All Research Methods Flashcards
What are the two types of self-reporting data?
- Questionnaires
- Interviews
What are Questionnaires?
- Respondents recording their own answers
- Written form
- No face-to-face contact with another person
What are the Strengths for questionnaires (& interviews)?
Genuine/Personal answers
- Respondents reveal more personal answers as they may be anonymous & record the data themselves
Quickly & Easily repeated
- Large numbers of people can do it at the same time → quick info collected
What are the Weakness for questionnaires (& interviews)?
Social Desirability
- Respondents answer questions a certain way that makes them look better as they don’t want to look foolish
Bias
- If all statements in a set of statements are worded favourable/unfavourably → respondents can slip into agreeing/disagreeing with all of them
What type of questions are there?
Open Questions
- Allow the respondent to answer in any way they like - Produce Qualitative data - E.g. Begin questions with ‘How’ or ‘Why’
Closed Questions
Fixed number of possible answers
E.g.
- Yes/No question
- Multiple choice questions - nominal data
- Ranked scales - interval/ratio data
- Likert scale - offers a statement (not a question), nominal
orinterval/ratio level data
- Semantic Differential scale - nominal data or interval/ratio data
What are the strengths for open questions?
Detail
- Provides rich detail answers as it allows people to express their answers freely - Increases validity of data collected
Unexpected findings
- Freely answered - means there can be unexpected findings that closed questions can’t obtain (due to it being limited)
What are the weaknesses for open questions?
Conclusions
- Difficult to draw conclusions because the answers are freely answered & not structured
Subjective
- Interpreting what people mean with the freely expressed answers means that it’s subjective (each researcher having different interpretations)
What are the strengths for closed questions?
Easy analysis - conclusions
- Easy to analyse as the data is Quantitative so conclusions can be easily drawn
Objective
- Objective answers can be made because the limited answers can easily be interpreted the same by researchers
What are the weaknesses for closed questions?
Lack of detail
- Cannot express exact feelings & discover new insights because the researcher determined the choice of answers (limited question) - Data collection low in validity
Oversimplifies
- Oversimplifies human experiences as it suggests that there’s simple answers but respondent may want to express several different views
What type of interviews are there & explain what they are about?
Unstructured Interview
- Loose research aim - Interviewer needs to be skilled at achieving a good rapport - Long and expressive answers - not limited - Gathers qualitative data
Structured Interview
- Standardised - controlled → all respondents are asked the same questions in the same way - Must answer the research aim - Using closed questions - Gather Quantitative data
Semi-structured Interview
- Conversational & dynamic
- Standardised format to follow
- Conversations can flow whilst still achieving the research aim & getting relevant information from respondents
- Gather both Qualitative & Quantitative data
What are Researcher Effects?
- Interviewer characteristics (sex, age, manner & personality) can influence the respondents answer’s
- Important to predict what characteristics might influence respondents & control them
What is a Alternative hypothesis?
There is a relationship between the two variables being studied (one variable has an effect on the other).
What are Sampling Techniques?
- Selecting a small group of participants is a sample
- Unlikely that a whole population can be studied → so sample of the population is gathered using a sampling technique
What different types of sampling techniques are there?
Random Sample
- A sample of participants using a random technique - everyone has an equal chance of being selected
Stratified Sample
- Researcher identifies the different types of people that make up the target population & ensures that every characteristic is represented in the sample
Volunteer Sample
- Self-selecting participants take part (choose to take part themselves rather then being approached or asked by a researcher) by placing an advert in a newspaper
Opportunity Sample
- Asking participants who are available at that time
What are the strengths & weaknesses for these different types of sampling techniques?
Random Sample
- Strengths?
- Unbiased - all members of the target population have an equal chance of selection
- Weaknesses?
- Time-consuming; need to obtain a list of all members in your target population, then identify the sample, then contact the people to ask to take part
Stratified Sample
- Strengths?
- Most representative → all subgroups are represented
- Specific subgroups chosen according to the important variables (considered by the researcher) → control over any extraneous variables
- Weaknesses?
