community to detect and correct these errors so that, over time, scientific knowledge increasingly reflects the way the world actually is. A good example of the self-correcting nature of science is the “Many Labs Replication Project” – a large and coordinated effort by prominent psychological scientists around the world to attempt to replicate 2 findings from 13 classic and contemporary studies (Klein et al., 2013). One of the findings selected by these researchers for replication was the fascinating effect, first reported by Simone Schnall and her colleagues at the University of Plymouth, that washing one’s hands leads people to view moral transgressions—ranging from keeping money inside a found wallet to using a kitten for sexual arousal—as less wrong (Schnall, 3 Benton, & Harvey, 2008). If reliable, this effect might help explain why so many religious traditions associate physical cleanliness with moral purity. However, despite using the same materials and nearly identical procedures with a much larger sample, the “Many Labs” researchers were unable to replicate the original 4 finding (Johnson, Cheung, & Donnellan, 2013) , suggesting that the original finding may have stemmed from the relatively small sample size (which can lead to unreliable results) used in the original study. To be clear, at this stage we are still unable to definitively conclude that the handwashing effect does not exist; however, Understanding Science | 7 the effort that has gone into testing its reliability certainly demonstrates the collaborative and cautious nature of scientific progress. For more on the replication crisis in psychology see: http://nobaproject.com/modules/the-replication- crisis-in-psychology Science Versus Pseudoscience Pseudoscience refers to activities and beliefs that are claimed to be scientific by their proponents—and may appear to be scientific at first glance—but are not. Consider the theory of biorhythms (not to be confused with sleep cycles or circadian rhythms that do have a scientific basis). The idea is that people’s physical, intellectual, and emotional abilities run in cycles that begin when they are born and continue until they die. Allegedly, the physical cycle has a period of 23 days, the intellectual cycle a period of 33 days, and the emotional cycle a period of 28 days. So, for example, if you had the option of when to schedule an exam, you would want to schedule it for a time when your intellectual cycle will be at a high point. The theory of biorhythms has been around for more than 100 years, and you can find numerous popular books and websites about biorhythms, often containing impressive and scientific-sounding terms like sinusoidal wave and bioelectricity. The problem with biorhythms, however, is that scientific evidence indicates they do 5 not exist (Hines, 1998). A set of beliefs or activities can be said to be pseudoscientific if (a) its adherents claim or imply that it is scientific but (b) it lacks one or more of the three features of science. For instance, it might lack systematic empiricism. Either there is no relevant scientific research or, as in the case of biorhythms, there is relevant scientific research but it is ignored. It might also lack public knowledge. People who promote the beliefs or activities might claim to have conducted scientific research but never publish that research in a way that allows others to evaluate it. A set of beliefs and activities might also be pseudoscientific because it does not address empirical questions. 6 The philosopher Karl Popper was especially concerned with this idea (Popper, 2002). He argued more specifically that any scientific claim must be expressed in such a way that there are observations that would—if they were made—count as evidence against the claim. In other words, scientific claims must be falsifiable. The claim that women talk more than men is falsifiable because systematic observations could reveal either that they do talk more than men or that they do not. As an example of an unfalsifiable claim, consider that many people who believe in extrasensory perception (ESP) and other psychic powers claim that such powers can disappear when they are observed too closely. This makes it so that no possible observation would count as evidence against ESP. If a careful test of a self-proclaimed psychic showed that she predicted the future at better-than-chance levels, this would be consistent with the claim that she had psychic powers. But if she failed to predict the future at better-than-chance levels, this would also be consistent with the claim because her powers can supposedly disappear when they are observed too closely. Why should we concern ourselves with pseudoscience? There are at least three reasons. One is that learning about pseudoscience helps bring the fundamental features of science—and their importance—into sharper focus. A second is that biorhythms, psychic powers, astrology, and many other pseudoscientific beliefs 8 | Understanding Science are widely held and are promoted on the Internet, on television, and in books and magazines. Far from being harmless, the promotion of these beliefs often results in great personal toll as, for example, believers in pseudoscience opt for “treatments” such as homeopathy for serious medical conditions instead of empirically-supported treatments. Learning what makes them pseudoscientific can help us to identify and evaluate such beliefs and practices when we encounter them. A third reason is that many pseudosciences purport to explain some aspect of human behavior and mental processes, including biorhythms, astrology, graphology (handwriting analysis), and magnet therapy for pain control. It is important for students of psychology to distinguish their own field clearly from this “pseudo psychology.” The Skeptic’s Dictionary An excellent source for information on pseudoscience is The Skeptic’s Dictionary (http://www.skepdic.com). Among the pseudoscientific beliefs and practices you can learn about are the following: Cryptozoology. The study of “hidden” creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the chupacabra. Pseudoscientific psychotherapies. Past-life regression, rebirthing therapy, and bioscream therapy, among others. Homeopathy. The treatment of medical conditions using natural substances that have been diluted sometimes to the point of no longer being present. Pyramidology. Odd theories about the origin and function of the Egyptian pyramids (e.g., that they were built by extraterrestrials) and the idea that pyramids, in general, have healing and other special powers. Another excellent online resource is Neurobonkers (http://neurobonkers.com), which regularly posts articles that investigate claims that pertain specifically to psychological science. Notes 1. Stanovich, K. E. (2010). How to think straight about psychology (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. 