2.2 - Scientific Research Design

Question 1

What is Research Design & Influences how investigators. . .?

Answer 1

a set of methods that allows a hypothesis to be tested.

Influences how investigators:

1) organize the stimuli used to test the hypothesis
2) make observations
3) evaluate the results

Question 2

Variables

Answer 2

is a property of an object, organism, event, or something else that can take on different values.

(ex. how frequently you laugh)

Question 3

Operational Definitions

Answer 3

are the details that define the variables for the purposes of a specific study.

(ex. score on the “Coping Humour Scale”)

Question 4

Data

Answer 4

the information scientists record when they
collect observations about the variables of interest.

(ex. the scores of participants on the “Coping Humour Scale”)

Question 5

Descriptive Research

Answer 5

answers the question of “what” a phenomenon is (describes its characteristics).

(ex. How many words can the average two-year-old speak?)

Question 6

Case Study

Answer 6

is an in-depth report about the details of a specific case.

(ex. describe an individual’s history and behaviour in great detail rather than developing a hypothesis and testing in one a # of different individuals)
* used for/limited to individuals with uncommon characteristics or been through unusual experiences.
* useful in describing symptoms of psychological disorders and detailed descriptions about successes & failures in treatment
* used to find similarities between different concepts
(ex. studied one individual for 16 weeks & documented how and when changes occurred and effects of the treatment. If it were more than a single individual, findings cannot be generalized to other individuals and situations)

Strength : Yields detailed info, often of rare conditions or observations

Limitations : Focus on single subject limits generalizability

Question 7

Phineas Gage

Answer 7

• most famous case study in psychology (& neurology)
• iron rod penetrated his brain & caused major damage but he survived
• after affects : became impulsive, inconsiderate, indecisive, impatient
• Dr. Harlow stuck his finger into the hole in Gage’s head & discovered the damage was located in the frontal lobes of the brain (area involving decision making & emotional regulation)
• Gage’s case study allowed for better understanding of the role of the frontal lobes & the problems that occur when damaged
• taught us how different areas of the brain influence particular behaviours

Question 8

Amygdala

Answer 8

• a fear centre in the brain
• essential for emotional info to grab our attention

(ex. attention always drawn to a spider crawling across your ceiling)

Question 9

PTSD

Answer 9

Postraumatic Stress Disorder

a condition in which specific stimuli trigger intense emotional responses due to a previous traumatic event.

Question 10

Brandon Wagar & Paul Thagard

Answer 10

created a computerized neural network that used both cognitive and emotional info to produce simple decisions.

Experiment : altered parameters so that the frontal lobe node did not function

Result : network’s response became dependent upon emotional impulses (similar to Phineas Gage)

Question 11

Naturalistic Observations

Answer 11

to unobtrusively (without subject’s knowledge) observe & record behaviour as it occurs in the subject’s natural environment.

*researchers must pay attention to specific variables and use operational definitions

Strength : allows for detailed descriptions of subjects in environments where behaviour normally occurs

Limitations : Poor control over possibly influential variables

Question 12

Self-reporting

Answer 12

a method in which responses are provided directly by the people who are being studied, typically through face-face interviews, phone surveys, paper and pencil tests, and web-based questionnaires.

allows for assessment of attitudes, opinions, beliefs, abilities

Question 13

When psychologists observe behaviour & record data in the environment where it normally occurs they are using ______.

Answer 13

Naturalistic Observation

Question 14

Any property of an organism, event, or something else that can take on different values is called ______.

Answer 14

A variable

Question 15

A psychologist is completing a naturalistic observation study of children’s aggressive behaviour on a playground. She says that aggression is “any verbal or physical act that appears to be intended to hurt or control another child.” She then goes on to list specific examples. It appears that the psychologist is attempting to establish a(n)?

Answer 15

Operational Definition

Question 16

Correlational Research

Answer 16

involves measuring the degree of association between two or more variables.