- Decision to which subgroup may be used is biased → reducing representativeness of the sample
- Long method & participants may not agree to take part→ time-consuming
Volunteer Sample
- Strengths?
- Convenient way to find willing participants & are less likely to drop out as they volunteered
- Good way to get specialised students for that specific study (putting up an advert near a medical school if the topic is on medical students)
- Weaknesses?
- Sample biased → volunteer pps have more time in their hands & highly motivated than the population in general
- Volunteers may be willing to be more helpful → guessing the aims of the study → demand characteristics
Opportunity Sample
- Strengths?
- Quick & less time → just use the first participants you can find
- Weaknesses?
- Biased → sample is drawn from a small part of the target population → not representative
What types of Data tables are there & what are they about?
Raw data table:
Of all individual values measures in the study
Frequency table:
Shows how many times the scores occurred in a data set
What are the Measures of Central Tendency?
What’s the arithmetic mean?
- It’s calculated by adding up all of the values in a data set & dividing the total by the number of scores collected
What’s the Median?
- Middle value when placed in order
What’s Mode?
- Most frequent score in a data set
What are the Measures of Dispersion?
What’s the Range?
- Difference between highest & lowest
What’s Standard Deviation?
- Distance each score is from the mean
What’s a bar graph?
- Used to present data from a categorical variable, e.g. mean, median or mode
- Placed on the x-axis & the height of the bars represents the value of that variable
- Spaces between bars
What’s a histogram?
- Present the distribution of scores by illustrating the frequency of values in the data set
- No spaces between bars - bars joined together to represent continuous data rather than categorical data
- Values represented on x-axis & height of each bar represents the frequency of the value
What are experiments?
Laboratory Experiment: controlled env
Field Experiment: natural env
Features of experiments:
- Variable manipulated
- Effect can be measured
- Maintain control over other variables
- Set up situation where PPs perform a task
- Performance of task is measured
Exp method:
Theory proposed -> Hypothesis made based on theory -> Variable manipulated (IV) -> Performance measured (DV) -> Theory supported/refuted due to outcome
What type of hypothesis are there?
(One tailed) Directional hypothesis: Direction of results can be predicted
e.g. children will spend longer washing the dishes the more praise they receive
(Two tailed) Non-directional hypothesis: Change or difference is predicted but NOT direction
e.g. praise will affect the time children spend washing dishes
Null Hypothesis: states that there is no difference between groups or no relationship between variables
Experimental/Alternative Hypothesis: Predicting the results of the exp
What types of variables are there?
Independent Variable: Changed by researcher (to see if it causes a change to the dependent variable)
Dependent Variable: Measured, affected by the change of IV
Operationalisation: elaborating what the variables are & how they will be measured
Extraneous variables: Factors that may have an unwanted effect on the DV (that u are not studying)
Confounding variables: Affects study findings directly, that you are no longer measuring what was intended
Situational Variables: Factors in the env affecting exp
Participant Variables: Individual characteristics that affect how a pp responds in exp
What are experimenter effects & demand characteristics?
Experimenter effects: experimenter influence the outcome of an experiment by their actions or presence
Demand characteristics: effect of experimenter causes pps to change their behaviour to meet expectations
What are experimental controls?
Controlling variables that may influence outcomes in exps
Standardisation: Making an exp the same for all pps - highly controlled
Single blind procedure: Pp unaware of the aim of the exp
Double blind procedure: neither the participants nor the experimenters are aware of the aim of the exp
What type of experimental designs are there?
Independent groups: diff people used in each condition
- ppl less likely to guess the aim (don’t know other conditions) -> demand characteristics reduced
- BUT means you need twice as much pps & will be individual characteristics/participant variables between groups (individual diff prevented by random allocation)
Repeated Measures: All pps take part in all conditions
- less pps, reduces individual differences/participant variables
- BUT demand characteristics & order effects increase (practice & fatigue)
Matched Pairs Design: diff Pps assigned to each condition but matched on characteristics
- characters established by background research on pps
- control ensures pps each condition compared fairly
- BUT time-consuming, many pps excluded due to unmatched, difficult to match pps on all characteristics
What are the types of Validity’s?
