用户:Grotton JXz Donbrako/Psychology/Chapter 2
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Research Methods
- "How do you do research in psychology?"
- Psychology uses the scientific process:
- Question
- Hypothesis
- Prediction
- Data
- Interpretation
- Hindsight bias is the tendency of people to overestimate their ability to have predicted an outcome that could not possibly have been predicted.
- However, the goal of science is to be predictive; that is, determine an outcome before it happens, not after.
- Research question:
- What are some relationships between these variables
- Coffee intake and running speed?
- Showering and body odor?
- Studying and grades?
- Mass of an object and its gravitational force?
- Hypothesis: Usually an ‘if, then’ statement or simply a prediction about some event.
- "If people are given money, they experience greater happiness than if given candy."
- ↑How do we measure happiness?
- Independent variable: The variable that influences the dependent variable.
- Dependent variable: A variable that depends on the independent variable.
- Theory: aims to explain a broad set of phenomenon.
- Operational Definitions：Definitions of variables in research need to be quantifiable and observable. They need to be operationally defined.
- "Research aims to be valid and reliable"
- Validity refers to whether the research measures what the researchers set out to measure.
- "If you have a scale, and it says you weigh 100lbs., but on every other scale you step on, the scale says 180lbs., the scale would not be a ‘valid’ measure of your weight."
- Reliability refers to whether the same results can be produced under similar conditions.
- "If you stepped on the scale and it said 100lbs., and then five minutes later stepped on the same scale again, and it said 130lbs., the scale would not be a ‘reliable’ measure of your weight."
- Validity refers to whether the research measures what the researchers set out to measure.
- Participants are the people or subjects in your study.
- Sampling: The selection of participants.
- Population is the large set of individuals from which a sample was taken.
- Representative: A sample that accurately reflects the larger population.
- "Wearing a red shirt in a large crowd gets you more attention."
- What is my hypothesis?
- What must be operationally defined?
- Who is my sample?
- Who is my population?
- Is the sample representative?
- Random Selection means that every member of the population has an equal chance of being selected.
- How could we randomly select in the previous example?
- Stratified Sampling: A process that allows a researcher to ensure the sample represents the population on some criteria.
- If I want to research whether different racial groups respond differently to a survey, I could select 10 Caucasians, 10 Asians, 10 African Americans…
- Psychologists prefer experiments because they can establish a cause-effect relationship.
- Laboratory Experiments are conducted in a lab.
- Field Experiments are conducted in the ‘real’ world. Researchers go out and manipulate some variable and observe the effect.
- Confounding variable: A confounding variable is any difference between the experimental controls and the control conditions, except for the independent variable, that might affect the dependent variable.
- A researcher must try to isolate variables or control for “confounding variables”
- "If I am studying whether the amount of time spent studying is associated with better grades, what are variables that may influence this relationship other than studying?"
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