2. Klein, R. A., Ratliff, K. A., Vianello, M., Adams, R. B., Bahník, S., Bernstein, M. J.,... Nosek, B. A. (2013). Investigating variation in replicability: A “many labs” replication project. Social Psychology, 45(3), 142-152. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/ a000178 3. Schnall, S., Benton, J., & Harvey, S. (2008). With a clean conscience: Cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1219-1222. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02227.x 4. Johnson, D. J., Cheung, F., & Donnellan, M. B. (2013). Does cleanliness influence moral judgments? A direct replication of Schnall, Benton, and Harvey (2008). Social Psychology, 45(3), 209-215. doi: 10.1027/1864-9335/a000186 5. Hines, T. M. (1998). Comprehensive review of biorhythm theory. Psychological Reports, 83, 19–64. 6. Popper, K. R. (2002). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. New York, NY: Routledge. Understanding Science | 9 3. Goals of Science Learning Objectives 1. Describe the three goals of science and give an example for each. 2. Distinguish between basic research and applied research. The Broader Purposes of Scientific Research in Psychology People have always been curious about the natural world, including themselves and their behavior (in fact, this is probably why you are studying psychology in the first place). Science grew out of this natural curiosity and has become the best way to achieve detailed and accurate knowledge. Keep in mind that most of the phenomena and theories that fill psychology textbooks are the products of scientific research. In a typical introductory psychology textbook, for example, one can learn about specific cortical areas for language and perception, principles of classical and operant conditioning, biases in reasoning and judgment, and people’s surprising tendency to obey those in positions of authority. And scientific research continues because what we know right now only scratches the surface of what we can know. The Three Goals of Science The first and most basic goal of science is to describe. This goal is achieved by making careful observations. As an example, perhaps I am interested in better understanding the medical conditions that medical marijuana patients use marijuana to treat. In this case, I could try to access records at several large medical marijuana licensing centers to see which conditions people are getting licensed to use medical marijuana. Or I could survey a large sample of medical marijuana patients and ask them to report which medical conditions they use marijuana to treat or manage. Indeed, research involving surveys of medical marijuana patients has been conducted and has found that the primary symptom medical marijuana patients use marijuana to treat 1 is pain, followed by anxiety and depression (Sexton, Cuttler, Finnell, & Mischley, 2016).. The second goal of science is to predict. Once we have observed with some regularity that two behaviors or events are systematically related to one another we can use that information to predict whether an event or behavior will occur in a certain situation. Once I know that most medical marijuana patients use marijuana to treat pain I can use that information to predict that an individual who uses medical marijuana likely experiences pain. Of course, my predictions will not be 100% accurate but if the relationship between medical marijuana use and pain is strong then my predictions will have greater than chance accuracy. 10 | Goals of Science The third and ultimate goal of science is to explain. This goal involves determining the causes of behavior. For example, researchers might try to understand the mechanisms through which marijuana reduces pain. Does marijuana reduce inflammation which in turn reduces pain? Or does marijuana simply reduce the distress associated with pain rather than reducing pain itself? As you can see these questions tap at the underlying mechanisms and causal relationships. Basic versus Applied Research Scientific research is often classified as being either basic or applied. Basic research in psychology is conducted primarily for the sake of achieving a more detailed and accurate understanding of human behavior, without necessarily trying to address any particular practical problem. The research of Mehl and his colleagues falls into this category. Applied research is conducted primarily to address some practical problem. Research on the effects of cell phone use on driving, for example, was prompted by safety concerns and has led to the enactment of laws to limit this practice. Although the distinction between basic and applied research is convenient, it is not always clear-cut. For example, basic research on sex differences in talkativeness could eventually have an effect on how marriage therapy is practiced, and applied research on the effect of cell phone use on driving could produce new insights into basic processes of perception, attention, and action. Notes 1. Sexton, M., Cuttler, C., Finnell, J., & Mischley, L (2016). A cross-sectional survey of medical cannabis users: Patterns of use and perceived efficacy. Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, 1, 131-138. doi: 10.1089/can.2016.0007. Goals of Science | 11 4. Science and Common Sense Learning Objectives 1. Explain the limitations of common sense when it comes to achieving a detailed and accurate understanding of human behavior. 2. Give several examples of common sense or folk psychology that are incorrect. 