External validity: How well research findings can be generalised
- Ecological validity: generalised to other situations (daily life)
- population validity: apply to other populations (representative)
Internal validity: Outcome of study is direct result of the manipulated IV
- Construct validity: the test measures what it claims to measure
- Predictive validity: results from a test can predict future behaviour
What is objectivity?
- Need to be judgment free
- DV measured objectively
- Cognitive psychology studies can’t be objectively observed/measured but data can objectively observe data produced by neuroimaging & exps.
What is reliability?
Consistency of findings from research
- Important criterion for scientific
- Exps: re-test reliability is important -> same results again means it’s replicable -> reliable
What is counterbalancing & order effects?
Counterbalancing:
- conditions to minimise the effects of extraneous factors
Order effects:
- order of tasks affect an outcome - lead to fatigue & practice
What’s a normal & skewed distribution & why do we need to examine distribution?
Normal: bell-shaped curve - most of the data in the centre with decreasing amounts evenly distributed to the left & right
- mean, median & mode should be aligned around the mid-point
Skewed: data clumped up on one side or the other with decreasing amounts trailing off to the left and right
e.g.
Positive skew - longer tail on the positive end of values on the horizontal axis, higher scores on a positive skew, higher than the mode.
Negative skew - longer tail on the left side, mean affected by extreme scores by the lower scores on a negative skew, mean will be lower than the mode.
Why? large samples gathered -> useful to examine overall distribution -> show trends that cannot be detected in small samples
Analysis of qualitative data using thematic analysis:
Qualitative data is gathered through interviews, questionnaires, case studies & observations.
What is meant by thematic analysis of this data?
Recording themes, patterns, or trends within data
What’s Inductive & Deductive approach?
Inductive: developing a theory
- Observation
- Observe a pattern
- Develop a theory
Deductive: testing an existing theory
- Start with an existing theory
- Formulate a hypothesis based on existing theory
- Collect data to test hypothesis
- Analyse results
What’s the procedure for thematic analysis?
STAGE 1:
- identifying themes from data that occur frequently/key feature of data
- how frequent to the text the theme is depends on opinions of researchers & nature of material analysed
STAGE 2:
- develop themes into codes -> represents the categories of themes
- use codes to analyse data gathered & search for where it appears in the data
- reviewed & changed if needed - until themes can be supported & used as a summary of the data
THIS FORM OF ANALYSIS IS NON-SCIENTIFIC -> themes are highly dependent on the subjective opinions the researcher -> research bias
What is Correlational Research, including positive, negative & no correlation?
Measuring 2 different variables (co-variables) to see if they are related in any way (plot data on a scatter diagram)
Positive Correlation: Line increases up
- Both co-variables increase
- Perfect positive correlation has a coefficient of +1
Negative Correlation: Line decreases down
- One variable decreases, whilst the other increases
- Perfect negative correlation has a coefficient of -1
No Correlation:
- No clear relationship
- No pattern between variables
- Coefficient of 0
What is the evaluation (pros & cons) for Correlational Research?
Pros:
- Allows looking at a relationship between continuous variables -> determining whether the relationship is significant
- Cost effective -> sometimes use secondary data
Cons:
- Can’t show a cause & effect relationship (which variable influences the other variable)
- May be a 3rd factor affecting data?
What are Inferential Statistics?
- Test of significance tells us if there was effect of IV and DV
- Rest on concept of probability (of data due to being random chance factors)
- Statistical tests tell us if a null hypothesis is true - if results were found by chance then the null must be accepted because no effect has been found. null → no effect.
- If the difference between the data is too small to be significant to show a real effect. the null hypothesis is accepted
- If the result is less than 5% → accept the alternative hypothesis
- If the result is bigger than 5% → accept the null hypothesis
- Calculation of observed value which is then compared to the critical value which shows whether or not the result is real or due to chance.
What is type I & type II error?
Type I:
- Reject the null & choose the alternative
- When probability is too big
Type 2:
- Reject alternative & accept the null
- When probability is too small
What does Inferential test depend on?
- Difference/relationship
- Experimental design (related/unrelated)
- Type of data (nominal/ordinal/interval)
What are the types of data in Inferential statistics?
