PSYC 359 1st Edition Lecture 3Outline of Last Lecture I. The early history and important figures of social psychologyII. How Psychology has developed since the 1930’sOutline of Current LectureII. Basic Applied Psychologya. DefinitionIII. Conceptual Variables and Operational DefinitionsIV.Construct ValidityV.Measuring Variablesa.Self-Report/ObservationVI. Research DesignsVII.Correlation vs. ExperimentsVIII.Types of Variablea.Independent/dependent/confoundingIX.EthicsCurrent LectureX. Why should we learn about research methods?a. Be as objective as possibleXI. What are theories?a. There are many theories that create a big picture, not just one main theoryXII. Basic and applied researcha. Basic research: goal is to increase our understand of human behaviori. Ex. academic researchii. Universities, hospitals are main origins of this type of researchiii. The goal is to get published in academic/peer review journal (proves legitimacy)b. Applied research: goal is to enlarge our understanding of naturally occurring eventsi. Uses a lot of the theories scientific methodsii. Most of the researches are conducted by organizations, hospitals, and in the field professionalsiii. The main goal is not to get published, but to find solutions to practical problemsiv. This include a lot of marketing research, community investigation, program evaluation, etcv. They are also usually not experimental, but kept within the organizationXIII. Conceptual variables and operational definitionsa. Conceptual variables are abstract or general variablesb. An operational definition states specifically how the conceptual variable will be manipulated or measuredi. Independent: the variable that we can control and manipulated1. Are they anxious?ii. Dependent: the variable that change as the result of the change in the independent variable (the variable we measure)1. How many people say they would wait with someone or sit by themselves?iii. Operational: variable is that which defines a variable in terms of operations that are used to measure it.1. Really defining itXIV. Construct Validitya. Refers to the extent to which: i. The manipulations in an experiment really manipulate the conceptual variable they were designed to manipulate1. Ex. Measure perspiration; anxious2. Experimental: anxiousness3. Control group: not anxious4. Intervening variablesa. White coat anxietyb. Short sleeve t-shirtii. The purpose is to makes sure that the measures used in a study really measure the conceptual variables they were designed to measureXV. Measuring variables:a. Self-reportsi. Usually not truthfulii. Reason: may not remember; biased; might want to enhance oneself; interpretation may differ; wording/answer choice; “socially acceptable responses”b. Observationsi. Record overt behaviorii. Conduct observed experiment; presence of another individualXVI. Research designsa. Descriptive researchi. Look to statistics on certain group of people (population)ii. Ex. GPA studyb. Correlation researchi. Relationship between variables (two things) we aren’t able to manipulateii. Types of correlation: positive, negative, and none (not causational) 1. Three possibilitiesc. Experiments (let us conduc our own experiments)i. Laboratory experiments1. Field XVII. Correlations vs. Experimentsa.
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