(ex. What is the average education level of people in every country in the world?)
* presented with scatterplot

• correlations take a direction
• if correlations are positive, the two variables change in the same direction (ex. if one value increases, the other does as well)
• if correlations are negative, the value of one variable increases and the value of the other decreases
• correlations have magnitude or strength
• refers to how closely the changes in one variable are linked to changes in another variable
  (ex. if variable A goes up 1 unit, variable B also go up one unit)
• this magnitude = correlation coefficient

Strength : shows strength of relationships between variables

Limitations : Does not allow researcher to determine cause-and-effect relationships

Question 17

Correlation Coefficient

Answer 17

a measure of association

• not a measure of causuality
• correlation =/= causation

(ex. sense of humour is associated with good health, they have a positive correlation relationship, but that does not mean humour is responsible for good health)

• correlation coefficient of 0 = no relationship between the two variables
• +1.0 = very strong positive correlation
• -1.0 = very strong negative correlation
• +1.0 & -1.0 have equal magnitude or strength, but have different direction

Question 18

Third Variable Problem

Answer 18

the possibility that a third, unmeasured variable is actually responsible for a well-established correlation between two variables

(ex. negative correlation between sleep and irritation, there could be third variables that account for this relationship - stress, diet, etc could have caused both increased irritability and sleep loss)

Question 19

Illusionary Correlations

Answer 19

relationships that exist only in the mind, rather than in reality

Question 20

Which of the following correlation coefficients show the strongest relationship between two variables?

A) +0.5
B) -0.7
C) +1.1
D) +1.0

Answer 20

-0.7

This is a strong negative correlation. The strength of the relationship is strongest because it is closer to -1.0 than either +0.5 or +1.0. Correlation coefficients cannot go above 1.0

Question 21

What does it mean to say that two variables are negatively correlated?

Answer 21

An increase in one variable is associated with a decrease in the other

Question 22

Imagine Dr. Martin finds that a sense of humour is positively correlated with psychological well-being. From this, we can conclude that?

A) Humour causes people to be healthier
B) Health causes people to be funnier
C) People who have a good sense of humour tend to be healthier
D) People who have a good sense of humour tend to be less healthy

Answer 22

People who have a good sense of humour tend to be healthier

*correlation is not a cause!

Question 23

Experimental Research

Answer 23

• min. of two variables
• random assignment of participants
• experimenter’s control over variables being studied

Strength : tests for cause-and effect relationships; offers good control over influential variables

Limitations : Risk of being artificial with limited generalization to real-world situations

Question 24

Random assignment

Answer 24

a technique for dividing samples into two or more groups in which participants are equally likely to be placed in any condition of the experiment

Question 25

Confounding variable

Answer 25

a variable outside the researcher’s control that might affect or provide an alternative explanation for the results

Question 26

Independent variable

Answer 26

the variable that the experimenter manipulates to distinguish between two or more groups

*cannot be altered by participants, only controlled by the researcher

Question 27

Dependent variable

Answer 27

is the observation or measurement that is recorded during the experiment and subsequently compared across all groups

Question 28

Between-subjects Design

Answer 28

an experimental design in which we compare the performance of participants who are in different groups

Question 29

Experimental Group

Answer 29

is the group in the experiment that receives a treatment or the stimuli targeting a specific behaviour

Question 30

Control Group

Answer 30

is the group that does not receive the treatment or stimuli targeting a specific behaviour; this group therefore serves as a baseline to which the experimental group is compared

Question 31

Within-subjects Design

Answer 31

an experimental design in which the same participants respond to all types of stimuli or experience all experimental conditions

Question 32

Quasi-experimental research

Answer 32

a research technique in which the two or more groups that are compared are selected based on predetermined characteristics, rather than random assignment

*can point out relationships among preexisting groups, but cannot determine what about those groups lead to the differences

Question 33

Surveys/Questionnaires

Answer 33

Strength : quick and often convenient way of gathering large quantities of self-report data

Limitations : Poor control; participants may not answer honestly, written responses may not be truly representative of actual behaviour

Question 34

Converging Operations

Answer 34

when a theory’s predictions hold up to dozens of tests using a variety of designs

Question 35

The process of setting up two or more groups in an experiment is called ______.

Answer 35

Random Assignment

Question 36

A researcher sets up an experiment to test a new antidepressant medication. One group receives the treatment, and the other receives a placebo. The researcher then measures depression using a standardized self-report measure. What is the independent variable in this case?

Answer 36

Whether the individuals received the treatment or a placebo

Question 37

A researcher compares a group of Conservatives and Liberals on a measure of beliefs about poverty. What makes this a quasi-experimental design?

Answer 37

The researcher is comparing pre-existing groups, rather than randomly assigning people to them

Question 38

A researcher is able to conduct an experiment on study habits in his laboratory and finds some exciting results. What is one possible shortcoming of using this method?

Answer 38

Results from laboratory experiments do not always generalize to real-world situations