Nominal?
- Categorical - Most basic (only frequency)
Ordinal?
- Ranked in order/position
Interval?
- Know difference between each value
What’s Wilcoxon Signed Ranks?
- When looking at the difference between groups
- Ordinal data
- wilcoXon → eXtra go → Repeated Measure (they repeat the design as the participant gets an extra go)
- Calculate the difference between the pair of scores on the two tests
- Rank the scores differences
- Add up the ranks of positive differences, then negative differences
- The smaller of these scores is referred to as the T value
- N = number of scores (excluding 0 differences)
What’s Mann-Whitney U test?
- When finding a difference
- Data is ordinal
- Design is unrelated
- Use the formula
- Rank all scores as a whole group
- Find the sum of the ranks for both groups, so each group will need to be divided back into their original sets
- Use the formula to calculate Ua & Ub
What is the Chi-Squared test?
- When finding a difference
- Data is nominal
- Independent Group Design
- Add up your rows & columns
- Calculate E (expected frequency) = row total x column total/overall total
- Label each box in your table (A,B,C,D)
- Subtract original value - to E for each (O-E)
- For each value, square it (O-E)²
- Then divide each value by E (step 2) (O-E)²/E
- Add all the values from the previous stage
- Calculate Degrees of Freedom
- Compare your answer (step 7) to the critical value, looking for your result to be lower than the critical value
How to calculate Spearman’s Rho test?
- Rank each variable separately
- Work out the difference between the ranks
- Square the differences
- Use formula
- Look up in critical value table
What is Awareness of Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC) guidelines for clinical practitioners (HCPC)?
- Anyone who works in clinical practice with patients have to register with HCPC
- Have standards that must be demonstrated
What is Character in HCPC?
Provide credible character references that show character traits which make them suitable for the role
What is Health in HCPC?
Must provide info about their general health every 2 years & say any health issues that could affect their ability to practice
What’s Standard of Proficiency?
- Set of specific expectations for the ability to practice effectively
- For practitioner psychologist; include professional autonomy, delivery of plans & strategies for meeting health & social needs
What’s Standards of Conduct, Performance & Ethics?
- 14 guidelines that practitioners must adhere to
- Including: maintaining confidentiality in work with service users
What’s Standards for Continuing professional development?
- Take part in/document training events - how they’ve changed & effectiveness of changing
- Important for them to keep up to date with current trends in clinical practice
What’s Standards of education & training?
Must have a master’s degree with BPS qualification
What’s Standards for prescribing?
required knowledge & training to be able to prescribe medication
Why does this research take place & what are the main methods available?
Investigate impact of different treatment methods
What’s primary data?
Researchers gather info themselves
What are Strengths for primary data?
Reliable - can repeat it as they know the procedures because they did it themselves
What are Weaknesses for primary data?
- Time consuming
- Expensive
What’s secondary data?
Info gathered by other researchers
What’s Strengths for secondary data?
- Time saving & cheap as the data has been already collected
- Can check for validity & reliability from multiple different sources
What’s the Weaknesses for secondary data?
- Out of date - collected historically
- Unreliable & ethical considerations - we might not know how the data was collected and info is taken by another researcher
What’s Longitudinal studies?
- Takes place over a long period of time
- Studies done on the same group of ppl
- Measure developmental or time-based changes
- E.g. Monitor symptoms changes for treatment group:
- Symptom expression + severity at certain time intervals
- assess effectiveness of treatment
What’s the strengths for Longitudinal studies?
Individual differences
- No difficulty comparing different people that could be affected by individual differences
Reliably measure
- Only way to reliably measure effect over time
What’s the weaknesses for Longitudinal studies?
- Patients may drop out/die/lose contact → reduces sample size → less valid
- By the time conclusions are drawn, may be irrelevant as clinical psych is a fast-paced area of research
What’s Cross-sectional studies?
- Use a large group of people from different variaties from a whole population
- E.g. May want to know experience of people at different ages with schiz → Take sample of Participant’s at different ages + investigate
What’s the strengths for Cross-sectional studies?