3. Define skepticism and its role in scientific psychology. Can We Rely on Common Sense? Some people wonder whether the scientific approach to psychology is necessary. Can we not reach the same conclusions based on common sense or intuition? Certainly we all have intuitive beliefs about people’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings—and these beliefs are collectively referred to as folk psychology. Although much of our folk psychology is probably reasonably accurate, it is clear that much of it is not. For example, most people believe that anger can be relieved by “letting it out”—perhaps by punching something or screaming loudly. Scientific research, however, has shown that this approach tends to leave people feeling 1 more angry, not less (Bushman, 2002). Likewise, most people believe that no one would confess to a crime that they had not committed unless perhaps that person was being physically tortured. But again, extensive empirical research has shown that false confessions are surprisingly common and occur for a variety of 2 reasons (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004). Some Great Myths In 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, psychologist Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues discuss several widely held commonsense beliefs about human behavior that scientific research has shown to be incorrect (Lilienfeld, 3 Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, 2010). Here is a short list: “People use only 10% of their brain power.” “Most people experience a midlife crisis in their 40’s or 50’s.” “Students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles.” “Low self-esteem is a major cause of psychological problems.” 12 | Science and Common Sense “Psychiatric admissions and crimes increase during full moons.” How Could We Be So Wrong? How can so many of our intuitive beliefs about human behavior be so wrong? Notice that this is an empirical question, and it just so happens that psychologists have conducted scientific research on it and identified 4 many contributing factors (Gilovich, 1991). One is that forming detailed and accurate beliefs requires powers of observation, memory, and analysis to an extent that we do not naturally possess. It would be nearly impossible to count the number of words spoken by the women and men we happen to encounter, estimate the number of words they spoke per day, average these numbers for both groups, and compare them—all in our heads. This is why we tend to rely on mental shortcuts (what psychologists refer to as heuristics) in forming and maintaining our beliefs. For example, if a belief is widely shared—especially if it is endorsed by “experts”—and it makes intuitive sense, we tend to assume it is true. This is compounded by the fact that we then tend to focus on cases that confirm our intuitive beliefs and not on cases that dis-confirm them. This is called confirmation bias. For example, once we begin to believe that women are more talkative than men, we tend to notice and remember talkative women and silent men but ignore or forget silent women and talkative men. We also hold incorrect beliefs in part because it would be nice if they were true. For example, many people believe that calorie-reducing diets are an effective long-term treatment for obesity, yet a thorough review of the scientific evidence has shown that they are not (Mann et 5 al., 2007). People may continue to believe in the effectiveness of dieting in part because it gives them hope for losing weight if they are obese or makes them feel good about their own “self-control” if they are not. Scientists—especially psychologists—understand that they are just as susceptible as anyone else to intuitive but incorrect beliefs. This is why they cultivate an attitude of skepticism. Being skeptical does not mean being cynical or distrustful, nor does it mean questioning every belief or claim one comes across (which would be impossible anyway). Instead, it means pausing to consider alternatives and to search for evidence—especially systematically collected empirical evidence—when there is enough at stake to justify doing so. For example, imagine that you read a magazine article that claims that giving children a weekly allowance is a good way to help them develop financial responsibility. This is an interesting and potentially important claim (especially if you have children of your own). Taking an attitude of skepticism, however, would mean pausing to ask whether it might be instead that receiving an allowance merely teaches children to spend money—perhaps even to be more materialistic. Taking an attitude of skepticism would also mean asking what evidence supports the original claim. Is the author a scientific researcher? Is any scientific evidence cited? If the issue was important enough, it might also mean turning to the research literature to see if anyone else had studied it. Because there is often not enough evidence to fully evaluate a belief or claim, scientists also cultivate a tolerance for uncertainty. They accept that there are many things that they simply do not know. For example, it turns out that there is no scientific evidence that receiving an allowance causes children to be Science and Common Sense | 13 more financially responsible, nor is there any scientific evidence that it causes them to be materialistic. Although this kind of uncertainty can be problematic from a practical perspective—for example, making it difficult to decide what to do when our children ask for an allowance—it is exciting from a scientific perspective. If we do not know the answer to an interesting and empirically testable question, science, and perhaps even you as a researcher, may be able to provide the answer. Notes 1. Bushman, B. J. (2002). Does venting anger feed or extinguish the flame? Catharsis, rumination, distraction, anger, and aggressive responding. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 724–731. 2. Kassin, S. M., & Gudjonsson, G. H. (2004). The psychology of confession evidence: A review of the literature and issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 33–67. 3. Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J., & Beyerstein, B. L. (2010). 50 great myths of popular psychology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 4. Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn’t so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York, NY: Free Press. 5. Mann, T., Tomiyama, A. J., Westling, E., Lew, A., Samuels, B., & Chatman, J. (2007). Medicare’s search for effective obesity treatments: Diets are not the answer. American Psychologist, 62, 220–233. 14 | Science and Common Sense 5. Experimental and Clinical Psychologists Learning Objectives 1. Define the clinical practice of psychology and distinguish it from experimental psychology. 2. Explain how science is relevant to clinical practice. 