Methods of Psychology Monday August 26 2013 Clever Hans German psychologist believed horses were much smarter than they were allowed to be Educated the horse Clever Hans for several years on subjects such as history arithmetic science etc The horse never truly learned these subjects but rather queued into what the audience wanted The instructor s expectations influenced the outcome of the experiments Double blind experiment neither patients nor doctors know who has real medicine and who has the placebo Observer expectancy effects Facilitated communication scientists attempted to break through to handicapped persons so they d communicate Anti science the attempted study of phenomena Therapeutic touch rearrange patient s life energy Lessons from Clever Hans 1 All people are gullible so it is important to be skeptical also be open minded 2 Any finding must be verified by careful observations made under controlled conditions Beware of pseudoscience and anti science 3 Methodologies used to make observations must rule out all biases such as observer expectancy effects Three Main Types of Research Designs Descriptive Studies Describe the behavior of individuals or groups Does not always use measurements or quantifications Example Harlow s study of love in infant monkeys Correlational Studies Measure variables that are not manipulated by the researcher and look for relationships Example job satisfaction and performance relationship is correlation 1 to 1 A correlation does not mean causality Relationships can be more complex Interaction relationships between two variables depends on a third variable Experiments An independent variable is manipulated by a researcher A dependent variable is then measured Test hypotheses about cause and effect Inferential Statistics Assists in concluding if two groups are different The question of statistical significance If the P value is 5 then it is considered statistically significant Gives the probability of the difference occurring by chance between 1 to 100 Increase statistical significance by Increase the size of the effect Increase number of subjects Decrease variability within each group Experiments Example Hypothesis Alcohol impairs driving ability Independent variable experimental group alcohol control group placebo Dependent variable number of collisions lane keeping etc Research setting laboratory driving stimulator Other Independent variables cell phone talking texting age fog glare etc Laboratory vs Field test real world versus lab setting Setting depends on experiment and results can vary due to setting In the lab you can control things much more carefully less variability Three Dimensions of Research Strategies 1 Research Designs Descriptive studies Correlations studies Experiments 2 Research Settings 3 Data Collection Methods Self report Observational Laboratory studies more control Field studies confounds more likely and more generalizable