Collected quicker
- Data collected quicker → conclusions can be used + acted on more rapidly
More valid results
- More likely results will be valid as they will be reported at the same time where they have most application
What’s the weaknesses for Cross-sectional studies?
Individual differences
- Will have an effect
Cohort effects
- May get cohort effects → results due to being in a particular time - Anorexia: Not all groups exposed to same cultural ideals & images
What’s Cross-cultural methods?
- Samples from different cultural groups to draw comparisons on similarities/differences
- E.g. Whether experience of schizophrenic participants is the same in different cultural groups
What are Strengths for Cross-cultural methods?
Culture - validity/reliability
- Allow researchers to gain an understanding of how culture plays a role in validity/reliability of diagnosis
Ethnocentrism
- Reduce level of ethnocentrism in psych studies & improves generalisability
What are Weaknesses for Cross-cultural methods?
Individual societies
- A researcher is unlikely to know much about individual societies when comparing a lot of societies from different parts of the world.
Ethnocentrism
- Ethnocentrismis the belief that a society, group, or culture is superior to all others - Researchers may display such beliefs, and this may cause bias
What is Meta-analysis?
- Looking at secondary data
- Usually done where there is a lot of research
- Where firm conclusions can’t be drawn without comparing or where findings are inconsistent
- Seek studies from a variety of places cultures & times
- In clinical, meta-analysis have been done on areas such as effectiveness of therapies + treatments across different patient groups
What are the Strengths for Meta-analysis?
Quick conclusions
- Quick conclusions are drawn from vast array of areas very quickly + cost less
Ethical
- No ethical concerns (unlike primary data)
What are the Weaknesses for Meta-analysis?
Undisclosed issues
- May be undisclosed issues of reliability and/or validity
Bias
- Publication bias may affect validity of meta-analysis (null effects not published so not included
Unpublished data
- If unpublished data used (to avoid publication bias) there is a risk as it has not been scrutinise by peer review
What kind of data is used in case studies?
Qualitative - allows in depth analysis → conclusions highly valid
What’s the Lavarenne et al. (2013) study? (ideographic approach) [an example of a case study in clinical]
Aim?
- To investigate whether those with psychosis have weak ego boundaries (drawing the line between real & unreal)
Procedure?
- Therapy group with 10 patients who have psychosis that meet once a week
- Therapists recorded the emotions, thoughts and behaviours expressed
- To help them cope with their illness & encourage a sense of connection
- Focus of case study is on the 4 patients not present just before Christmas (facing a break for more than 7 days - meaning the group may react to the potential change in routine)
Findings?
- One member gave out Christmas cards to the other members
- Earl rejected it due to him fearing of being self disintegration - changed the subject to oil production (may be linked to his father; oil engineer) - interpreted as an attempt to hold pieces of himself together & identifying between Earl’s self & selves of others
- Dan?
- Been silent for 6 months in the therapy group - now didn’t stop talking
- Had a outer body experience & could not get the spirts back into his body
- Related to him currently coping with demands from his girlfriend to define the boundaries between them in their relationship
Conclusion?
- Each member shows that they suffered from weak ego boundaries
- The group strengthened their ego boundaries
What’s the strengths for Lavarenne et al (2013) study?
Good mundane realism
- Christmas cards given - materials/procedures involved in an experiment are similar to events that occur in the real world
Rich & detailed data
- Made detailed notes on the 6 schizophrenic patients during the group session
Ecological Validity
- The researchers are documenting the ego boundaries and their experiences of the group sessions, thus the researchers have no control over the schizophrenics ego boundaries and have occurred 'in real life'. - Therefore has high external validity as the schizophrenic symptoms are naturally occurring and can be generalised to an everyday setting.
What’s the weaknesses for Laverenne et al (2013) study?
- Subjective interpretations
- Researchers may view their behaviour differently
- Population Validity
- small group of 6 people are different from each other - cannot generalise findings to all people - lacks external validity
- One session
- Only documented one session - can’t track changes over time
What’s the ideographic approach?
- Focuses on the individual in detail
- Looks at what makes each person different
- Avoids making general laws & theories
- Research methods: Case studies, interviews & observations to focus on the individual
- Uses Qualitative methods to analyse its findings
What’s the strengths for ideographic approach?