3. Define the concept of an empirically supported treatment and give some examples. Who Conducts Scientific Research in Psychology? Experimental Psychologists Scientific research in psychology is generally conducted by people with doctoral degrees (usually the doctor of philosophy [Ph.D.]) and master’s degrees in psychology and related fields, often supported by research assistants with bachelor’s degrees or other relevant training. Some of them work for government agencies (e.g., doing research on the impact of public policies), national associations (e.g., the American Psychological Association), non-profit organizations (e.g., National Alliance on Mental Illness), or in the private sector (e.g., in product marketing and development; organizational behavior). However, the majority of them are college and university faculty, who often collaborate with their graduate and undergraduate students. Although some researchers are trained and licensed as clinicians for mental health work—especially those who conduct research in clinical psychology—the majority are not. Instead, they have expertise in one or more of the many other subfields of psychology: behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, social psychology, and so on. Doctoral-level researchers might be employed to conduct research full-time or, like many college and university faculty members, to conduct research in addition to teaching classes and serving their institution and community in other ways. Of course, people also conduct research in psychology because they enjoy the intellectual and technical challenges involved and the satisfaction of contributing to scientific knowledge of human behavior. You might find that you enjoy the process too. If so, your college or university might offer opportunities to get involved in ongoing research as either a research assistant or a participant. Of course, you might find that you do not enjoy the process of conducting scientific research in psychology. But at least you will have a better understanding of where scientific knowledge in psychology comes from, an appreciation of its strengths and limitations, and an awareness of how it can be applied to solve practical problems in psychology and everyday life. Experimental and Clinical Psychologists | 15 Scientific Psychology Blogs A fun and easy way to follow current scientific research in psychology is to read any of the many excellent blogs devoted to summarizing and commenting on new findings. Among them are the following: Research Digest, http://digest.bps.org.uk/ Talk Psych, http://www.talkpsych.com/ Brain Blogger, http://brainblogger.com/ Mind Hacks, http://mindhacks.com/ PsyBlog, http://www.spring.org.uk You can also browse to http://www.researchblogging.org, select psychology as your topic, and read entries from a wide variety of blogs. Clinical Psychologists Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. But it is also the application of scientific research to “help people, organizations, and communities function better” (American Psychological 1 Association, 2011). By far the most common and widely known application is the clinical practice of psychology—the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and related problems. Let us use the term clinical practice broadly to refer to the activities of clinical and counseling psychologists, school psychologists, marriage and family therapists, licensed clinical social workers, and others who work with people individually or in small groups to identify and help address their psychological problems. It is important to consider the relationship between scientific research and clinical practice because many students are especially interested in clinical practice, perhaps even as a career. The main point is that psychological disorders and other behavioral problems are part of the natural world. This means that questions about their nature, causes, and consequences are empirically testable and therefore subject to scientific study. As with other questions about human behavior, we cannot rely on our intuition or common sense for detailed and accurate answers. Consider, for example, that dozens of popular books and thousands of websites claim that adult children of alcoholics have a distinct personality profile, including low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and difficulties with intimacy. Although this sounds plausible, scientific research has demonstrated that adult children of alcoholics are no more likely to have 2 these problems than anybody else (Lilienfeld et al., 2010). Similarly, questions about whether a particular psychotherapy is effective are empirically testable questions that can be answered by scientific research. If a new psychotherapy is an effective treatment for depression, then systematic observation should reveal that depressed people who receive this psychotherapy improve more than a similar group of depressed people 16 | Experimental and Clinical Psychologists who do not receive this psychotherapy (or who receive some alternative treatment). Treatments that have been shown to work in this way are called empirically supported treatments. Empirically Supported Treatments An empirically supported treatment is one that has been studied scientifically and shown to result in greater improvement than no treatment, a placebo, or some alternative treatment. These include many forms of psychotherapy, which can be as effective as standard drug therapies. Among the forms of psychotherapy with strong empirical support are the following: Acceptance and committment therapy (ACT). for depression, mixed anxiety disorders, psychosis, chronic pain, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Behavioral couples therapy. For alcohol use disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). For many disorders including eating disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, etc. Exposure therapy. For post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias. Exposure therapy with response prevention. For obsessive-compulsive disorder. Family-based treatment. For eating disorders. For a more complete list, see the following website, which is maintained by Division 12 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Clinical Psychology: http://www.div12.org/psychological-treatments Many in the clinical psychology community have argued that their field has not paid enough attention to scientific research—for example, by failing to use empirically supported treatments—and have suggested a variety of changes in the way clinicians are trained and treatments are evaluated and put into practice. Others believe that these claims are exaggerated and the suggested changes are unnecessary (Norcross, 3 Beutler, & Levant, 2005). On both sides of the debate, however, there is agreement that a scientific approach to clinical psychology is essential if the goal is to diagnose and treat psychological problems based on detailed and accurate knowledge about those problems and the most effective treatments for them. So not only is it important for scientific research in clinical psychology to continue, but it is also important for clinicians who never conduct a scientific study themselves to be scientifically literate so that they can read and evaluate new research and make treatment decisions based on the best available evidence. Notes 1. American Psychological Association. (2011). About APA. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/about Experimental and Clinical Psychologists | 17 2. Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Ruscio, J., & Beyerstein, B. L. (2010). 50 great myths of popular psychology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 3. Norcross, J. C., Beutler, L. E., & Levant, R. F. (Eds.). (2005). Evidence-based practices in mental health: Debate and dialogue on the fundamental questions. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 18 | Experimental and Clinical Psychologists 6. Key Takeaways and Exercises Key Takeaways Knowledge is acquired in many ways including intuition, authority, rationalism, empiricism, and the scientific method Science is a general way of understanding the natural world. Its three fundamental features are systematic empiricism, empirical questions, and public knowledge. Psychology is a science because it takes the scientific approach to understanding human behavior. Pseudoscience refers to beliefs and activities that are claimed to be scientific but lack one or more of the three features of science. It is important to distinguish the scientific approach to understanding human behavior from the many pseudoscientific approaches. Psychologists conduct research in order to describe basic phenomenon, to make predictions about future behaviors, and to explain the causes of behavior. Basic research is conducted to learn about human behavior for its own sake, and applied research is conducted to solve some practical problem. Both are valuable, and the distinction between the two is not always clear-cut. People’s intuitions about human behavior, also known as folk psychology, often turn out to be wrong. This is one primary reason that psychology relies on science rather than common sense. Researchers in psychology cultivate certain critical-thinking attitudes. One is skepticism. They search for evidence and consider alternatives before accepting a claim about human behavior as true. Another is tolerance for uncertainty. They withhold judgment about whether a claim is true or not when there is insufficient evidence to decide. Scientific research in psychology is conducted mainly by people with doctoral degrees in psychology and related fields, most of whom are college and university faculty members. They do so for professional and for personal reasons, as well as to contribute to scientific knowledge about human behavior. Most psychologists are experimental psychologists and they conduct research. The clinical practice of psychology—the diagnosis and treatment of psychological problems—is one important application of the scientific discipline of psychology. Scientific research is relevant to clinical practice because it provides detailed and accurate knowledge about psychological problems and establishes whether treatments are effective. Exercises Practice: Consider three things you know and determine how you acquired that knowledge (authority, intuition, rationalism, empiricism, the scientific method). Practice: Try to generate different research questions to describe, predict, and explain a phenomenon that interests you. Key Takeaways and Exercises | 19 Practice: Based on your own experience or on things you have already learned about psychology, list three basic research questions and three applied research questions of interest to you. Practice: List three empirical questions about human behavior. List three nonempirical questions about human behavior. Practice: For each of the following intuitive beliefs about human behavior, list three reasons that it might be true and three reasons that it might not be true: ◦ You cannot truly love another person unless you love yourself. ◦ People who receive “crisis counseling” immediately after experiencing a traumatic event are better able to cope with that trauma in the long term. ◦ Studying is most effective when it is always done in the same location. Watch the following video, in which psychologist Scott Lilienfeld talks about confirmation bias, tunnel vision, and using evidence to evaluate the world around us: One or more interactive elements has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view them online here: https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/?p=250#oembed-2 ◦ Reading in print? Go to https://youtu.be/gKVe0-pWjA0 or scan this QR code with your phone: Discussion: Consider the following psychological claim. “People’s choice of spouse is strongly influenced by their perception of their own parents. Some choose a spouse who is similar in some way to one of their parents. Others choose a spouse who is different from one of their parents.” Is this claim falsifiable? Why or why not? Discussion: People sometimes suggest that psychology cannot be a science because either (a) human behavior cannot be predicted with perfect accuracy or (b) much of its subject matter (e.g., thoughts and feelings) cannot be observed directly. Do you agree or disagree with each of these ideas? Why? Watch the following video by PHD Comics for an overview of open access publishing and why it matters: One or more interactive elements has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view them online here: https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/?p=250#oembed-1 ◦ Reading in print? Go to https://youtu.be/L5rVH1KGBCY or scan this QR code with your phone: 20 | Key Takeaways and Exercises Discussion: Some clinicians argue that what they do is an “art form” based on intuition and personal experience and therefore cannot be evaluated scientifically. Write a paragraph about how satisfied you would be with such a clinician and why from each of three perspectives: ◦ a potential client of the clinician ◦ a judge who must decide whether to allow the clinician to testify as an expert witness in a child abuse case ◦ an insurance company representative who must decide whether to reimburse the clinician for their services Practice: Create a short list of questions that a client could ask a clinician to determine whether they pay sufficient attention to scientific