Chapter 2 : Research in Psychology
Topics covered in this snack-sized chapter:
Research is the systematic process of collecting and analyzing information to increase understanding of the phenomenon under study.
Psychologists do studies and research to answer questions about behavior and mental processes, instead of relying on opinions or “common sense”.
Research methods in psychology can be placed into the following categories:
Observation is a research method in which data collection is achieved by watching and recording the activity of people.
Observation allows researchers to record actual responses.
Observations can be conducted in two ways:
Participants are watched in their own environment, i.e. in the place where the activity being observed is usually conducted.
The observation is done under the researcher’s control, where he or she can make changes to the environment.
Case studies are in-depth investigations of a single person, group, event or community.
Case studies provide rich qualitative data and have high levels of ecological validity.
A correlation is a relationship between two measured variables such that a change in one variable is related to a change in the other.
Correlations can be:
If an increase in one variable tends to be associated with an increase in the other, this is known as a positive correlation.
If an increase in one variable tends to be associated with a decrease in the other, this is known as a negative correlation.
A zero correlation occurs when there is no relationship between variables.
Self-report is a way to obtain data by asking participants to give information about them.
Self-report methods include:
A questionnaire can be thought of as a kind of written interview.
They can be carried out face to face, by telephone, or by mail.
The researcher’s choice in questions is important because of the need to avoid bias.
An interview is a self-report research method which involves asking verbal questions, typically face-to-face.
- Interviews can be either structured or unstructured.
An approach is a perspective that involves certain assumptions about human behavior.
There are different perspectives within psychology which explain different types of behavior and give different angles:
- Psychodynamic Perspective
Behaviorism is primarily concerned with observable behavior.
The behaviorist approach proposes two main processes whereby people learn from their environment:
- Classical Conditioning, which involves learning by association.
- Operant Conditioning, which involves learning from the consequences of behavior.
Humanism is a holistic psychological approach which emphasizes the study of every aspect of an individual.
The humanistic perspective centers on the view that each person is unique and has the free will to change at any time in his or her life.
Cognitive psychology assumes our behavior is rooted in mental processes, and emphasizes the study of:
It is an extremely scientific approach and typically uses lab experiments to study human behavior.
The biological approach believes that most behavior is inherited and has an adaptive (or evolutionary) function.
Theorists in the biological perspective who study behavioral genomics consider how genes affect behavior.
The psychodynamic approach includes all the theories in psychology that consider human thought and behavior to result from the interaction of internal drives and forces, particularly those that are unconscious.