Qualitative date - rich -develop theories, etc
- Qualitative data is detailed info - Therefore you can treat the people for their specific condition based on insightful info - AND detailed info of individual cases can help develop nomothetic laws by providing extra info
Develops theories
- More info → develops HM, MSM theories
Focuses on Individual
- Gives more of a complete explanation of behaviour
What’s the weaknesses for ideographic approach?
Not generalisable
- Focuses on individual - small sample
Time consuming
- Focuses on one individual
Biased
- Freud (from a male perspective) argued men were more superior with stronger superegos & morally stronger
What’s the Nomothetic approach?
- Applies general laws & theories to explain behaviour across a whole population
- Research Methods: Lab experiments, correlation research which involves group of participants to draw general conclusions
- Uses Quantitative methods to draw conclusions
What’s the strengths for nomothetic approach?
- Can predict - help control or prevent behaviour
- Can be scientifically tested - avoids subjective bias
- High internal validity - controlled - reliable data
What’s the weakness for nomothetic approach?
- Individual differences ignored - less useful for explaining behaviour that does not fit in with the norms of the general laws
- Lack ecological validity - cannot be generalised - not be applicable to real life situations
- Ignores subjective experience, e.g. someone might have a chance of 1% schiz but it cannot be explained
What are interviews & What 2 type of questions are there?
Interviews:
- Verbal questioning to gather info
- Structured → specific list of questions
- Semi structured → Range of themes to explore
- Unstructured → Open ended questions on the topic - not controlled
Types of Questions:
- Open Questions
- Allow respondents to express what they think & answer in as much detail
- Closed Questions
- Set of answers for the person to choose from
Example in clinical: Valentine et al (2010)
What’s the Valentine et al (2010) study? [an example of the use of interviews in clinical] FINISH***
What are the ethical guidelines?
Respect:
- Psychologists to respect dignity of an individual
- Respect privacy & confidentiality
- Seek to gain informed consent, avoiding deception
- Offer right to withdraw without consequence
Competence:
- Lvl of professionalism
- Should be fully of ethical code
- Monitor own knowledge
- Recognise their limits & limits of the research
Responsibility:
- to Ps, general public, profession & science
- Doesn’t harm others or result in misuse
- Have R2W & shouldn’t be incentivised
- Debrief should be given
Integrity:
- Honest & fair
- Avoid exploiting Ps (or how it looks to the public)
- Avoid interests that conflict Ps interests
What is the ethical code?
Can Do Can’t Do With Participants (way of memorising the words using the beginning of the letters)
Confidentiality = can p be identified & their info be kept anonymous?
Deception = are p lied about the nature of the study
Consent (Informed) = are p fully aware of the study & their participation?
Debrief = ps need to be told the nature of their participation when the study has concluded if deception has been used or info withheld, must be revealed during a debrief
Withdraw (right to) = are ps aware they can leave before/during/after study
Protection = Physical/Psychological harm + feelings - researchers should be aware of ps feelings
Privacy = ps shouldn’t be involved in research that gathers personal or private info that they wouldn’t willingly disclose
Brain Scanning Techniques: CAT (Computerised Axial Tomography)
- Scans any part of the body
- Multiple X-ray beams are passed around the head from diff angles
- Info from X-rays is interpreted by the computer
- Structure of brain can be seen BUT no info about functioning
- Risk to patients -> exposure to radiation
- Can remove need for exploratory surgery
- Harm unborn baby
- Quick to conduct