research. Video Attributions ESC 2017 – Scott Lilienfeld: “Tunnel Vision: Confirmation Bias” © ESC European Skeptics Congress is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license “Open Access Explained!” by Piled Higher and Deeper (PHD Comics). CC BY (Attribution) Key Takeaways and Exercises | 21 CHAPTER II OVERVIEW OF THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD Here is the abstract of a 2014 article in the journal Psychological Science. Taking notes on laptops rather than in longhand is increasingly common. Many researchers have suggested that laptop note taking is less effective than longhand note taking for learning. Prior studies have primarily focused on students’ capacity for multitasking and distraction when using laptops. The present research suggests that even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing. In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand. We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers’ tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and 1 reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning. (Mueler & Oppenheimer, 2014, p. 1159) In this abstract, the researcher has identified a research question—about the effect of taking notes on a laptop on learning—and identified why it is worthy of investigation—because the practice is ubiquitous and may be harmful to learning. In this chapter, we give you a broad overview of the various stages of the research process. These include finding a topic of investigation, reviewing the literature, refining your research question and generating a hypothesis, designing and conducting a study, analyzing the data, coming to conclusions, and reporting the results. Notes 1. Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014). The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking. Psychological Science, 25(6), 1159-1168. Overview of the Scientific Method | 23 7. A Model of Scientific Research in Psychology Learning Objectives 1. Review a general model of scientific research in psychology. Figure 2.1 presents a simple model of scientific research in psychology. The researchers formulate a research question, conduct an empirical study designed to answer the question, analyze the resulting data, draw conclusions about the answer to the question, and publishes the results so that they become part of the research literature (i.e., all the published research in that field). Because the research literature is one of the primary sources of new research questions, this process can be thought of as a cycle. New research leads to new questions, which lead to new research, and so on. Figure 2.1 also indicates that research questions can originate outside of this cycle either with informal observations or with practical problems that need to be solved. But even in these cases, the researcher would start by checking the research literature to see if the question had already been answered and to refine it based on what previous research had already found. Figure 2.1 A Simple Model of Scientific Research in Psychology A Model of Scientific Research in Psychology | 25 The research by Mehl and his colleagues is described nicely by this model. Their research question—whether women are more talkative than men—was suggested to them both by people’s stereotypes and by claims published in the research literature about the relative talkativeness of women and men. When they checked the research literature, however, they found that this question had not been adequately addressed in scientific studies. They then conducted a careful empirical study, analyzed the results (finding very little difference between women and men), formed their conclusions, and published their work so that it became part of the research literature. The publication of their article is not the end of the story, however, because their work suggests many new questions (about the reliability of the result, about potential cultural differences, etc.) that will likely be taken up by them and by other researchers inspired by their work. One or more interactive elements has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view them online here: https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/?p=32#oembed-1 As another example, consider that as cell phones became more widespread during the 1990s, people began to wonder whether, and to what extent, cell phone use had a negative effect on driving. Many psychologists decided to tackle this question scientifically (e.g., Collet, 1 Guillot, & Petit, 2010). It was clear from previously published research that engaging in a simple verbal task impairs performance on a perceptual or motor task carried out at the same time, but no one had studied the effect specifically of cell phone use on driving. Under carefully controlled conditions, these researchers compared people’s driving performance while using a cell phone with their performance while not using a cell phone, both in the lab and on the road. They found Reading in print? Scan this QR code that people’s ability to detect road hazards, reaction time, and maintain to view the video on your mobile device. Or go to youtu.be/ control of the vehicle were all impaired by cell phone use. Each new study XToWVxS_9lA was published and became part of the growing research literature on this topic. For instance, other research teams subsequently demonstrated that cell phone conversations carry a greater risk than conversations with a passenger who is aware of driving conditions, which often become a 2 point of conversation (e.g., Drews, Pasupathi, & Strayer, 2004). Video Attributions “Understanding driver distraction” by American Psychological Association. Standard YouTube Licence. 26 | A Model of Scientific Research in Psychology Notes 1. Collet, C., Guillot, A., & Petit, C. (2010). Phoning while driving I: A review of epidemiological, psychological, behavioral and physiological studies. Ergonomics, 53, 589–601. 2. Drews, F. A., Pasupathi, M., & Strayer, D. L. (2004). Passenger and cell-phone conversations in simulated driving. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 48, 2210–2212. A Model of Scientific Research in Psychology | 27 8. Finding a Research Topic Learning Objectives 1. Learn some common sources of research ideas. 