welcome to research i: the basics your career as a psychologist begins here! january 25-29, 2010 dr....

Welcome to Research I: The Basics

Your career as a psychologist begins here!

January 25-29, 2010

Dr. Leonard

What is psychology?• Psychology is a science that seeks to

systematically describe, explain, and predict human behavior and to apply that knowledge to improve people’s lives

• Psychologists are scientists because they rely on the scientific method to gather knowledge

• Psychology employs some of the same investigative tools as other sciences but has also created some of its own

Psychological sciencePsychology is a science because it employs…

… positivism, or the belief that knowledge can be gained through direct observation of the environment; truth can be discerned through rationalism

Positivism is rooted in the work of great thinkers like Aristotle, Hume, Descartes, and Comte

Psychological science

Psychology is a science because it employs…… empiricism, or the belief that knowledge can be gained

from inferring from interactions with the environment through systematic study; truth can be discerned through sensory experience - observation

Empiricism is seen as the offspring of positivism and was spread by the same thinkers and others, most notably Locke

Psychological sciencePsychology is a science because it employs…… determinism, or the belief that things happen for a reason

and those reasons can be determined

If we use science, we can be confident that we will discover the correct reasons

Statistical determinism involved calculating the probability that we will discover the correct reasons


Psychology is a science because it employs…… objectivity, or the aim to avoid emotion or bias in

the search for knowledge

Can humans truly be objective?

Replication, or the process of more than one person verifying a conclusion, is one way to work toward objectivity.


Psychology is a science because it is data-driven, meaning that any claim or any conclusion must have sufficient evidence to support it

The quality and quantity of the data matter in determining how sound a conclusion is


Psychology is science because conclusions are subject to revision, meaning it is understood or even expected that conclusions are tentative and may very well be overturned by follow-up studies

Again, demonstrates the importance of the replication of findings from any one study

Psychological science• Scientific method• Positivism• Empiricism• Determinism• Objective• Data-driven• Subject to revision

So how can you detect real science?

• Often we rely on other ways of knowing…– Authorities (“guru”, celebrity)– Past experience, anecdotes of people we know– Intuition, gut feeling– Rationalism or logic

• As a consumer of information, how do decide whether information is reliable?

• What are some of the criteria you depend on to judge “scientific” information?

Beware of pseudoscience

• Mimics science– Claims to use scientific method– Adopts scientific language

• Relies on anecdote, not data• Subjective• Avoids disconfirming evidence• Simplifies complex phenomena• Famous example in psychology: Phrenology• Another example: Magnet therapy

Before the research begins…Ethics

• Concern over ethical conduct in scientific research did not arise until after several major breaches occurred

• Famous breaches:– Medical experimentation under the Nazi regime– Jewish Chronic Disease Hospital– Tuskegee syphilis study– Lead abatement study in Baltimore– Willowbrook facility for mentally retarded children

• In the past, scientists had more freedom; standards not yet agreed upon for ethical research conduct– Whose responsibility is it to ensure ethics?

Before the research begins…Ethics

• Famous breaches in psychology:• 1928 - Watson & Rayner studies of fear

conditioning with “Little Albert”• 1962 - Milgram’s obedience studies• 1968 - Latane & Darley’s look into “bystander

effects”• 1971 - Zimbardo’s prison experiment• May be more difficult to determine risk in

behavioral research than medical research

Before the research begins…

Ethics• American Psychological Association

committee formed to continually survey psychologists for critical incidents

• APA (2002) guiding principles:1. Beneficence and non-malfeasance2. Fidelity and responsibility3. Integrity4. Justice5. Respect for people’s rights and dignity


Ethics• From your Patten (2009) text (for all research

with human subjects):1.Do no harm (physical or psychological)2.Right to privacy3.Data are confidential4.Right to knowledge of the purpose of the study5. Informed consent6.Debriefing

What would you do?• Eight year-old boy experiencing symptoms of ADD is

eligible for trial of new medication• The medication is likely to have a therapeutic benefit but

there is also a chance for side effects• Who should be asked for consent?• What would you do if the parents consented to enroll

their son in the study but then when you met with the son in privacy, he expressed some uncertainty and asked, “Will this pill really make me feel better?”

• If the study required taking the medication during school, how would you protect the confidentiality of the boy and others in the study?

What would you do?• A psychologist wants to study the effectiveness

of having h.s. students taught by same sex teachers in English classes. Deception would be used so that male and female students wouldn’t know that they were being observed in response to have male vs. female teachers. Parents and students would be told the study is about classroom climate.

• Would the use of deception be justified?• How would you debrief the students?

What would you do?

• A neuropsychology grad student is doing research on the CNS. His advisor informs him that the only way to test his hypothesis is to perform surgery on conscious rats who have not been given any pain medication but have been anesthetized with carbon dioxide, risking brain damage. The surgery involves removing limbs and stimulating interneurons in the CNS. Typically, the rats do not live longer than 8 hours post-surgery.


Theory• Good research is informed by theory, or “a unified

explanation for discrete observations that might otherwise be viewed as unrelated”– From theory, researchers deduce testable hypotheses,

or predictions• Deduction: general to specific

– From observations, researchers induce theory• Induction: specific to general

• Scientists never claim theories are proven, rather data “lend support” or “fail to provide evidence” for a given theory


TheoryGood theories are…• Productive; advance knowledge phenomena by

exciting interest and generating research• Falsifiable; open to being tested and even

disconfirmed; only claim to be potentially true -- Karl Popper (1959)

• Parsimonious; contain the minimum number of assumptions needed to explain a phenomenon


Theory• How could we empirically test the following “theories”?

(or, can you convert these theories into testable hypotheses?)

• Women are morally superior to men

• Children are doomed to repeat the mistakes of their parents

• People are generally good at heart


Literature review• If your research is going to increase

knowledge and be of interest to others, you must understand what’s already been done!

• At this point in most scientific fields, very little research is not an extension of existing research– There’s nothing new under the sun


Literature review• After thoroughly searching previously published

research, one may decide to:1. Conduct a strict replication of a previous study2. Conduct a modified replication of a study3. Set out to resolve a conflict between studies

• Reviewing previous research is the best way to learn about measures, method, and style of scientific writing used

welcome to research i: the basics your career as a psychologist begins here! january 25-29, 2010 dr....

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