- Accurate details of brain structure
- Can help plan a procedure before surgery
Brain Scanning Techniques: PET (Positron Emission Tomography)
- Nuclear Medicine Procedure
- Inject patient with radioactive substance
- Radioactive atom attached to glucose as brain uses glucose for energy
- Once glucose is absorbed -> radioactive atoms break down & emit positrons (gamma rays are produced - these that the scanner picks up)
- task may be given to stimulate the brain & increase activity
- High activity = red - Low activity = blue
- Shows areas that aren’t functioning properly (e.g. due to a tumour/damage)
- Can predict what issues they may face
- May be long-term effects (of damage due to radioactive)
- More invasive than other scans
Brain Scanning Techniques: fMRI scans (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
- No radiation
- Idea: fMRI Brain scanning associated with blood flow
- Head placed inside a large, powerful electromagnet
- Nuclei in hydrogen molecules in water align with direction of magnetic field
- High activity: oxygen carried to haemoglobin in red blood cells
- If haemoglobin carries oxygen its diamagnetic (repels)
- if haemoglobin is deoxygenated its paramagnetic (follows direction)
(Scanner detects these changes to create image) - Some ppl unable to have this scanning (metal surgical implants)
- Non-invasive
- Claustrophobic/Loud noises lead to stress
The use of brain scan studies to investigate human behaviour
researchers have been using different scanning techniques to explain aggressive behaviour
E.g. Raine et al (1997) -> Used PET scans to look at brain activity murderers then compared to non-murderers -
-> able to map abnormal brain activity in the murderers group in areas of the brain associated with impulsivity & risk-taking behaviour -> explain increased aggressive behaviour
E.g. Montag et al (2011) -> investigated how brains of gamers process emotions to see if playing these games may change brain activity -> making ppl more aggressive
-> Found lower lvls of activity in reaction to pictures of negative emotion than control group did -> explains why there’s a suggested link between playing a lot of these games & becoming more aggressive, as gamers may not find aggressive actions as serious because their brains don’t process them in that way
What are Twins studies? (Within Twins & Adoptions studies)
- unique design to test influence of nature/nurture on human behaviour
- Monozygotic/identical twins = share 100% genetic material
- Dizygotic/siblings = share 50% genetic material
- compare behaviour between mano & di & see whos shares similarity
- Concordance rate = extent to which behaviour is the same between twins
Gottesman & Shields (1966):
-> studied twins over 16 years
-> opportunity sample- twins were collected for twins between 1893 & 1945 from the Maudsley & Bethlem Royal Joint Hospital
->zygosity determined by blood tests, finger print analysis & resemblance in appearance
-> Tape-recorded 30 minute
samples from semi-structured interviews were conducted
to assess signs of schizophrenia, attitudes toward self,
-> one twin diagnosed with schiz: Mono -> 42% of co-twins also diagnosed, Di -> 9% of co twins also diagnosed
-> concordance rate higher in monozygotic twins than dizygotic twins -> genetic reason for developing schiz
What are Adoption studies? (Within Twins & Adoptions studies)
Best method to see whether behaviour is nature/nurture
- Adoptees studied -> behaviour correlates to adopted families (env) & biological families (genes - share 50% of dna with each biological parent)
E.g. Cadort & Stewart (1991):
- > boys at increased risk of ADHD if biological parent had been convicted of crime in adulthood
- > BUT also found boys more likely to be aggressive/ADHD of adoptive family members has psychiatric problems
- > Aggression can have a variety of causes & not significantly attributed to nature/nurture
What is the evaluation for Twins & Adoption studies?