2. Define the research literature in psychology and give examples of sources that are part of the research literature and sources that are not. 3. Describe and use several methods for finding previous research on a particular research idea or question. Good research must begin with a good research question. Yet coming up with good research questions is something that novice researchers often find difficult and stressful. One reason is that this is a creative process that can appear mysterious—even magical—with experienced researchers seeming to pull interesting research questions out of thin air. However, psychological research on creativity has shown that it is neither as mysterious nor as magical as it appears. It is largely the product of ordinary thinking 1 strategies and persistence (Weisberg, 1993). This section covers some fairly simple strategies for finding general research ideas, turning those ideas into empirically testable research questions, and finally evaluating those questions in terms of how interesting they are and how feasible they would be to answer. Finding Inspiration Research questions often begin as more general research ideas—usually focusing on some behavior or psychological characteristic: talkativeness, learning, depression, bungee jumping, and so on. Before looking at how to turn such ideas into empirically testable research questions, it is worth looking at where such ideas come from in the first place. Three of the most common sources of inspiration are informal observations, practical problems, and previous research. Informal observations include direct observations of our own and others’ behavior as well as secondhand observations from non-scientific sources such as newspapers, books, blogs, and so on. For example, you might notice that you always seem to be in the slowest moving line at the grocery store. Could it be that most people think the same thing? Or you might read in a local newspaper about people donating money and food to a local family whose house has burned down and begin to wonder about who makes such donations and why. Some of the most famous research in psychology has been inspired by informal observations. Stanley Milgram’s famous research on obedience to authority, for example, was inspired in part by journalistic reports of the trials of accused Nazi war criminals—many of whom claimed that they 28 | Finding a Research Topic were only obeying orders. This led him to wonder about the extent to which ordinary people will commit 2 immoral acts simply because they are ordered to do so by an authority figure (Milgram, 1963). Practical problems can also inspire research ideas, leading directly to applied research in such domains as law, health, education, and sports. Does taking lecture notes by hand improve students’ exam performance? How effective is psychotherapy for depression compared to drug therapy? To what extent do cell phones impair people’s driving ability? How can we teach children to read more efficiently? What is the best mental preparation for running a marathon? Probably the most common inspiration for new research ideas, however, is previous research. Recall that science is a kind of large-scale collaboration in which many different researchers read and evaluate each other’s work and conduct new studies to build on it. Of course, experienced researchers are familiar with previous research in their area of expertise and probably have a long list of ideas. This suggests that novice researchers can find inspiration by consulting with a more experienced researcher (e.g., students can consult a faculty member). But they can also find inspiration by picking up a copy of almost any professional journal and reading the titles and abstracts. In one typical issue of Psychological Science, for example, you can find articles on the perception of shapes, anti-Semitism, police lineups, the meaning of death, second- language learning, people who seek negative emotional experiences, and many other topics. If you can narrow your interests down to a particular topic (e.g., memory) or domain (e.g., health care), you can also look through more specific journals, such as Memory & Cognition or Health Psychology. One or more interactive elements has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view them online here: https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/psychmethods4e/?p=34#oembed-1 Finding a Research Topic | 29 Reviewing the Research Literature Once again, one of the most common sources of inspiration is previous research. Therefore, it is important to review the literature early in the research process. The research literature in any field is all the published research in that field. Reviewing the research literature means finding, reading, and summarizing the published research relevant to your topic of interest. In addition to helping you discover new research questions, reviewing the literature early in the research process can help you in several other ways. It can tell you if a research question has already been answered. It can help you evaluate the interestingness of a research question. Reading in print? Scan this QR code It can give you ideas for how to conduct your own study. to view the video on your mobile device. Or go to https://youtu.be/ It can tell you how your study fits into the research literature. nXNztCLYgxc The research literature in psychology is enormous—including millions of scholarly articles and books dating to the beginning of the field—and it continues to grow. Although its boundaries are somewhat fuzzy, the research literature definitely does not include self-help and other pop psychology books, dictionary and encyclopedia entries, websites, and similar sources that are intended mainly for the general public. These are considered unreliable because they are not reviewed by other researchers and are often based on little more than common sense or personal experience. Wikipedia contains much valuable information, but because its authors are anonymous and may not have any formal training or expertise in that subject area, and its content continually changes it is unsuitable as a basis of sound scientific research. For our purposes, it helps to define the research literature as consisting almost entirely of two types of sources: articles in professional journals, and scholarly books in psychology and related fields. Professional Journals Professional journals are periodicals that publish original research articles. There are thousands of professional journals that publish research in psychology and related fields. They are usually published monthly or quarterly in individual issues, each of which contains several articles. The issues are organized into volumes, which usually consist of all the issues for a calendar year. Some journals are published in hard copy