WEAKNESSES:
- Impossible to separate nature completely from nurture -> rare for a child to be adopted by family immediately from birth - may have spent time living in biological family
- Child could spend time in foster care -> confounding variables affecting validity
- Almost all twins raised together (Mz twins concordance rate could be due to env, not just genes) -> problematic to assume that mz concordance rate must be entirely genetic
- Sample sizes limited -> can’t generalise -> not easy to recruit large diverse group of MZ & DZ twins
- Adopted children usually placed w/ family of similar background -> unreliable to assume any similarities between adoptee & biological family are the result of nature because this similarity could be due to similar life events they have experienced
Use of animals in lab experiments
STRENGTHS:
- Behaviourists argue that conditioning processes are the same in all animals -> means we can conduct experiments with animals & generalise the results to human behaviour
- Fewer ethical issues -> informed consent is not required & psychological/physical harm is more acceptable - It wouldn’t be possible to keep humans in a lab for lengthy research studies (e.g. sensory deprivation)
- More complex behaviours can be studies in mammals & generalised to humans, e.g. studying aggression over successive generations because their brains are similar to human brains & fewer ethical issues & animals have shorter breeding cycles -> meaning we can study effects over generations more easily - & test effects of drugs on mammals
WEAKNESSES:
- Not generalisable to humans esp complex behaviours, e.g. addiction - when more complex behaviours are studies -> not appropriate to generalise from apes to humans as human behaviour is more controlled by higher cognitive thinking
- Animal experimentation -> unethical -> causes pain & suffering in most exp -> e.g. caged in a lab exp, surgery or death - benefits don’t outweigh the harm
- Dunayer (2002) argues: animal legislation -> imprisonment, enslavement, hurting & killing of animals
Kilkenny (2009) -> reviews & reported animals studies -> over half of them had failed accurately to accurately report how many animals were used & many studies were poorly designed -> regulations have not had the desired effect
Ethical issues regarding the use of animals in lab experiments:
Scientific Procedures Act (1968) & Home Office Regulations:
- Protected animals -> act only relates to vertebrate animals & only to those more than halfway through their gestation period
- Replacement, Reduction & Refinement -> possible animals should be replaced with suitable alternatives -> if not possible, number of protected animals used must be reduced to a minimum - Methods used in breeding, accommodation & care of protected animals must be refined to reduce any possible pain, suffering, distress or lasting harm to those animals
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Rats are more practical to use than humans, as their
gestational period is very short (1). This will help to
investigate characteristics across generations which is harder
using humans (1).
• Environmental factors can be better controlled when using
animals in research than humans (1). This would make
studies more internally valid as extraneous variables should
not impact on research (1).
Observational Method
Quantitative & Qualitative data can be gathered:
- > tallying (write how many times a behaviour as occurred)
- > take notes during observation session & review them later to try determine behavioural patterns from the notes
- > audio or video recordings
- > one way mirror
- > no IV in observation
- > Researchers must decide whether they are doing:
- > Time sample: making observations at different time intervals
- > Event sample: involves recording a certain behaviour every time it happens
Types:
-> Structured observation: take place in a set env -> often with a one way mirror
STRENGTH: numerical data can be obtained - more reliable than naturalistic, coding systems used allow replicability
WEAKNESSES: difficult to ensure all observers interpret the same info
-> Naturalistic observation: observing behaviour within their env
- situation not been created by researcher
STRENGTH: Natural behaviour -> high ecological validity
WEAKNESSES: less reliable as other variables cannot be controlled
Participant Observation: form of observation where the researcher takes an active role in the situation being observed
STRENGTH: reveal data that might be missed by other methods
WEAKNESSES: might be hard to record notes
Non-participant Observation: researcher observes behaviour of others but doesn’t form part of the group they study
STRENGTH: allow researchers concentration to be focused on note taking
WEAKNESSES: can’t get as much detail as being part of the situation that you are observing
Covert observation: pps don’t know they are being observed
STRENGTH: unlikely to change behaviour -> natural behaviour
WEAKNESSES: ethical issue -> don’t know they are being observed -> informed consent not obtained
Overt observation: pps aware of them being observed
STRENGTH: informed consent obtained & right to withdraw
WEAKNESSES: likely to change behaviour to please researcher
Content Analysis
- analysing the content for the incidence of certain words, images or concepts, images or concepts within material, typically advertisements, books, films, newspapers, etc
- e.g. observe instances of gender stereotyping in children’s books -> then categories are formed -> where males & females show non-/stereotypical behaviour
- research would go through the selected material & tally/count the number of times each of these categories occur
- may also use qualitative analysis to examine meanings & relationships of words, concepts & pictures -> make inferences about the messages contained within them
STRENGTHS:
-> unobtrusive manner -> rarely any ethical issues as data is collected from existing sources rather than live pps
-> opportunity for new interpretation of existing data
-> reliability -> easily replicated using same categories
WEAKNESSES:
-> personal interpretation -> subjectivity
-> issues of internal validity -> as categories should intend what they measure
-> descriptive method -> describes what is there (what), but doesn’t reveal underlying motives for pattern (why)
->
what are the strengths for twin studies?
- scientific methods (blood sample, finger print)
- ethical -> consent obtained