only, others in both hard copy and electronic form, and still others in electronic form only. Most articles in professional journals are one of two basic types: empirical research reports and review articles. Empirical research reports describe one or more new empirical studies conducted by the authors. They introduce a research question, explain why it is interesting, review previous research, describe their method and results, and draw their conclusions. Review articles summarize previously published research on a topic and usually present new ways to organize or explain the results. When a review article is devoted 30 | Finding a Research Topic primarily to presenting a new theory, it is often referred to as a theoretical article. When a review article provides a statistical summary of all of the previous results it is referred to as a meta-analysis. Figure 2.2 Small Sample of the Thousands of Professional Journals That Publish Research in Psychology and Related Fields Most professional journals in psychology undergo a process of double-blind peer review. Researchers who want to publish their work in the journal submit a manuscript to the editor—who is generally an established researcher too—who in turn sends it to two or three experts on the topic. Each reviewer reads the manuscript, writes a critical but constructive review, and sends the review back to the editor along with recommendations about whether the manuscript should be published or not. The editor then decides whether to accept the article for publication, ask the authors to make changes and resubmit it for further consideration, or reject it outright. In any case, the editor forwards the reviewers’ written comments to the researchers so that they can revise their manuscript accordingly. This entire process is double-blind, as the reviewers do not know the identity of the researcher(s) and vice versa. Double-blind peer review is helpful because it ensures that the work meets basic standards of the field before it can enter the research literature. However, in order to increase transparency and accountability, some newer open access journals Finding a Research Topic | 31 (e.g., Frontiers in Psychology) utilize an open peer review process wherein the identities of the reviewers (which remain concealed during the peer review process) are published alongside the journal article. Scholarly Books Scholarly books are books written by researchers and practitioners mainly for use by other researchers and practitioners. A monograph is written by a single author or a small group of authors and usually, gives a coherent presentation of a topic much like an extended review article. Edited volumes have an editor or a small group of editors who recruit many authors to write separate chapters on different aspects of the same topic. Although edited volumes can also give a coherent presentation of the topic, it is not unusual for each chapter to take a different perspective or even for the authors of different chapters to openly disagree with each other. In general, scholarly books undergo a peer review process similar to that used by professional journals. Literature Search Strategies Using PsycINFO and Other Databases The primary method used to search the research literature involves using one or more electronic databases. These include Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and ProQuest for all academic disciplines, ERIC for education, and PubMed for medicine and related fields. The most important for our purposes, however, is PsycINFO, which is produced by the American Psychological Association (APA). PsycINFO is so comprehensive—covering thousands of professional journals and scholarly books going back more than 100 years—that for most purposes its content is synonymous with the research literature in psychology. Like most such databases, PsycINFO is usually available through your university library. PsycINFO consists of individual records for each article, book chapter, or book in the database. Each record includes basic publication information, an abstract or summary of the work (like the one presented at the start of this chapter), and a list of other works cited by that work. A computer interface allows entering one or more search terms and returns any records that contain those search terms. (These interfaces are provided by different vendors and therefore can look somewhat different depending on the library you use.) Each record also contains lists of keywords that describe the content of the work and also a list of index terms. The index terms are especially helpful because they are standardized. Research on differences between females and males, for example, is always indexed under “Human Sex Differences.” Research on note-taking is always indexed under the term “Learning Strategies.” If you do not know the appropriate index terms, PsycINFO includes a thesaurus that can help you find them. Given that there are nearly four million records in PsycINFO, you may have to try a variety of search terms in different combinations and at different levels of specificity before you find what you are looking for. 32 | Finding a Research Topic Imagine, for example, that you are interested in the question of whether males and females differ in terms of their ability to recall experiences from when they were very young. If you were to enter the search term “memory,” it would return far too many records to look through individually. This is where the thesaurus helps. Entering “memory” into the thesaurus provides several more specific index terms—one of which is “early memories.” While searching for “early memories” among the index terms still returns too many to look through individually—combining it with “human sex differences” as a second search term returns fewer articles, many of which are highly relevant to the topic. Depending on the vendor that provides the interface to PsycINFO, you may be able to save, print, or e- mail the relevant PsycINFO records. The records might even contain links to full-text copies of the works themselves. (PsycARTICLES is a database that provides full-text access to articles in all journals published by the APA.) If not, and you want a copy of the work, you will have to find out if your library carries the journal or has the book and the hard copy on the library shelves. Be sure to ask a librarian if you need help. https://youtu.be/fhhctbaVXvk QR code that links to PsycINFO video Reading in print? Scan this QR code to view the video on yo

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